[cycomanic]

Why are people arguing that icons should be intuitively tell you what the app is about? Since when was that the goal of an icon (in paritucal an app icon)? It should be easily distinguishable from other icons. If I don't know what the icon means it will take me exactly 1s to find out by clicking on it, after that I will know what the app icon is for, and I only care if I can distinguish it easily from other icons, so I don't accidentally start a different app.

[fc417fc802]

I strongly agree. But (having just replied to someone else about ideography) it leads to an interesting thought. Once you learn them the app icons become a shared legible writing system. Going to drive to the store? Go lang, Google Drive, Play Store. You get the idea.

It's a trademark violating abomination but I think we ought to give it a try.

[VerifiedReports]

You must be a huge fan of purposefully obscure HN titles.

And Concentration. Click on the giraffe to get to the Print dialog!

Hm... what was the Print dialog hidden under again?

[qingcharles]

My language app is an owl.

My web browser is a fox curled up.

My media player is a traffic cone.

Out of the 40 app icons on my taskbar, maybe three of them remotely indicate the product's purpose.

[pibaker]

You have to wonder if the people so performatively mad about incomprehensible "modern" logos feel similarly about VLC player or foobar2000.

It all seems to be just the prevalent anti-big tech cynicism finding an easily upvoted outlet.

[dd8601fn]

I don’t think this is just how it should be… I think it’s how things already are.

I looked back at the old “back when they were good!” examples and realized that six of them could be the same app and none of us would know.

I used those icons (and their applications), and I’m far enough removed in time to not remember which was which.

All of this only further cements the idea that the users bring way more to this than the supposed design theories.

But we sure do like the idea of modern masters reaching into the human psyche with phenomenally intuitive icon design.

[wtetzner]

I guess that would be fine if the icon for a given app didn't keep changing.

[rpdillon]

Apple's HIG:

- clearly represent the document the application creates

- use graphics that convey meaning about what your application does

[VerifiedReports]

Apple's guidelines have long been flouted by Apple itself, not to mention that they're replete with stupid ideas.

I've developed a few iOS apps, and one of my favorite Apple "guidelines" (which they essentially enforced at the OS level without developer choice) was that, upon launch, your app should show a fake UI while doing startup tasks in the background. The recommendation was part of Apple's admonishment against splash screens. Think about how dumb this is, and how it makes your app look inept. Apparently plenty of developers did, and shunned this dumb idea; because Apple then forced it on developers whenever technically possible.

Upon your app going into the background or being kicked out of memory, Apple will take a screenshot of what your app is showing. When the user returns to your application, Apple will present this old screen shot; but none of the controls on it will work. The user can tap away furiously, but nothing will happen. When the app returns to functionality, the screen will be replaced by the real UI.

The problem here goes beyond ineptitude into a major privacy issue. You can think you "closed" or changed what an application is showing before handing your device to someone, only to find that Apple still shows a screen shot of its old contents in the open-apps stack. This could be a disaster.

[Aeglaecia]

why shouldn't an icon be at least partially skeuomorphic?