WinBeta reports that the modified icon can be noticed on Apple’s iCloud Calendar help page. Alongside its own, brightly-coloured shiny icons for iOS, OS X and iCloud sits a light-grey, wireframe rendition of the Windows logo.
This isn’t the Windows logo that Microsoft uses though. Apple has shunned the official four squares angled into a 3D effect for a flat square of four rectangles accompanied by a trapezium “window ledge.” The effect is rather obvious and accentuated by how the Windows “window” ends up being taller than Apple’s official icons for its own services.
The icon seems to be intended only to give Windows users a change of scenery when visiting Apple’s support pages. It could also be interpreted as a subtle knock at Microsoft, refusing to respect its products by modifying their branding.
However, Apple recently admitted Microsoft has a place in the technology world. It stunned its own fans during its September devices launch by welcoming the Microsoft Office team on-stage to demonstrate how the apps will work on iPad Pro. Apple even acknowledged Microsoft’s role in digital productivity, saying “If anybody knows how to do productivity, it’s Microsoft.”
It seems like the company may not be so fond of Windows though. Even so, Apple also uses elements of this software in its own products. For example, the latest release of Mac OS X, El Capitan, “borrows” several of Microsoft’s trademark window management features, including the ability to easily snap apps side-by-side for more efficient multitasking.
Perhaps Apple felt obliged to show how Microsoft had made it look out the window by symbolising it on its own website. Occasional humorous takes on rivals are not uncommon among technology companies and this particular incident seems to be amusing both Apple and Microsoft fans online.