Apple has hidden an Easter egg in its iPhone keyboard that references Clarus the dogcow, whose origins date back to nearly the dawn of the Macintosh.
A Twitter user named Jason Robinson discovered a hidden easter egg that appears when a user references an old piece of Apple history, Clarus. She is a dogcow that says "moof," of course.
When you type either "Clarus" or "moof" into the iOS keyboard, two emojis will appear in the suggestions — the cow and the dog. Some may complain this isn't in the right order, but it is a clear reference to the dogcow's origins.
Super fans will know that Susan Kare developed several fonts for the original Macintosh, and one was the font called "Cairo." This font would evolve into the whimsical Dingbat font, but the all-important character attached to the "Z" key was Clarus herself.
Cracking up at this deep-cut iOS Easter egg I just stumbled across.
— Jason Robinson (@VafeR) March 30, 2022
Who would appreciate this?
Maybe @gruber would appreciate this. pic.twitter.com/BOZ3GTsG2t
Clarus was later shown in the operating system when users would preview their LaserWriter printer options. The dogcow could be seen in the preview window to give users an idea of which orientation their page was printing.
Later, Clarus was prominent in QuickTime sample projects, document previews, and other places in the operating system. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in the late 1990s, Clarus faded from the operating system. However, it seems fans of the dogcow have snuck one little easter egg into the software keyboard.
12 Comments
Moof! We love Clarus!
One of my prize possessions....
This has been in existence since at least December 21st, 2021 when I shared an iMessage with a friend on it after reading an Insider article that showed the Park room dedicated to fonts and it prominently featured Clarus on the wall in the middle of a huge selection of characters/fonts.
Credit please. =P
Dunno if Insider had linked to it, but that photo I was referencing was from a story on their font team in this publication:
Fun article about Clarus here: https://512pixels.net/dogcow/