Earlier quoted context omitted.
A circle given the same height provides a smaller pointer target than a square. The stoplight was also a downgrade over the shapes, positioning and functionality of the Mac OS 9 window controls. Stickies still uses these controls by the way, if you want to see what it is like. Close is all the way over on the left and its a box, I would prefer an X (" batsu "), but it's a box. WindowShade-style minimize is all the wa…
>A circle given the same height provides a smaller pointer target than a square. To be fair, the click target of the traffic light circles isn't limited to the actual drawn pixels. You can click a fair few pixels outside of it and still get the same result (basically wherever the hover state activates).
The stoplight was a pure aesthetic choice, I would have preferred more functional choices, but it was probably the right call at the time to go for aesthetics. A new aesthetic on a new operating system, that’s exciting, that gets people talking. That said, it’s one of the last elements of Aqua that has remained almost entirely untouched, through pinstripes, brushed metal, stitched leather and now apparently, iOS 7 Strikes Back or whatever we’re going to call it in Mac OS XI.