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Apple Businesses

A Christmas Easter Egg in iPhoto? 72

Posted by Cliff from the stumbling-upon-extra-functionality dept.
GodotJr writes "Early Christmas morning I downloaded some digital pictures into iPhoto on OS X 10.2.3. My trusty iBook began playing what sounded like a repeating Irish jig. I thought I had accidentally started iTunes, but no, only iPhoto was running. The 'jig' continued until I quit the application at which point a childs voice said something I didn't quite catch (!) and then a choir belted out 'Hallelujah!', once, and was silent. A restart of iPhoto did not get me an encore performance. Has anyone else experienced this?"
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A Christmas Easter Egg in iPhoto? More

A Christmas Easter Egg in iPhoto?

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  • too much eggnog? (Score:3, Funny)

    by ZeroLogic ( 11697 ) on Thursday December 26, 2002 @12:55PM (#4960968)
    i'm thinking somebody had a really good xmas!
  • Granted I do not have my nice Cambridge Soundworks speakers hooked up at my parents' house right now, but I loaded iPhoto at least twice yesterday and did not hear anything.

  • nope (Score:1)

    by Hanji ( 626246 )
    I downloaded pictures into iPhoto twice yesterday(Christmas), and I didn't hear anything...
  • Lay off the crack buddy.
  • Look in iPhoto's about box. It says something about copyrighted songs. I can't copy-paste since it's an about box and hides when I click.

    • Re:Look at iPhoto's about box! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Twirlip of the Mists ( 615030 ) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday December 26, 2002 @01:20PM (#4961113)
      iPhoto includes some recordings of classical music that you can play over a slide show. That's what the About box is talking about.

      I loaded pics into iPhoto yesterday, too, and nothing like this happened.

      Between the fake Sony/Nintendo story from a few days ago, yesterday's fake iTunes/Ogg story, and this story, I'm starting to wonder if we're seeing a new form of trolling. Rather than posting silly comments, the trolls have started submitting silly stories.

      And they're getting good at it.

      • *sigh* (Score:2)

        by Cliff ( 4114 )
        Some days I wonder the same thing, but with many of these submissions, it's kinda hard to verify some of the claims.

        Yes, the submissions bin can be a multi-edged sword, and I have the scars to proove it. :(

        • Well, I guess it's better than the alternative. I'd rather see the occasional stupid story get posted-- no offense, Cliff, but even you've gotta admit that this one is stuuuuu-pid-- than to get nothing more than "Your Rights Online" flamewars.

          Then again I'm still kinda grumpy that my story about Firefly's cancellation got bounced. Oh, well. Somehow life goes on.

          • Stupid? (Score:3, Informative)

            by Cliff ( 4114 )
            s/stupid/fun christmas story/

            This is the the kind of mindset I'm in, right now. I'm sorry it doesn't jive with yours, but I don't think it all that impossible that Apple would code an easter egg in iPhoto for Christmas, and figured it would be interesting to see if anyone else ran in to this kind of behavior.

            Heck, this is a sectional story, so I figured it was appropriate. How else are you going to know what is going on around the computing world without polling your peers?

            • Yeah, okay. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I can see how you could see this story that way. Touché.
            • This story is something that would probably better fit as a comment, or at least be verified. This is just some story submission by a dumb bastard who didn't thoroughly research the subject ("cd /Applications/iTunes.app/ && ls" works wonders) before he submitted it, and had it approved by some person (evidently you) who didn't bother to do anything before clicking the "Post it to Slashdot!" button.

              This isn't news, factual, OR interesting.

              But, have a merry Christmas anyways.
              • Hi "GreyGent", I just checked over about a dozen titles of articles you've replied to. You seem to have history of histrionics. Neverthless, allow me to explain: I'm the 'dumb bastard' you just referred to in your post. Some notes: a) Most everyone on /. is a geek on some level. There are those who are alpha geeks and those who just desperately write opinions as if they were. Look in the mirror and decide for yourself which category you fit into. I've got a suspicion I know. b) Not everyone who wakes up on Christmas morning, downloads some images and is presented with an obvious programmer's lark of music in the background is immediately charged with the solemn responsibility of thoroughly documenting the machine-state for bored off-his-ass septegenerians such as Your Eminence. All, presumably, so that said Eminence wont have to use up a calorie deciding whether its 'for real' or a ruse. Let me do at least some of the work for you: It all happened exactly as I stated in my original post. No ruse. If you really think the moderators have time to do fact-checking on something which at last count 38 posts have yet to be able to verify, you really are a little lost. c) I thought the experience was fun and a little mysterious, and posted it on /. so others -- who enjoy a challenge -- could hunt down the switch. Real geeks enjoy challenges. d) Sarcasm is easy. Merry Christmas to you too, Ebinezer!
              • This story is something that would probably better fit as a comment, or at least be verified. This is just some story submission by a dumb bastard who didn't thoroughly research the subject ("cd /Applications/iTunes.app/ && ls" works wonders) before he submitted it, and had it approved by some person (evidently you) who didn't bother to do anything before clicking the "Post it to Slashdot!" button.
                OK, so if you are so knowledgeable then why didn't you do the same thing to see if the original poster was spouting bullshit or not? It's easy to criticize others on things they should have done, but if ("cd /Applications/iTunes.app/ && ls") is so easy, and you feel so superior, then I would be real interested in seeing if you could research the issue and post something that would be "news, factual OR interesting".

