WWDC25: macOS Tahoe Breaks Decades of Finder History

I think the article kind of tramples on its own point by showing a very long history of the changes to the Finder’s icon over the years, but I think what it’s trying to say is that it has been mostly unchanged for many years so it shouldn’t change now. It now has a gray box all the way around instead of two blue faces that go all the way to the edge. However, it simultaneously showed that it has been redesigned several times to match the aesthetic of the OS and while this is a larger change than most is still within the same design space.

Re: WWDC25: macOS Tahoe Breaks Decades of Finder History

#7

Post by qsi » Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 3:03 PM UTC

memco wrote: post #6

ehutch79 wrote: post #2

[flagged]

I think the article kind of tramples on its own point by showing a very long history of the changes to the Finder’s icon over the years, but I think what it’s trying to say is that it has been mostly unchanged for many years so it shouldn’t change now. It now has a gray box all the way around instead of two blue faces that go all the way to the edge. However, it simultaneously showed that it has been redesigned sever…

The actual problem as explained in the first two paragraphs of TFA and shown in the first picture, is that the light and dark blue sides of the Finder icon have swapped sides. For the first time in its existence of many decades, the dark side is now on the right instead of the left. This is the problem.

Looks wrong to me too!

Re: WWDC25: macOS Tahoe Breaks Decades of Finder History

#8

Post by laborcontract » Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 3:04 PM UTC

This is simply gatekeeping. I understand writing an article about it but filing a radar?

The only thing the author wants to do here is a fandom flex.

Ironically, his pictures prove that the icons have changed a lot! What’s the canonical face anyway? You can look at the prior icon and argue they broke canon there removing the black center stroke and clipping the overflowing line.

Re: WWDC25: macOS Tahoe Breaks Decades of Finder History

#9

Post by areoform » Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 3:05 PM UTC

In the age of X ditching Twitter and Tweets, I think brand continuity and identity is underrated. The friendly finder logo is such an essential part of MacOS that it's bizarre (at least to me) that they've changed the color symmetry of the face.

Why would you do that? It's as iconic as the Apple silhouette for Apple users.

If you've ever used MacOS, you've had that face stare back at you. It's a kind face. A friendly face. An old face. An old friend. Let's keep it that way.

edit - on further thought, was this change user tested? I'm fairly certain that even the most middle-of-the-road, suburban dad on his 10th layover will notice something is different when they look at it. It's a strange change.

It's not different enough to force recognition as a new symbol. It's just different enough to be weird.

Re: WWDC25: macOS Tahoe Breaks Decades of Finder History

#10

Post by Someone » Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 3:05 PM UTC

FTA: “The Finder logo has changed over the years, but the dark side has been on the left forever.”

So, ‘forever’, they subtly associated left-handedness with the dark side? About time that they changed that (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left-handed_peopl...)

:-)