Dogcow

History

In 1983, the dog icon had been created by Susan Kare as the glyph for "z", as part of the Cairo font. Later, when redesigning the classic Mac OS "Page Setup" print dialog box for the LaserWriter, an example image was required. According to HCI engineer Annette Wagner,

The new dog graphic had a more bovine look.

On October 15, 1987, the term "dogcow" was coined by Scott Zimmerman. She was later named Clarus by Mark "The Red" Harlan, as a joking reference to Claris, Apple's business unit for office software at the time.

The Clarus icon became one of the giant pieces of pixel art in the Icon Garden in the front yard of the Apple Campus at 1 Infinite Loop; the Icon Garden has since been removed.

Apple's Developer CD Series of the 1980s features a dogcow logo on the discs.

The latest references to the dogcow came in the documentation for the Swift programming language, which uses the word "dogcow" as an example of the use of Unicode characters to name constants and variables; and in a sticker pack in Messages.

In the first beta of macOS Ventura, the dogcow returned to the page setup window, and in iOS 16 entering 'Clarus' or 'Moof' results in the keyboard suggesting the 'dog' and 'cow' Emoji.

Overview

The sound she makes is "Moof!", and in early versions of Apple Developer CDs one section was known as "Moof!".

The dogcow symbol and "Moof!" were proprietary trademarks of Apple until the registration was cancelled in 1999.

Reception

The disappearance of the Icon Garden and of Clarus from Apple's products is seen by MacWorld as a symbol of the draining of culture and character from, and an increase in blankness and austerity in, Apple's products over the years. In a 2015 retrospective, the magazine said Clarus "came into being through quirkiness and serendipity, and you could say it has no business in a grown-up, commercial operating system. It makes no real sense, and wasn’t really there on merit or through strategic planning" and represented a company that was "kooky", "idiosyncratic", and not dominated by rules.

References

References

1. "We miss you, Clarus the dogcow".
2. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFZbXwox80c Oral History of Annette Wagner] by the Computer History Museum Retrieved and transcribed January 31, 2023
3. "History of the Dogcow, Part 1". Develop.
4. "The Moof! in Mind!".
5. "History of the Dogcow, Part 2". Develop.
6. "The Swift Programming Language (Swift 3.1): The Basics". Apple Inc.
7. Reisinger, Don. (July 5, 2016). "The First Apple Emoji Sticker Packs Are Blasts From the Past". Fortune.
8. (14 June 2022). "Clarus Returns Home".
9. (30 March 2022). "Clarus the dogcow has been reborn in an iPhone keyboard easter egg".
10. (2022-03-30). "iOS Keyboard Suggests Dog and Cow Emoji When 'Clarus' is Typed".
11. (February 2, 2004). "Technote 31 - The Dogcow". Apple, Inc..
12. "MACINTOSH Q & A: MACINTOSH DEVELOPER TECHNICAL SUPPORT". Develop.
13. {{US trademark. 74102529