Apple’s iPhone makes an audio cameo in Minority Report 5 years before it’s released Posted by Dr. Macenstein on Wednesday, January 6, 2010 · 12 Comments

You know that little sound your iPhone makes when you plug it in to charge? If you’re like me, odds are you never really thought much about it. Frankly I just assumed it was some low level sound wired into the guts of the iPhone. But as faithful Macenstein reader Greg discovered, that sound has been around for some time, and has in fact had a brush with none other than the King of Hollywood Royalty, Tom Cruise.

So I was watching Minority Report on my MBP, and I thought i heard my iPhone being plugged in… in my head phones! I scrubbed back to hear that when the retinal scanner confirms a positive ID it makes the sound when you plug in an iPhone. Funny. Did apple steal this sound? Was it a stock Sound effect from a library? Probably. Just thought I’d share.

What’s interesting about this to me is the realization of the amount of time and thought that must have gone into settling on that particular iPhone “chirp”. Yes, it appears the sound is probably from some standard Hollywood sound effects library, which means it was someone’s job at Apple to sift through 1000’s of sound effects on hundreds of discs, select a number of compelling clips that sounded like what you might imagine a futuristic “connection” sound should sound like, and then odds are, given how high profile the iPhone is, there was a meeting (or more than likely, a series of meetings) where these clips were played to the Apple elite, discussed, tried out, then rediscussed, ultimately resulting in what you hear today.

If only as much thought went into Minority Report.

(here’s a youtube version for the vimeo-impaired).

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