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Comment by pavlov | Hacker News Reader

[...] however iTunes’ new display of Apps is horrid; every app icon has an ugly faux-perspective bevel that just doesn’t seem to work.

I don't understand what the author is referring to here. The screenshot looks just like I remember iOS app icons looking -- they've always had that canned bevel+gloss look applied to them.

Overall, the new iTunes makes me think that Apple keeps inching towards the Metro look. Gradients, colors and embossing are gradually fading out, and one day there will be nothing left except various weights of Helvetica and monochrome icons on a pure white canvas.

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I can't see Apple following Microsoft into a UI language that dispatches with affordance to the point that users are confused as to what's an actionable UI element and what isn't.

I agree they're going that way; to a definitely more-modern, understated look. But I think the big difference is going to be that they hold onto visual contrast precisely where Microsoft has let it go and/or confused it.

I'm not sure. In the new iTunes, almost all on-screen elements are now actionable, but only some of them have traditional visual indicators like button outlines or pop-up menu arrows. (For example, a playlist can be renamed by clicking on the large title which looks just like a static header.)

The new iTunes UI doesn't have any mouse-hover effects either, apart from those that are part of the OS X standard window decorations. This suggests that the new UI is designed primarily for touch rather than mouse use.

Good point. Hover is dead.

I think the iOS icons always had a gloss, but they now have a strong bevel particularly noticeable on the bottom. I've noticed that icons with text or design elements overlapping the bevel look especially strange.

Ah, you're right, that must be it. It's quite subtle, but certainly a noticeable change for someone who looks at iOS icons more often than I do.

The idea with that bevel is probably to make the icons look somewhat more three-dimensional when they are "stood up" on a perspective plane (like the OS X dock does with icons in its default position at the bottom). The problem of course is that the icons were not designed for this kind of pseudo-3D look, and that's not something that can be fixed by simply compositing a sharp dark shadow at the bottom edge of the icon.

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