Panther EASTER EGG!!! (Mail.app)

[Skandranon]

Well, I stumbled across an interesting easter egg in Mail.app (1.3.3)

I was testing out an email form for a client of mine and instead of using my email address, I was randomly typing in fake addresses. On the last test I conducted, I sent the email form with a return address of: bob@mac.com

I received the email in Mail and there was a picture in the top right corner! This is DEFINITELY not someone in my address book.

I wonder how many more of these are buried in Mail? Does anyone know how to find out?

I've attached the image to show you what I mean. Can anyone else recreate this?

[HexMonkey]

I had a quick look through the Mail (1.3.2) package. Although I didn't find that image, I did find a file that could be related with some strange pictures of people.
Go to the Mail app in Finder, control click, select 'Show Package Contents'. Then open 'Contents', then 'Resources' and 'senders.tiff'. Anyone know what this is?

I also looked in the Address Book package but didn't find anything.

[Skandranon]

I went ahead and posted this TIFF HexMonkey described in a .ZIP archive for you guys to check out.... weird photos of random people! But my bob@mac.com guy is not among the bunch.

The plot thickens....

:confused:

[joshuajestelle]

interesting.

i was able to reproduce these results.

if anyone wants, I can send them an email from bob@mac.com so they can see it too.

I couldn't find the image in the Mail Resources or the Address Book Resources.

I have a feeling there is some hidden address book entry or something wherever Address Book stores your addressbook entries. I'm not sure where that is though.

Interesting nonetheless.

Josh

[HexMonkey]

Address Book data is stored in Home:Library:Application Support:AddressBook.
I couldn't see anything immediately obvious though. I also looked for invisible files here. There are two, named '.skIndex.ABPerson.lockN' and '.database.lockN', but they also don't look relevant.

[G5orbust]

Originally posted by Skandranon
I went ahead and posted this TIFF HexMonkey described in a .ZIP archive for you guys to check out.... weird photos of random people! But my bob@mac.com guy is not among the bunch.

The plot thickens....

:confused:

Most likely the mail.app dev teams. they have eatser eggs like this in a bunch of apple programs throughout time.

[virividox]

nice find ;D

[HexMonkey]

I looked at the contents of the files in Library/Application Support/AddressBook. If bob@mac.com is in there, it's encrypted (unlike other people).

I searched on Google for these easter eggs. The senders.tiff one is well known, but I couldn't find anything on the bob@mac.com one.

Also there are no invisible images in the Address Book or Mail packages.

The mystery continues...

[billpalmer]

I hate to point this out, but bob@mac.com turns out to be a real email address. Its owner even has a .mac homepage:

http://homepage.mac.com/bob/album.html

Methinks you're looking at a picture of him ...

;)

[Doraemon]

The developers pictures could already be found under Jaguar.

[Skandranon]

Originally posted by billpalmer
I hate to point this out, but bob@mac.com turns out to be a real email address. Its owner even has a .mac homepage:

http://homepage.mac.com/bob/album.html

Methinks you're looking at a picture of him ...

I figured as much. I just really wonder how many more hidden Address Book photos there are in Mail.app

Sad as it may sound, I kept punching in different fake .Mac email addresses into my online form last night while conducting my final tests but was unable to produce another hidden Apple Developer character in the hour's worth of additional testing.

I'm gonna email the bob@mac.com right now. :D

[cb911]

LOL :D good stuff!!

i can just imagine that bob@mac.com is going to be getting heaps of emails asking how his picture is part of a Mail.app easter egg. :D he he.

[macopia]

Mail will get .mac account pictures automatically. Every other e-mail address needs an entry in your address book...not an easter egg.

[Skandranon]

Originally posted by macopia
Mail will get .mac account pictures automatically. Every other e-mail address needs an entry in your address book...not an easter egg.

