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Free the Icons

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Re: Free the Icons

#41

Post by etrautmann »

crazygringo wrote: post #36

I've got to disagree. I really disliked previously, when icon prominence could be wildly different because one icon takes up the full area with a big square, while another is a circle that necessarily has a significantly smaller area within the same extent. Icons from Apple were all nicely balanced in size, but third-party apps could be anything. Giving equal visual weight to each icon is an improvement. iOS was a st…

I’m not a designer but I disagree. I want to be able to easily distinguish apps without much focus or concentration or searching. Making them visually distinct with shape and color is superior. Uniformity is a problem not a target.

Re: Free the Icons

#42

Post by dpark »

SpyCoder77 wrote: post #31

I honestly disagree with the author when they say that the Golden Gate icons are better than Tahoes. There are more lines, which is literally removing the point of LIQUID glass. It is supposed to be BLURRY, like LIQUID. I get that it is more readable, but are icons meant to be read? There is no text in them, other than Apple TV which is very distinctive. It seems like they just boosted the sharpness of the icons and…

The real question isn’t whether LIQUID should be BLURRY but whether intentionally choosing a BLURRY user interface design is STUPID.

Apple spent millions convincing everyone they needed Retina displays and then churned out an update that made them all blurry.

Re: Free the Icons

#43

Post by hbn »

> the much-celebrated Liquid Glass opacity slider

The Liquid Glass slider is an embarrassing outright admission of failure. Apple built its brand as a tastemaker, so to put out this new, controversial design language, and after a year of tweaking, finally throw their hands up and say "we don't know what looks good, you decide" is so disappointing.

That said, all the changes in iOS 27 are such a massive improvement from 26. The first design turnout with Alan Dye gone is making me feel very optimistic of their direction.

Re: Free the Icons

#44

Post by al_borland »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #32
al_borland wrote: post #23

While I wholeheartedly agree, I suspect the required backgrounds are to create a uniform format between system, where VisionOS requires round icons for more reliable eye tracking. It seems like every OS got a little harder to use in order to better vibe with VisionOS, the least popular platform they have. While I applaud the commitment to building a new platform, I don’t like that’s is coming at the expense of the ot…

> VisionOS requires round icons for more reliable eye tracking I'm confused here. What do you think is the relationship between round icons and eye tracking?

They found having round icons made people look at the center, rather than the edges and corners. Since the UX relies entirely on where the user is looking, this made it more reliable.

I remember reading it in the HIG when VisionOS came out and everyone was complaining about the shape. I went looking to see if there was a reason, and there was.

Re: Free the Icons

#45

Post by al_borland »

nrightnour wrote: post #28
al_borland wrote: post #23

While I wholeheartedly agree, I suspect the required backgrounds are to create a uniform format between system, where VisionOS requires round icons for more reliable eye tracking. It seems like every OS got a little harder to use in order to better vibe with VisionOS, the least popular platform they have. While I applaud the commitment to building a new platform, I don’t like that’s is coming at the expense of the ot…

Are you sure visionOS requires it? Having an icon be a few px smaller so a microphone can stick out, doesn't seem like a big deal for tracking.

The thing sticking outside of the icon draws the eye to it, which means your focus is at the edge instead of the center, which makes for a more error prone experience.

Since the eyes are the cursor, this is a problem. Desktop and mobile don’t have this issue.

Re: Free the Icons

#46

Post by hbn »

VladVladikoff wrote: post #20
altern8 wrote: post #3

Tahoe was such a huge mess, but I'm hopeful that the new CEO will turn things around and bring things back to normal. If they do, I'll consider upgrading both OS and laptop, but right now I'm holding on to Sequoia

They have a new head designer too IIRC, but probably is going to take some time for him to slowly move away from the mess he inherited.

Alan Dye was brought in during the Jony Ive era when they were launching the first Apple Watch because he came from a fashion/print background. Before Apple really figured out what the Watch was going to be (a health/fitness accessory for your phone) they were going for the "luxury fashion" angle.

Somehow when Ive left, Dye got put in charge of design even though he had zero experience in software design that anyone seems to be aware of. He was criticized for the years following for a lot of bizarre design regressions that were happening across all of Apple's OSes. Then a few months after Dye himself announced Liquid Glass at WWDC last year, he blindsided Apple by accepting a poaching offer from Meta, seemingly because Zuck isn't aware of how untalented the guy is.

Now Stephen Lemay is in charge, who's been at Apple for many years and actually knows stuff about software design. It's said that within the walls of Apple, a lot of people were very happy about the change, and the first showing of design changes we got since then are looking very good for Apple.

Re: Free the Icons

#47

Post by ceroxylon »

>Apple didn’t just mess with their own icons. They also dictated the shape of every third-party app icon

We will never know if this was AI generated or not, but I have started to flinch at this sentence structure.

Re: Free the Icons

#49

Post by rglover »

I honestly forgot icons used to be a lot of different shapes. Used Panic Coda way back in the day and that leaf icon from this post is unmistakable.

Re: Free the Icons

#50

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

al_borland wrote: post #44
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> VisionOS requires round icons for more reliable eye tracking I'm confused here. What do you think is the relationship between round icons and eye tracking?

They found having round icons made people look at the center, rather than the edges and corners. Since the UX relies entirely on where the user is looking, this made it more reliable. I remember reading it in the HIG when VisionOS came out and everyone was complaining about the shape. I went looking to see if there was a reason, and there was.

That's interesting, but I think this is solvable in better ways. If the VisionOS icon grid doesn't have a voronoi hit map, then IMO they're doing a stupid. There's a _lot_ of space between icons in the grid. It should be plenty of distance to reliably determine that you're looking nearer to the center of a particular one.
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