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Free the Icons

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Re: Free the Icons

#241

Post by pndy »

nok22kon wrote: post #94
_0xdd wrote: post #59

It's still a bit jarring to me to see how far Apple embraced form over function with iOS and subsequently macOS. I remember reading the Human Interface Guidelines from the late Mac OS 9/early Mac OS X days and being taken aback by the level of detail and thought that went into those interfaces. Don't get me wrong, some things made no sense (brushed metal was... a choice) but there was a certain level of polish that I…

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 dare to say that this market change works both ways. Software is now created by people who have little idea about UI concepts, or even who don't want to bother themselves with these. Because the dominant type of a device is no longer a desktop computer. This isn't about strictly Apple as other companies also create, or allow to exist "awful" interfaces with no substance.

Is it a bad thing? Not necessary. Smartphones revolution made Internet truly accessible to everyone by cost of dumbing down software by features and UI - turning effectively these devices to work like any other home appliance. Software today has to have that captivating appearance so user wouldn't be scared away. But nothing is perfect and there are examples where users are being treated with this nasty infantile approach by literally showing confetti and balloons as the satisfaction derived from interaction.

The peak was flat style which not only introduced maximum simplified interfaces, design but also provided grounds for all sorts of darkpatterns where content is indistinguishable from active element. That let companies manipulate the user's informed choice.

Re: Free the Icons

#242

Post by hbn »

lopis wrote: post #109
wpm wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take an admission of failure over slavishly refusing to and trying to pretend it's fine. There were plenty of people saying Liquid Glass was fundamentally an utterly flawed, bad design, that even if you subjectively liked the way it looked, that its design philosophy was wrong , and led to logically consistent but unusable and ugly interfaces, all to solve a problem no one had. I'm cautiously optimistic now that…

To me the cherry on top was that they started modifying how third party icons look to match the Liquid Glass. People started complaining to us that our app icon looked blurry because of it.

Apple's own app icons look blurry in iOS 26.

They look fine when zoomed in, and I'm assuming that's all the designers considered as they were redrawing icons, blown up across their 27" monitor. But once you shrink them down to an actual app icon size, the glassy effects on the edges of everything look like a blur.

In iOS 27 they sharpened the edges up and everything looks a lot better.

Re: Free the Icons

#243

Post by skydhash »

ksec wrote: post #229
MBCook wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I’m sure that’s why they did it. It’s not a good reason. It’s like saying all the food you eat should be beige. Sure it’s more consistent, but at what cost? You lose all the benefits. It’s like Chesterton’s Fence, except it has a big sign on it saying “beware of bull” and there is a guy nearby saying “you don’t want to let that bull out dude, it’s vicious”. But you want to take down the fence because it’s not the…

In the old days, these different OS would have separate teams and all trying to work on what is best for their own products. Be it mac, iPad, iPhone or what hardware it is. The foundation may share resources, but everything else was tailor made. And that is what used to make Apple so good. The moment you try to make one size fits all you will start to make compromise. And the good old Apple would try to do things the…

Like trying to merge a bulldozer, a minivan, and a GT car. Because they all have 4 wheels and an engine.

Re: Free the Icons

#244

Post by jaapz »

matsemann wrote: post #142
_0xdd wrote: post #59

It's still a bit jarring to me to see how far Apple embraced form over function with iOS and subsequently macOS. I remember reading the Human Interface Guidelines from the late Mac OS 9/early Mac OS X days and being taken aback by the level of detail and thought that went into those interfaces. Don't get me wrong, some things made no sense (brushed metal was... a choice) but there was a certain level of polish that I…

Yeah, for a decade now it's been a UX disaster. It "works", because so many people are used to it, but look at a new user trying to navigate iOS, it's bonkers. Swiping from random directions achieves different things (and how would you even know you can?). The home button has like 11 different functions depending on how you press it and when.

I have an ipad that I mainly use to open YouTube... If I had q nickel for every time some random gesture accidentally triggered some weird feature, I'd certainly have a few nickels.