I find that hard to believe. So much so, I'd ask that someone with a .Mac account to email me to see if this is true.

skandranon at mac.com

[tjwett]

Originally posted by macopia
Mail will get .mac account pictures automatically. Every other e-mail address needs an entry in your address book...not an easter egg.

this is true. happens all the time to me.

[janey]

urm its not an easter egg. its usually that person's iChat icon. Like if I send an email, my icon (which happens to be the OS X user pic thing of the zen garden circles) shows up next to all the headers.
Blah.

ive noticed it too esp. when i get mail from other Mac users (ie peeps from the studentdev apple list)

[Skandranon]

Originally posted by übergeek
urm its not an easter egg. its usually that person's iChat icon. Like if I send an email, my icon (which happens to be the OS X user pic thing of the zen garden circles) shows up next to all the headers.
Blah.

ive noticed it too esp. when i get mail from other Mac users (ie peeps from the studentdev apple list)

Man. Not to be stubborn, but could you email me from a .Mac account? I haven't noticed this before from other .Mac users....

skandranon at mac.com

[Skandranon]

Originally posted by macopia
Mail will get .mac account pictures automatically. Every other e-mail address needs an entry in your address book...not an easter egg.

Well, I had two Macrumors folks email me from .Mac accounts (both of whom are NOT in my Address Book) and I did NOT get a photo thumbnail along with the emails they sent from Mail.app

Furthermore, since the email I got from 'bob@mac.com' was generated by an online form that I created, it's obviously not something attributed to a Mail-to-Mail exchange. 'bob@mac.com' is likewise NOT in my Address Book.

That being said, I'm still wondering if someone can show me how to recreate the 'bob@mac.com' phenomenon by sending me an email from their .Mac account. My email remains the same: skandranon at mac.com

Until then.... I stand by the Easter Egg theorem. :D

[jaykk]

If you want to test this out, the easiest way is to use iCards from apple site. So, you can generate an email an find out yourself.

[Skandranon]

Originally posted by jaykk
If you want to test this out, the easiest way is to use iCards from apple site. So, you can generate an email an find out yourself.

I have already received emails from other .Mac addresses today, both real and fabricated. The fact remains:

.Mac addresses that are NOT in my Address Book do NOT arrive with a custom photo thumbnail.... all except bob@mac.com For some reason, emails that I get from 'bob@mac.com' are assigned a secret photo that I posted at the start of this thread. Doesn't matter if this email comes from the real bob@mac.com or people who use fake email headers. Same photo appears each time.

This has been true for both emails I've gotten from real .Mac users and fake emails I've generated using online forms like iCards or the one I built for a website I'm wrapping up this week.

Others have said that .Mac automatically bundles our iChat thumbs with our emails, but I disagree completely.

Dig?

[joshuajestelle]

Its true that .Mac does not automatically put your iChat photo online so that users will see that image when they receive emails from your .Mac account.

But it is true that you can upload a photo to your .Mac email account (this option is in the email preferences pane on the .Mac website).

It is obvious this is what bob at mac.com did.

I just registered for a .Mac account and uploaded a little red ball image as my image.

So fake yourself an email from joshuajestelle _ _ a t _ _ mac.com and you'll see a little red ball image if you use Apple Mail.

So thus not an easter egg. Just an interesting tie between Apple Mail and .Mac.

Josh

[Skandranon]

Originally posted by joshuajestelle
Its true that .Mac does not automatically put your iChat photo online so that users will see that image when they receive emails from your .Mac account.

But it is true that you can upload a photo to your .Mac email account (this option is in the email preferences pane on the .Mac website).

It is obvious this is what bob at mac.com did.

I just registered for a .Mac account and uploaded a little red ball image as my image.

So fake yourself an email from joshuajestelle _ _ a t _ _ mac.com and you'll see a little red ball image if you use Apple Mail.

So thus not an easter egg. Just an interesting tie between Apple Mail and .Mac.

Josh

Case closed. Thanks, Josh. :D