Apple offers 2,400 icons for free | Hacker News Reader

Apple offers 2,400 icons for free

developer.apple.com

31 pointsscheja23 comments

Not exactly free.

IMPORTANT

All SF Symbols shall be considered to be system-provided images as defined in the Xcode and Apple SDKs license agreements and are subject to the terms and conditions set forth therein. You may not use SF Symbols — or glyphs that are substantially or confusingly similar — in your app icons, logos, or any other trademark-related use. Apple reserves the right to review and, in its sole discretion, require modification or discontinuance of use of any Symbol used in violation of the foregoing restrictions, and you agree to promptly comply with any such request.

Some symbols can’t be exported as templates for customization and can be used only to reference Apple technologies as documented below.

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

>or glyphs that are substantially or confusingly similar

In the image on the linked page, they use glyphs that are so common, some might consider them "standard". It's reprehensible that Apply might try and consider the "undo arrow" their own intellectual property. As a matter of fact, I don't see a single icon in that screenshot that I'd consider belonging to Apple. Those are all pretty much Font Awesome/IcoMoon staples.

>It's reprehensible that Apply might try and consider the "undo arrow" their own intellectual property

Well, they don't. This is about this particular arrow(s) icon(s).

But, how is it different (confusingly or not) than the 1200 other examples on IcoMoon?

In various subtle ways. Or not. It's up for a court to decide, if it ever gets there.

IcoMoon also licenses its fonts: https://icomoon.io/#icons-lindua/license

> I don't see a single icon in that screenshot that I'd consider belonging to Apple.

Did you look specifically at the "Symbols For Use As-Is" list?

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

That list is made up entirely of logos for Apple products and features, and images of their products. Many of them are trademarks! It'd be hard to think of anything that is more clearly Apple's IP than this.

You can probably assume they do not in fact consider "the undo arrow" to be Apple intellectual property.

Keep in mind that the legalese is intended for legal people to word-fight each other for lots of money. It generally turns this type of text in to vague yet usable terminology so you can defend or attack at will.

I'm certain that's the case. It is rather frustrating to see them even lay claim to such generic iconographs. But, if Disney can take public domain stories and lock them up for 100 years... who knows?

Maybe the title of this post should reflect that it's not exactly free.

> All SF Symbols shall be considered to be system-provided images as defined in the Xcode and Apple SDKs license agreements and are subject to the terms and conditions set forth therein.

https://developer.apple.com/sf-symbols/

> The system-provided images and symbols owned by Apple and documented as such in Apple's Human Interface Guidelines for iOS, watchOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and/or macOS (“System-Provided Images”) are licensed to You solely for the purpose of developing Applications for Apple-branded products that run on the system for which the image was provided. You agree that you shall not use or incorporate the System-Provided Images or any substantially or confusingly similar images into app icons, logos or make any other trademark use of the System-Provided Images. Your use of the System-Provided Images shall also be subject to any specific use restrictions with respect thereto as set forth in the Apple Software or Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. Apple reserves the right to review and, in its sole discretion, require modification or discontinuance of use of any System-Provided images used in violation of the foregoing restrictions, and you agree to promptly comply with any such request. Upon termination of this Agreement, You may continue to distribute the System-Provided Images as used within Applications You developed using the Apple Software.

https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/xcode.pdf

What rights do developers have to use these on anything other than Apple products?

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

> All SF Symbols shall be considered to be system-provided images as defined in the Xcode and Apple SDKs license agreements and are subject to the terms and conditions set forth therein. You may not use SF Symbols — or glyphs that are substantially or confusingly similar — in your app icons, logos, or any other trademark-related use. Apple reserves the right to review and, in its sole discretion, require modification or discontinuance of use of any Symbol used in violation of the foregoing restrictions, and you agree to promptly comply with any such request.

After a bit more research I'm going to say "none", since developers can't use the San Francisco font outside of iOS apps for anything but prototyping.

Can we rename this? The title isn't at all accurate. This is just a system font on iOS and Mac OS?

Can we use them in FOSS projects that don't necessarily run on Apple hardware?

No. From the license:

> Your use of Symbols obtained from Apple’s SF Font is limited to creating mock-ups of user interfaces for software products running on Apple’s iOS, iPadOS, macOS and tvOS operating systems and your use of Symbols obtained from Apple’s SF Compact Font is limited to creating mock-ups of user interfaces for software products running on Apple’s iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS and watchOS operating systems. Such Apple operating systems are referred to as the “Apple Platforms”. Your use of individual Symbols shall also be subject to any specific use restrictions with respect thereto as set forth in the Apple Software or Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines.

(SF Symbol is embedded in current versions of macOS/iOS, so you don't need a special license to use it in applications which run on those platforms.)

Still no, EULA in the installer:

> IMPORTANT NOTE: THE APPLE SOFTWARE IS TO BE USED SOLELY FOR CREATING USER INTERFACES TO BE USED IN SOFTWARE PRODUCTS RUNNING ON APPLE’S iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS OR watchOS OPERATING SYSTEMS, AS APPLICABLE, AND IS SUBJECT TO THE SPECIFIC USE RESTRICTIONS SET FORTH HEREIN.

The installer's license agreement (yes the DMG contains an actual installer instead of just an "app") says the license for the icons is granted for use on Apple platforms. It's quite long and I haven't read it too much so there might be exceptions down the line but it's unlikely.

When I asked this a couple of weeks ago, the answer was "no."

Maybe that's changed, and that's why it's on HN? The linked page doesn't list a license.

Closest I can find is here:

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

Nice. It's free in the sense that for your Apple-apps on Apple-platforms you no longer need a commercial icon set with a license etc. On top of that, it's known to work well, integrates with the UX, and because there is a good chance other applications in the same ecosystem use similar icons it'll be easier for the users to recognise them.

I'd suggest changing the title from "for free" to "for iOS apps".

While that would be partially correct, 'for free' usually depends on some context. One could argue that sunlight is 'for free' but only in the context of a human understanding the concept of free vs. non-free, and you'd need to be living and thinking to be able to understand that, and living takes an effort, so nothing would really be 'free' ;-)

On the other hand, a more correct title could be: free for development for the Apple Platforms.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com