                For the record, I am technically on vacation. I am posting to Slashdot because it is something I love to do and I will post the topics that interest me, and I have every intent of trying to see if I can figure out what is going on...just as soon as I can get back to my Powerbook which is 250 miles away (and was 250 miles away when I posted this article).

                Seriously, if you feel there is a void, why don't you make your best attempts to fill it rather than bitching, whining and moaning about something that you have in your power to fix?

                And a Happy New Year to you, too.

              • This is just some story submission by a dumb bastard who didn't thoroughly research the subject ("cd /Applications/iTunes.app/ && ls" works wonders)
                You do realize that this article is about iPhoto, not iTunes, right?

                Boy, I love watching people eat their feet. I'd join you, but I've already had dinner.

            • Re:Stupid? (Score:3, Funny)

              by shaitand ( 626655 )
              Cliff, just wack em with the slashdot editor hammer!

      • Re:Look at iPhoto's about box! (Score:4, Informative)

        by selderrr ( 523988 ) on Thursday December 26, 2002 @02:21PM (#4961440) Journal
        Well, honestly (and this is no troll) I hope you're right : because if you are, /. editors will perhaps finally be forced to READ the stories that are submitted, which is perhaps the best thing to happen here.

        Lately I have the impression that the editors don't even read the submission itself, only the title ! I understand that there must perhaps be a zillion submissions every day, but comeon...

        Taco : as much as an innovative moderation system was needed for comments as the userbase grew exponentionally, you also need to have a brilliant concept to moderate the editors (except you and Hemos offcourse :-) so that the readers can give some feedback except thru trolling !
        • Personally, I think that the editors do a remarkably good job, considering all the bull that must come their way. Think about it. The largest population on Slashdot is probably the trolls. (Or at least the most vocal part). Imagine the sheer number of insane stories they must post. The very fact that Slashdot doesn't have 10 stories every day about a new Apple computer running off of a microprocessor made of fig newtons and toothpicks is quite amazing.

          If you think the community could do any better--do you really think that even if they had a system like "Metamoderate", where 10 stories were displayed and the user had to rank them "Troll" or "Good", and if 20 people ranked "good", then the story would be posted, that it would be any better? Odd as it may be, Taco and the fuzzy little editors of Slashdot are probably among the top 10% intelligence-wise.

          Yes, I know this is offtopic, but if someone can post something complaining about the quality of /.'s editors and get a score of 4, then perhaps I can at least stay at 1 and offer my difference of opinion.

          -Sara
          • If you think the community could do any better--do you really think that even if they had a system like "Metamoderate", where 10 stories were displayed and the user had to rank them "Troll" or "Good", and if 20 people ranked "good", then the story would be posted, that it would be any better?

            Yes, it would. Go look at kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org] sometime.

            • Then go hang out at kuro5hin. The community is a different model. Like the GPL license and the BSD license. Depending on what your aim of the moment is, one will suit your needs more. One will be less restrictive, one will be more restrictive.

              Just because kuro5hin does it doesn't mean Slashdot needs to. Kuro5hin also seems to have a different "troll" population (with Slashdot having far more/more obnoxious trolls) If Slashdot were to follow this, the editors would still be *VERY* necessary to filter out the troll posts that might get by as trolls launched a concerted attack to have a story posted about CmdrTaco running off with Jeb Bush to Tallahassee.

              -Sara
              • Just because kuro5hin does it doesn't mean Slashdot needs to.

                This is fellacious gibberish. It was not Damiam's suggestion that /. do as K5 does. You asked the forum whether community ranking of stories might help, and Damiam pointed out that it did indeed help at K5.

                Whether or not "the community is a different model" doesn't enter into it. The issue at hand is whether or not different levels of filtering and weighing from larger or smaller pools of people improve the quality of posted stories.

                If you're going to argue with somebody, at least take the time to argue the points they actually made.

