You're listening to 20,000 hurts.

I'm Dallas Taylor.

In our last episode, we explored how Apple uses sound design to give their devices a distinct

voice instead of futuristic hyper-digital tones, Apple tends to choose

sounds that are tactile and organic. This makes these high-tech devices sound

familiar so people feel more comfortable using them.

You can hear this approach in sounds like the note alert for messages,

which is a C on a glauchpiel.

There's also the court alert for calendar which is composed of three notes on a

columba. We do have a through line of how we approach the design discipline.

That's Billy Sorrentino from the Apple design team.

Making sure that it is human centered is first and foremost.

There's oftentimes an analog quality to it, a purity to that sound,

which is why we do that so often find an instrument and record an

analog instrument in a really beautiful way and lead with that tonality.

Apple has taken this approach for quite a while now. For instance, when they made the default

ring tone for the original iPhone, they could have chosen something dense and

futuristic, but instead they chose an upbeat melody played on a single instrument, an instrument that's been around in some an

upbeat melody played on a single instrument, an instrument that's been around in some form or another for thousands of years. Here's Steve jobs introducing the iPhone in 2007.

And so this is what it looks like when you get a call. This is what it sounds like.

It's one of our ringtones you can pick of course. That ring tone was called Mirimba and as iPhone sales skyrocketed it became known all over the world.

Those default ringtones have really become so iconic.

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