Re: Free the Icons

#245

Post by kridsdale1 »

ivorius wrote: post #206
_0xdd wrote: post #59

It's still a bit jarring to me to see how far Apple embraced form over function with iOS and subsequently macOS. I remember reading the Human Interface Guidelines from the late Mac OS 9/early Mac OS X days and being taken aback by the level of detail and thought that went into those interfaces. Don't get me wrong, some things made no sense (brushed metal was... a choice) but there was a certain level of polish that I…

The past 10 years have been a sad, slow decline for Apple's UIs. I'm really hoping for them to reclaim some of their former UI glory. At least, in Golden Gate, they reverted their own HIG violation of excessive icons back to factory: https://www.macrumors.com/2026/06/11/macos-27-golden-gate-me...

The time span and visible effect are both fully attributable to Alan Dye being head of design. It (what we have today) was his style. He made this world.

He’s out now. We can start to do something else.

Re: Free the Icons

#246

Post by DarkUranium »

Jyaif wrote: post #77

Ever since the android debacle with icons having shadows going in different directions or length I've been thinking that icons should be 3D models (with restrictions to make them fast to render and/or fast to bake into flat images). That would be a marvelous way to make icons unified and a differentiating move for Apple.

That gives me an idea for an icon pack. TL;DR path-traced voxel art, isometric render.

Alas, I'm no designer.

Re: Free the Icons

#247

Post by altern8 »

jaffa2 wrote: post #169
altern8 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what made me switch to Android. At least you can have 3-button navigation

Its just as bad. Please define ‘back’

Back means the previous screen.

If you're in Chrome, the previous entry in the history. If you're in YouTube, the previous video. If you were previously on the main screen and you just clicked into an app, the main screen.

What's confusing about it? Seems very intuitive to me, it's like CTRL+Z, it always changes what it does but the behavior is to undo the latest action.

Re: Free the Icons

#248

Post by jmuguy »

MBCook wrote: post #71
jpease wrote: post #61

Seeing all those old icons makes me realize how much I miss them. Superficial, perhaps, but they were one of the things I loved about OS X when I made the switch back in 2005 or 2006.

No they were better . Whether someone likes the style better or not (I do) they were FAR more visually distinct from each other which made it much easier to find the program you wanted to use. Right now my dock is a soup of squircles. I have to scan multiple times to find icons even though I know roughly where they should be. They aren’t distinct. They don’t stand out. That was never a problem until last year. 40 yea…

There must be someone senior at Apple that still thinks the squircles look good, I dunno how we're still stuck with them. I haven't made a change to my dock in years and I have to hunt for apps nearly every time I open it. It doesn't help that a lot of newer apps seeming don't actually have a logo and are just happy with some random circular shaped blob.

Re: Free the Icons

#249

Post by MBCook »

jmuguy wrote: post #248
MBCook wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they were better . Whether someone likes the style better or not (I do) they were FAR more visually distinct from each other which made it much easier to find the program you wanted to use. Right now my dock is a soup of squircles. I have to scan multiple times to find icons even though I know roughly where they should be. They aren’t distinct. They don’t stand out. That was never a problem until last year. 40 yea…

There must be someone senior at Apple that still thinks the squircles look good, I dunno how we're still stuck with them. I haven't made a change to my dock in years and I have to hunt for apps nearly every time I open it. It doesn't help that a lot of newer apps seeming don't actually have a logo and are just happy with some random circular shaped blob.

Same people who thought text on translucent glass over text looked good.

Who thought that and lots of floating buttons was “getting out of the way of my content”.

Who thought sidebars should look like windows with mirrored content under them was smart.

Who thought long horizontal scrolling lists were easy to use.

Who never gave more than one window open at once.

Who are apparently illiterate and need icons everywhere and text nowhere.

They’ve lost the plot and I don’t care what they think. My machine is drastically harder to use than it was just two years ago all to make it “prettier“ even though personally I don’t think it is.

Re: Free the Icons

#250

Post by ktosobcy »

What is the most annoyig is that the effin' rest of the world had to follow and embrace this stupid trend :/

Luckily on Android and Linux I can select custom icon sets that can have shapes…

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