                • Ok. Let me clarify myself.

                  My "argument" was not that Damiam was suggesting that slashdot do as K5 does. It was that, while it works at K5 for whatever combination of reasons, I don't think that it would help at Slashdot, which was my original question--whether community ranking of stories would work on Slashdot, which I don't think it would.

                  The reason? Because kuro5hin, for whatever reason, seems to attract a much brighter audience (in general) than Slashdot. Slashdot has a large percentage of trolls and complete losers that would just make the ranking-of-stories system as unreliable as the ranking-of-comments system has become.

                  Something about Slashdot makes trolls very trollish, and I think that even some of our more intelligent posters double up as trolls on their free time under an alternate user name. Anything that is user-controlled on Slashdot is going to be heavily trolled.

                  That said, I do think that user-moderated stories would be a nice thing, if only because it would give yet another way of offering feedback to the community, even if it's totally inefficient due to the waste-of-humanity called the troll.

                  I like your creative combination of fellatios and fallacious, though. A false statement that orally stimulates the male genitals, I suppose. :p I know it's rude to comment on spelling, but that combination was just too amusing to pass up. =]

                  -Sara
                  • I like your creative combination of fellatios and fallacious, though. A false statement that orally stimulates the male genitals...

                    Isn't that largely the raison d'etre of superblogs? Lots of mostly male geeks spouting falsehoods in order to make their gonads feel better? ;)

  • If this Easter Egg is for real... (Score:3, Funny)

    by MonTemplar ( 174120 ) on Thursday December 26, 2002 @01:18PM (#4961104) Homepage Journal
    What does this say about the amount of work that Apple's developers are putting into the apps that are supposed to be tempting over the Wintel crowd?

    • Re:If this Easter Egg is for real... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well, Apple's official policy, is that no easter eggs may make their way into shipping products. Trying to sneak one through is grounds for being fired. Traditionally, Mac OS has been filled with easter eggs, but in OS X there are none, that I know of. The reason for the policy is twofold:
      • Apple's programmers should spend their time fixing bugs, not creating (potentially buggy) easter eggs.
      • Easter eggs often incorporate the names of the people who created the software. Apple is scared competitors will learn the names of the talent and hire them away.
    • This hardly sounds more complicated than a lunch break of programming. And this includes the complicated part of hiding it.

      Now compare that to earlier Apple easter eggs, or even the 3D games found in some Microsoft apps.

    • What does this say about the amount of work that Apple's developers are putting into the apps that are supposed to be tempting over the Wintel crowd?

      Er, nothing?

      Seriously, dropping an Easter Egg into an app is usually pretty trivial. I mean, if you code with a certain amount of respect for the Model-View-Controller paradigm, an Easter Egg is just another View. An afternoon's work, and given the complexities of other stuff thqt iPhoto does, probably doesn't measurably impact on the final design at all. It ain't gonna affect the code freeze, QA and release milestones, that's for sure. If the argument is that the inclusion of an Easter Egg implies lower overal product quality, I respectfully disagree. From my experience, the presence or not of an Easter Egg is not any reasonable rulestick of overall quality.

      Anyway, an Easter Egg is just something we do to make coding fun on slow days, and to sneak a pun or inside joke into the product. It's also a way I can get my mom to see that I really did work on that application. Though, really, there isn't any true reason my mom needs to run the app I work on. But there you have it.

  • Easter Eggs forbidden? (Score:3, Informative)

    by alpha264 ( 120832 ) on Thursday December 26, 2002 @01:49PM (#4961237) Homepage
    According to this pdf:
    http://www.dvmug.org/ApplePRESS/ApplePRESS1002.pdf [dvmug.org] (or view as HTML with Google [216.239.37.100])

    "Apple has strictly forbidden engineering staff to create Easter Eggs in software created at Apple's campus"

    Can anyone confirm?
    • I don't think Apple has ever encouraged easter eggs, but we've seen them anyway. Just because some stupid PDF on the net says they can't do it, doesn't mean they won't.

      I don't think this one is real, however. I loaded lots of photos yesterday, and nothing happened. Maybe the guy was playing a CD with a bonus track (you know, where the last song ends....and then there's a bunch of silence....and then something comes on at the very end).
    • Well, the first revisions of the Apple Ipod had a "break-out" game Easter Egg in them. It has since been added as a feature. Now I know Apple did not write all the software for the Ipod, PIXO and others worked on it too. I don't know if an Apple staffer added the game, but that is a recent example of a Apple product that had an Easter Egg.

