Apple deleted a galaxy

David Kaplan, assistant professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, sent me this gif, showing the differences between an image of the Andromeda Galaxy produced by astrophotographer Robert Gendler, and the image of the Andromeda Galaxy that serves as the default desktop wallpaper in Apple's OS 10.7 (Lion).

Apple has once again altered the Universe according to their whim. They moved/removed many stars, and got rid of a whole galaxy. This is M110, which is one of M31's [Andromeda's] satellites. The other big satellite, M32, is still there.

Kaplan says he hasn't looked lately, so he can't guarantee that galaxy M110 hasn't actually vanished from the sky. But he's pretty sure it's only really been lost to Photoshop.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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MORE: Business • Funny • photoshop • Science

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ToMajorTom

Apple’s clean design policy is universal. And they’re richer than FSM, so they can do whatever they want.
http://www.facebook.com/wordhole Neal Ross Attinson

Today M110, tomorrow ze Great Attractor. Gettin’ less crowded in my sky.
http://nefariousnewt.blogspot.com NefariousNewt

M110 was merely converted into dark matter.
http://twitter.com/martchand Martain Chandler

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened. Oh, NM, it’s just Apple.
http://www.creativesomething.net/ tannerc

Hey, if you had as much cash reserves as Apple, you’d push the universe around a bit too.
http://twitter.com/wjcstp Bill Connell

The galaxy is still there, but you have to enable it in preferences now.
http://twitter.com/dcturner ☞ DcTurner

Prophetic?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/aug/10/technology-links-newsbucket
Omar Kooheji

Given their lawsuits against Samsung I’m sure this isn’t the only Galaxy they’d like to delete..
A_Lwin

Apple – redefining reality today, re-writing history tomorrow
http://twitter.com/rbn robin ♫

Perhaps they mistook it for a Galaxy Tab?
madopal

You don’t need a functioning two buttoned mouse, and you don’t need that galaxy either.
- Cowicide
  
  You don’t need a functioning two buttoned mouse, and you don’t need that galaxy either.
  
  That was the Windows 7 galaxy filled with malware. It was ugly and useless anyway. Deleted for the good of all.
  
  [cow pokes joe with magic stick]
Mark Cresswell

The Galaxy is available once Apple owners pay a $1.99 fee to activate it on their system.
Matt Ross

Isn’t Steve Jobs mantra “Let’s make a dent in the universe”?
http://www.facebook.com/jsawiuk Jarek Sawiuk

Steve Jobs’ new official title: Chairman and CEO, Apple; Destroyer of Galaxies.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=607675355 Brent Kirkham

In related news, Galactus is suing for copyright infringement………
- edgore
  
  Actually, I think that would be infringement on a patented business method…
A_Lwin

Go to the center of gravity’s pull and find the galaxy you will.

This shows how Apple is worse than the Sith. The Sith deleted only a planet from the Jedi archives, not an entire galaxy.
Jose Alberto Abreu

I suspect they did this in order to be able to claim copyright for the image.
http://freelistens.blogspot.com/ Listener

It’s actually a secret advertisement for Apple’s next product: The iDyson Sphere
Chuck

Those jerks in M110 airbrushed our sun out of all their photos of this galaxy. So it’s only fair.
xzzy

Also, they colored the “atmosphere” around the galaxy blue. Then highlighted some dust lanes, and smudged out others. Even looks like the perspective changed slightly!

Almost as if it’s intended to be a piece of art, rather than an accurate depiction of reality.
- joe blough
  
  actually, it is blue. gendler’s picture referenced is not ‘deep’ enough to expose it. check out more images of M31 on flickr or google image search and you will see it.
  - joe blough
    
    well, okay. apple enhanced it quite a bit
- morcheeba
  
  … or they took the photograph from the other side of the galaxy, where M110 is obscured by the dust lanes.
  
  One more thing… faster-than-light-interstellar travel – BOOM!
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Almost as if it’s intended to be a piece of art, rather than an accurate depiction of reality.
  
  Yeah, like Jesus on a dinosaur.
  - pupdog
    
    http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=WIGU-JREX&Category_Code=WIGU
Xof

Yeah, I always thought having M110 just meant there was one more galaxy to confuse the user.
Pete Harbeson

They HAD to delete M110; that’s where Steve Jobs’ home planet is, and they have privacy laws.
retepslluerb

Well, M110 is just another name for Andro-Alpha, a galaxy nearly wiped out by the planet-consuming Mobys, controlled by the Lord of Andromeda.

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.perrypedia.proc.org%2Fwiki%2FAndro-Alpha
MrMarieBlanc

M110 wasn’t photogenic enough.
http://twitter.com/pettyirks Petty Irks

Let’s keep this in perspective – its only an image and not the actual galaxy. Some people would argue with a Stop Sign.
- semiotix
  
  I knew the minute this was posted that within a few hours we’d have some people genuinely angry about this.
HiTek LoLife

“Destroyed… by the Empire”
Rob Cruickshank

Maybe they decided it looked messier with too many galaxies.
- winterfell
  
  I see what you did there…
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  MakiNG Cryptic references, eh?
Cowicide

That was the galaxy filled with Apple detractors that used to keep saying it was, uh… fruitless… for me use Apple products because they were definitely going out of business.

Zap!
Bubba73

Overly defensive fan-boys in 3…2… too late
- Cowicide
  
  Yet another jealous Windows user climbing into a thread about Apple and using the term “fan boy” in 3… 2… too late
  - Bubba73
    
    My Ubuntu tells me it doesn’t like you, meany!
    - Cowicide
      
      But I like you, Ubuntu!
Selkiechick

M31 … airbrushed like a magazine cover model!
howaboutthisdangit

It was only a matter of time – M110 has been deprecated for years.
dculberson

“Let’s keep this in perspective – its only an image and not the actual galaxy.”

