Marimba! How Apple's Default Text-Message Alert Was Born

It started, as so many things do, with SoundJam.

In 1998, a trio of developers released the Mac-friendly MP3 player — the WinAmp-style software that would evolve into iTunes.

This isn't the story of iTunes, though. It's the story, oddly enough, of the text message alert — the default sound built into every iPhone that's been manufactured. The sound that I, and maybe you, and millions of people around the world, rely on to know when we've been communicated with — the sound that is the aural entryway to friends and families and flirtationsKelly Jacklin, an audio/visual producer, was the original architect of that sound. Apple's ubiquitous Tri-Tone noise, Jacklin explains — like so many aspects of early computing — came from the educated whims of educated geeks. Read more...