  • Not only that... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Badge 17 ( 613974 ) on Thursday December 26, 2002 @02:17PM (#4961415)
    I have discovered that the "Hallelujah" sound file... is an OGG file!
    </sarcasm>

  • Look in the bundle, people (Score:4, Informative)

    by arekusu ( 159916 ) on Thursday December 26, 2002 @03:36PM (#4961997) Homepage
    iPhoto includes two .mp3s in it's bundle:

    iPhoto/Contents/Resources/Music/Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring.mp3 (3 MB)
    iPhoto/Contents/Resources/Music/Minuet in G.mp3 (1.7 MB)

  • Windows X-Mas surprise. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Vodak ( 119225 ) on Thursday December 26, 2002 @04:31PM (#4962448)
    that's nothing. I booted up my Windows machine at exactly 12:01am Christmas day and I was greeted to a soundfile of Bill Gates braking jingle bells.

    =]

  • Two rumors... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Wow! Two wild rumors within a couple of days of each other. This page and this one [slashdot.org]. What rumors will we see next?

  • Let's Assume (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It is elsewhere reported, and previously known, that a control click (right mouse button to Windoze freaks) on iPhoto reveals:

    iPhoto:Contents:Resources:Music:two files

    J.S. Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, for six and twelve string guitars, performed by well know Leo Kottke (likely a copyrighted song in MP3 format), 3MB, (approx 3 minutes) can be found.

    Also Mozart's Minuet in G, no artist, album, etc. recorded, also arranged for guitar, 1.5MB (approx 1:30 minutes) is present. In OSX Finder both will look like two iTunes (or other MP3 player) in the Finder.

    Simply option-drag to desktop to copy and play in iTunes (or other MP3 player)

    Neither of these sounds especially like an "Irish jig," although if the listener is unfamiliar with them and due to being played by acoustic fingerstyle guitar, it's conceivable they might be thought to be an "Irish jig." (long shot)

    Neither MP3 has anything remotely sounding like a child's voice. The fact that the person reporting this occurrence did not see iTunes launch is irrelevant. He would have to run 'top' or the Apple Process Viewer, etc. to verify this as it could have been launched in "hidden view" like any other application launched by the Login preference pane, as an example, no difficult task for a programmer.

    It does *not* appear, however, that these are the two files being played based on the initial description which, if the observer was in a state of surprise, hung over from a bit of eggnog containing alcoholic spirits et al & etc., may not have noticed.

    "Disguishing" an Easter Egg something like the two files noted is not going to be an easy task. File size is going to be a giveaway in some other resource even if an attempt is made to hide it. Further examination of resources in iPhoto, which appears to have triggered this (was iTunes already running in "hidden" mode and the user forgot this fact?) etc. etc.

    There are many possibilities here aside from a hoax if one uses a little (or lot) of imagination. Or it could just be a hoax.

    So what are those two MP3 files, both featuring classical music arranged for guitar, doing in iPhoto? :)

    Beats me. I'm not a programmer, just a dumb end user who knows that "inexplicable" things, AKA bugs, do happen, are made to happen, and may be triggered by some phase of the moon or the amount of snowfall on Christmas day (or lack thereof) which our reporter experienced at his location.

    Happy Holidays!

    • So what are those two MP3 files, both featuring classical music arranged for guitar, doing in iPhoto? :)

      They are there as accompaniment for slide shows. If you set up a slide show, you get an option to play music with it, and those two are on the default menu.

    • Re:Let's Assume (Score:2, Informative)

      by sapporoitchy ( 634019 )
      Theses are default songs Apple provides to accompany your slideshows.
    • So what are those two MP3 files, both featuring classical music arranged for guitar, doing in iPhoto? :)

      Open iPhoto =>click on "share" => click on "slideshow" => look through the "music" pulldown.
  • I can't get the damn thing downloaded yet

  • Christmas Egg? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I can see it now:

    Jobs: "You fuckers put in an easter egg. You know the rules! You're all fucking fired, you fucks!"

    Staff: "But Mr. Jobs, it's not an EASTER egg, it's a CHRISTMAS egg! Get it?"

    J: "Awww. That's pretty darn cute. I'll mention it at the next expo."

    S: "Whew, does that mean we're not fired?"

    J: "Hell no, you fucks better clean out your desk by this afternoon, that easter egg or christmas egg or goddamn kwanza egg shit doesn't sell software you know."

    S: *weep*

  • Janie Porsche... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm personally believe that Janie Porsche is behind all of this. After all, who wants to be sitting around on Christmas day downloading Windows drivers?
  • The reason that iPhoto is so fscking slow is that it's doing a busy wait to see if it's 07:00 on 25th December so that it can play the tune.

    The iPhoto 1.2 release will remove the busy wait and replace it with one in the iCal helper app slowing the whole machine down.

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