DISAPPEARING APPLE
Remove the logo from an iBook.
Photography by Tom Owad
“I am writing a book/TV documentary for Canongate and the BBC called Bonfire of the Brands. The short story is that I am attempting to overcome my addiction to brands by burning all my branded stuff on a great bonfire on 17th September 2006. Afterwards, I will be attempting to live a life brand-free.”
This was the introduction to an email I received from Neil Boorman last August. It continued, “I have allowed myself one luxury which will be spared from the fire, which is my iBook. But to keep it, I must de-brand the thing, which is why I’m contacting you.”
There’s a particular problem with removing the iBook’s Apple logo: it leaves an Apple-shaped hole. To circumvent this problem, I considered a number of techniques, from molding an entirely new lid, to simply covering the Apple with a big white sticker. Ultimately, I decided the best way was to cut out the logo on a milling machine, then mill a replacement piece out of another lid. I called PreOwned Electronics and ordered a stack of grade B iBook lids to experiment on, then headed down to the garage. My mill is a Homier Mini-Mill (and currently halfway through a homebrew CNC conversion). I mounted the lid on the mill, outside down, using a clamping kit. The Mini-Mill was just big enough for the job — half an inch less travel on the Y-axis would have made the job extremely difficult.
I loaded a ⅛" end mill and cut out a rectangle around the Apple logo. Because end mills are round, the mill can’t cut inside right angles, so I then removed the lid from the clamps and filed the corners down (this only took about two strokes with the file). To make the inset, I took another iBook lid and hacksawed it down to a bit bigger than I needed; I then clamped it into the mill and milled it down to the exact size.
Next I filed off all the burrs and snapped the piece into the lid. A little super glue on the inside of the case held everything snugly in place, but still left a visible crack around the perimeter of the rectangle. I filled this with Bondo Glazing and Spot Putty, then sanded it down. Finally, I spray-painted the lid with Gloss White Krylon Fusion for Plastic. To prevent light from shining through where the logo used to be, I merely taped on a piece of aluminum foil.
Removing the logos from the operating system (Mac OS X 10.3) was much easier, thanks to a shareware app by Geekspiff called ThemePark (geekspiff. com/software/themepark) and CodeServant’s open source application ThemeChanger (codeservant. com/themechanger.php). ThemePark presents a window with the graphical elements in the user interface and allows the user to just drag and drop replacement images over them. I replaced each Apple logo with Neil’s initials. Once I was finished with my changes, I saved the theme and installed it with ThemeChanger.
The boot panel — the window that appears during startup with the Apple logo and progress bar — can be modified just by replacing the PDF stored at /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemStarter/QuartzDisplay.bundle/Resources/BootPanel.pdf. This leaves a single Apple logo: the dark grey apple that first appears when you turn on your Mac. With Ryan Schmidt’s Startup Syringe (ryandesign.com/jagboot), replacing it is just drag and drop.
Tom Owad ([email protected]) is a Macintosh consultant in York, Pa., and editor of Applefritter (applefritter.com). He is the author of Apple I Replica Creation (Syngress, 2005).