Hacker News Reader

Comment by anoxic | Hacker News Reader

I didn't like the new iOS7 icons and I categorically dismissed the Yosemite icons as well. In light of this article, I realize, these icons /make sense/. More than that, it forced me to actually look closely at them. And I also realized that I don't like the icons in Mavericks either, I was just used to it already.

The consistency and pattern behind the new icons is well thought out, and the use of subtle lighting effects (the blue and orange undertones) is great art direction and seems to pull things together in a great way.

What I don't like is the bright colors and the undertone of a "default" feeling -- like how many of the icons feel like generic dingbats. But this also seems consistent with Apple's use of Helvetica, which gives me the same feeling. Which is somewhere between totally not noticing it's there, and feeling like it's an evil faceless government/corporation.

Made me think.

View on HN

I love the iOS7 symbols and I really don’t understand why others don’t. No one could ever explain that to me, except to say they dislike them. I love the colors, I love the shapes†. Be that as it may, it just seems that tastes diverge and that this is a subjective, not an objective question. I love ’em very much and I think they are much better than the old ones.

I’m ok with the more complex OS X symbols, they seem to fit the platform better. I think that’s also thematically a nice contrast between the platforms: OS X is more complex but also more powerful, iOS is a lot simpler – however, both are still consistent with each other where it makes sense. I think that’s also a very nice message to send through graphic design (and one reinforced through Apple’s other announcements about the future of their platforms).

—

† Of course there are exceptions. Game Center was a train wreck before and still is one – but at least it isn’t offensive to people who play games anymore. (Gaming is not gambling! Oh shit, I just though of IAPs … maybe Apple is more perceptive than I give them credit for …) Does no one at Apple play games or understand people who do? I really dislike the camera symbol. It’s horrific. I liked the lens much more before and I think a stylized lens would be much cooler.

> The consistency and pattern behind the new icons is well thought out, and the use of subtle lighting effects (the blue and orange undertones) is great art direction

Made me think they copied the current "hot" of colors, just like going flat after everyone else

http://www.slashfilm.com/orangeblue-contrast-in-movie-poster...

It's not that I super dislike it, more than I always thought of apple as a leader instead of follower when it came to design and perhaps I didn't realize how much they lost talent wise.

The only thing I truly don't like is notepad lost its full on yellow 'notepad paper' look. The difference between notepad and pages was very obvious prior, now it is subtle

Notepads are pretty much only yellow in the US. I see that mostly as an internationalisation issue, to be honest. (That said, “folders” also don’t necessarily look that way on many places on Earth besides the US.)

I do hope that third party applications start experimenting with their icons on Yosemite. I mean not necessarily make their icons identically flat and tilted, but those subtle color reflections are looking very nice.

I hope that they go for consistency instead of breaking the mold for the sake of breaking the mold and standing out -- the last thing I want is a dock full of randomly weird icons.

Your worries are completely unwarranted. Apple's direction for OSX is a trend setter. Due to sheer exposure, whatever Apple makes, becomes fashionable and most developers try to imitate it (usually that's good, sometimes it's bad). Case in point, while iOS 7 icons weren't something to call home about, many developers quickly redid their app icons as flat white shapes sitting on top of eye-gouging gradients.

Uhhh... not to throw mud on your cake, but Apple has been following a trend with iOS for a while now and tend to merge more and more of it into OSX, hence these developments. When Apple was still lingering in a skeuomorphic pseudo-3D la-la-land, the world made a few turns and turned out to be flat after all. Whether it was Google following Microsoft or the other way around, both presented a 'fresh new look' which was mostly marked by flatness and abstraction. Apple followed suit in iOS7/8 and now in OSX 10.10.

Are you even replying to the right post?

I'm talking about the relationship between Apple and devs making apps for their platforms. Not about "who invented flat first" (answer: the 70s did, but that's another story).

Picking "who dun it first" arguments online is so old, dude. So old.

Flat became popular in the '60s — the 1860s, that is, when Japanese art became available in Europe.

It became popular again in the twentieth century in the 1940s, but for somewhat different reasons.

I think Yosemite strikes an amazing balance between simplicity/flatness and complexity/depth.

I am hoping this is the consensus inside Apple where design should go for iOS as well, because I still can't stand the iOS 7/8 icons (and the lack of button shapes around buttons). iOS 7 looks ugly and rushed and it was rushed.

Maybe Yosemite represents what iOS could've looked like if they had more time (time to design, and time to reflect on the mess iOS 7 is).

Agree.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com