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Free the Icons

weblog.rogueamoeba.com

121–130 of 270 posts

Re: Free the Icons

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All my devices are Apple: laptop, Studio, display, phone, iPad, watch... I will say that Apple has solidified on the design and reliability "recently". But let's not pretend that the MBP line, to pick on one, didn't go through some rough rough days. I've had laptops that had the delaminating screen, the 'single grain of sand can ruin it' butterfly keyboard, hell, I've had two models that had recalled logic boards. Ea…

You missed the late Intel MBPs which I remember heating up hotter than the sun and exhausting it out the back which made the touch bar uncomfortable to touch!

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Re: Free the Icons

#123
There's so little joy and happiness left in computing. Reverting to the older style of icons, plus perhaps a few UI tweaks, certainly help bring a bit of whimsical back into the macOS platform. That's something many of us would love.

Re: Free the Icons

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's been keeping Linux from having gorgeous icons up to this point?

As a bit of a shameless plug, I did some in the past[0] and am working sporadically on a "fork" of those[1] but it's a whole full-time work. There are hundreds of icons to do for apps alone. Each one needs to be done in 16x16, 22x22, 32x32, 64x64, 128x128 and 256x256 so if say you have 150 icons to do for apps, you actually will need to do 900 icons. And add to that that you'll need to cover categories, places, filet…

These are very nice (especially the Betelgeuse set), but -- unless this is just chance from the ones displayed -- don't they mostly all have the same silhouette, a rounded rectangle? While the Betelgeuse ones have more flair and are more differentiable from each other, an excellent thing, locking them in a box is the same kind of jail that this article is about.

I would love to encourage you to free your own icons from the round-rect jail. You have some fantastic designs there.

Re: Free the Icons

#125

There's so little joy and happiness left in computing. Reverting to the older style of icons, plus perhaps a few UI tweaks, certainly help bring a bit of whimsical back into the macOS platform. That's something many of us would love.

> There's so little joy and happiness left in computing

Preach it! https://daveon.design/creating-joy-in-the-user-experience.ht...

Re: Free the Icons

#126

There's so little joy and happiness left in computing. Reverting to the older style of icons, plus perhaps a few UI tweaks, certainly help bring a bit of whimsical back into the macOS platform. That's something many of us would love.

> There's so little joy and happiness left in computing Preach it! https://daveon.design/creating-joy-in-the-user-experience.ht...

That's a lovely little article. Thank you.

Re: Free the Icons

#127
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> seemingly because Zuck isn't aware of how untalented the guy is.

Maybe Zuck just wanted his laptop to get better.

Re: Free the Icons

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's market changed it started as a computer for professionals now its for people who want to look cool. so form is much more important than function, it's literally what you buy

I challenge you to find a laptop that can do what my macbook air m1 with 8gb of ram does at the $899 it was through the education store. No fan, awesome battery life, good trackpad and keyboard, the ability to not get hot while using it. I'm a senior platform engineer who at the time I bought it was a senior software developer, who can still use it for my daily tasks despite it having 8gb of ram. Until very recently…

> $899 it was through the education store

Comparing a subsidised computer for children to one that isn't isn't exactly a fair comparison, is it?

> No fan,

You know why Macbooks don't need a fan? It's because they aren't powerful enough to draw heat in the first place. A month ago, for the same price as a $1700 Macbook Pro (before the recent increase) I got a laptop with a CPU that is literally twice as fast on parellelisable workloads, has a 5070 Ti vs. nothing at all, and 32GB RAM. A superior screen, keyboard, and I can install my own choice of OS on it, too. Now that same dingy Macbook Pro costs $2000, or $2400 if you want 32GB RAM. Apple's greatest coup was convincing people that paying twice as much for half the hardware was a killer feature, and now everyone goes on and on about how Macbooks are the most premium hardware money can buy because they're so weak they don't need a fan to keep them cool. It's truly remarkable how susceptible people are to status-culture-based marketing.

Username related.

Re: Free the Icons

#129
Great design is more about consistency than uniformity.

Just imagine how hard it would be to read a text if all the words had a similar shape! You want them to look very distinct while the predictability of the layout helps you read (which is consistency).

Re: Free the Icons

#130

There's so little joy and happiness left in computing. Reverting to the older style of icons, plus perhaps a few UI tweaks, certainly help bring a bit of whimsical back into the macOS platform. That's something many of us would love.

Liquid Glass was a good step in the right direction imo. A choice to make visual entertainment and beauty a priority over pure function.

I feel like what computers really lost was sounds, we used to have so many joyful sounds and background music on computers while now they are all silent. I think it’s a tragedy the Nintendo switch broke the long history of music in the menus and apps.

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