“Comments like this only go to show how ignorant of things you actually are.”

Wow. Maybe M110 was sucked into our own galaxy due to the density of comments like this. That enormous wooshing noise we heard was the galaxy collapsing into a singularity just after the jokes flew over Irks and Merlin’s heads.
- http://twitter.com/zard John Merlin
  
  After 6 years, is it really still a joke? Had the original comment been “You don’t need BluRay” or “You don’t need user serviceable parts” then I’d have let it slip as fair comment. This joking about something that was fixed six years ago just seems lazy.
  
  Now I’m going to go have a sandwich.
  - http://twitter.com/martchand Martain Chandler
    
    My old Intel P5 Pentium floating point unit says your comment is 100.0001% valid.
monopole

This explains why Steve is ending his keynotes with “This is Jobs Speaking for Boskone”
Graysmith

In all fairness, it’s not like Apple is claiming their desktop wallpaper to be anything other than a piece of artwork, and there’s no requirement on art to represent the truth. Complaining about this is like complaining that heads in Picasso paintings shouldn’t have two eyes on one side of the face because it’s anatomically incorrect. If this was part of some “iSpace” app then yes, it’d be wrong. In this case, you’re just being silly.
- Aidan Cheddar
  
  We’re talking about a company that goes apeshit if you copy them.
BookGuy

This reminds me of an incident of scientific photoshopping that actually bothered me. I used to work for a scientific journal, and they used images taken directly from one of the articles for the cover of each issue. Naturally, they often took one that was visually impressive, not necessarily one showing the most significant result from the most important article. But on occasion, they essentially photoshopped data (especially background data and stray outliers) out of the images to make them look cleaner and prettier. The argument presented to me was, “Well, it’s just the cover, it’s not the actual article. It doesn’t have to convey correct information, just look good.” Still made me feel uneasy, though.
edgore

Editing of this type, removing galaxies and so on, promotes unrealistic body images for universes, the effects of which can be devastating.
blueiridium

Awesome.

University of *Wisconsin* Milwaukee, btw.
Evan Lyons

“If the system doesn’t show up in our archives, then it doesn’t exist.”
http://profiles.google.com/dippersdad Dipper Well

“In cases of major discrepancy it is always reality that’s got it wrong.” – Douglas Adams, The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
KBert

I point to Apple. I point to galactic entropy. That is all.
https://plus.google.com/115197896619361127605/posts Aaron Weiss

I know Apple hates Samsung these days, but this seems extreme.
http://www.studionashvegas.com studionashvegas

You can only not see it if you’re in the UK.
http://www.mrericsir.com MrEricSir

This is bad news for people who expect their desktop wallpaper image to accurately reflect the universe.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  People who have photos of celebrities for wallpaper hit that wall a while ago.
- Marktech
  
  This is bad news for people who expect their desktop wallpaper image to accurately reflect the universe.
  
  Change your universe. Not that big of a deal.
- RedMercury
  
  Yeah. The both of them.
B A

Perhaps M110 gets in the way of one’s ‘user-experience’.
http://angryfacing.com/ Nick

You are getting it all wrong, we now have proof there is life in the universe. When M110 saw that they would be on an Apple machine, they activated cloaking.

DUH!
Matthieu Yiptong

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9h0V_BQ34U&t=6m25s
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1342256758 Brian Bress

They probably just moved it the trash.
http://twitter-fail.com/ Twitter Fail

They heard a new vehicle was setting out to document Google Universe, and pre-emptively opted out.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Rob-Reiter/714752723 Rob Reiter

OK, Cruickshank-what’s the object of your post?
Dan Clair

you’re holding the telescope wrong.
http://ryanrampersad.com Ryan Rampersad

I’ve made mock galaxy images before. Even a single star in the wrong place can distract you.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_U6ISRXJULTMJSTDR4JFI7CAG5U fauxscot

I suspect there were competitors in those regions of the universe. I do know there aren’t any hereabouts. Just saying.
http://twitter.com/pepperbellajax Pepper

You can get the stars who disappeared back by downloading the App from the Apple store, Apple has patent on the stars, so the app will cost you $1
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_CTDHEB6G2V2XTZU6HLAZUEOZJY Kun

sweeeeeeet
http://twitter.com/pzich Pete Zich

Ok guys, seriously, it’s a desktop picture for a computer, why is this becoming a scandal?
- RedMercury
  
  It’s not a scandal. It’s just kind of amusing.
http://twitter.com/onefourten Garry

Search Google for this…. SHW-M110S
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Smith/714041653 Jim Smith

Well they are Masters of the Universe
http://twitter.com/Bitmap101 Bitmap101

Apparently, the official classification of Galaxies has recently been changed.
They will now be known as iM110, iM31, iM32 …
Korbenonline

If Steve doesn’t like it….. Nobody should like it… Everybody else is just looking wrong at it.
Korbenonline

M110 will disappear anyway… It’s just a matter of time… Look at adobe flash player….
http://laroquodexperiment.com/hypo/0.1/ Paul Laroquod

I’m extremely surprised and disappointed that the words ‘reality distortion field’ have not yet appeared in this comments section.
http://scyllacat.livejournal.com Scylla Kat

Are you telling me there’s all this hoohah over something that’s just meant to look pretty? Am I missing something here?
Marktech

Are you telling me there’s all this hoohah over something that’s just meant to look pretty? Am I missing something here?

That is why the internet is in flames and bloggers are being hanged from lampposts, yes.
http://laroquodexperiment.com/hypo/0.1/ Paul Laroquod

It’s a joke, people. And it’s funny because it’s true. That’s how it works.
Guillermo Marraco

Aple will charge extra for each galaxy and star.