When Apple announced the details about the 2012 Worldwide Developers Conference on Wednesday, it set tongues wagging – or, more accurately, keyboards clicking – all across the internet. While Apple’s announcement all but confirmed that iOS 6 would be announced (just as iOS 5 was announced at WWDC 2011), there was speculation about what else Apple might have up its sleeve. An iPad Mini? An iTV? The iPhone 5 (or iPhone 6 or, most likely, “new iPhone”)?
While some still think the next iPhone will be unveiled at WWDC 2012 – after all, the iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4 were announced at WWDC 2008, 2009, and 2010, respectively – the majority agree that the next iPhone will be coming in October. After all, a summer release would put only about nine months between the iPhone 4S and the next iPhone, and that’s an awfully short window for Apple to prepare the kind of redesigned iPhone that we’ll probably be seeing.
Nevertheless, some have speculated that the iPhone 5 will at least get a mention at WWDC 2012. Blogger Michael Nace asked readers if they could see any hints to what Apple might be doing at WWDC in the logo itself. While this may seem a bit silly at first, bear in mind that Apple has often hidden clues about their upcoming announcements in logos like this. Interestingly, a pretty significant number of Nace’s readers did see something. Before we get to what his readers saw, though check out the logo below and see if you see anything:
Do you see anything that might be a hint? How about a big red 5 in the middle, at about a 45º angle to the left? Well, that’s what Nace’s readers – quite a few of them, apparently – saw. In case you can’t find it, here’s where it’s supposed to be:
What do you think? Do you see it now? Well, of course you do. The problem with this sort of thing, though, is that the 5 isn’t the only number that shows up. Before I read the part of Nace’s post that specifically tells you to turn your head to the left, I couldn’t see it. Even then, I had to look for a bit before I saw the 5. What I saw at first was a 2:
Even after I knew where the 5 was supposed to be, I had to work a bit before I could see it as a 5. It looked a little more like an upside-down 8:
So, what’s the point of all this? Well, while the 5 is visible if you look at it just right, the fact is that the odds of the next iPhone being called the “iPhone 5” are actually pretty slim. For one thing, it’s actually the sixth-generation iPhone, not the fifth. The iPhone 4S was the iPhone 5 in all but name. Apart from that, though, there’s the iPad issue. With the 3rd-generation iPad, Apple dropped the number from its name. It’s a pretty safe bet that they’ll do the same with the iPhone.
The moral of the story, then, is that although sometimes Apple does hide stuff in their logos, it doesn’t necessarily pay to go looking too hard for it. After all, to paraphrase Freud, sometimes a bunch of colored squares is just a bunch of colored squares.
Although, now that I think about it, those square are the same shape as an iOS app icon…
