Apple’s Mac icon in the Tahoe has come under fire from quite a few people. Adjectives applied to them include awful, awful, amateurish, stupid, and objectively bad.
With the announcement of Apple Creator Studio, the company takes another step forward with minimal icons for creative apps, sparking more controversy…
Please note that the Apple Creative Studio (ACS) icon is not a replacement for the standard icon, but rather a specific version specific to your new subscription plan.
However, if you plot the path from each original version through the macOS 26 version to the ACS implementation, you can clearly see the trajectory from skeuomorphism to minimalism. This path was highlighted on Mastodon by BasicAppleGuy (image above).
Ben Cotterill summed up the opposition as follows:
No one knows what the icon is for now. Tron teleporter means pixel meter. The purple McDonald’s logo is in motion. The stacked wooden blocks are compressors. Signposts in the rain have something to do with music.
Héliographe goes even further in a post on Threads.
John Gruber agrees.
Going back in time, the icons on each previous page were more detailed and looked cooler. And if you go back to the original Pages icon, it definitely belongs in the pantheon of app icons.
On the latter point, I wholeheartedly agree with him. The original Pages icon is certainly a classic, and I still have great affection for it.
But I’m not sure if the overall criticism is directed towards this trend. Indeed, it’s virtually impossible to guess what those apps represent unless you know them well. But that’s honestly true of so many icons, and forever will be.
Most icons only have meaning to us because we already know what they are. For example, the compass icon in Safari. If you’ve never seen it before and don’t know what it stands for, you have no idea it’s a web browser. If you look at the icons in the dock, many of them fall into this category. Chrome, Slack, Lightroom, Photoshop, iPhone mirroring, ChatGPT, and the list goes on.
I would argue that the fact that icons have no clear meaning is not important. We can immediately know what the icon represents. The important thing is that each icon is immediately distinguishable from the others.
For me, the ACS icon passed that test thanks to its visually distinct identity and good color spread. Once you understand what each one represents, I feel there is no danger of forgetting it. And I have to say that I find the ACS version very beautiful. If Apple had adopted these as standard, I wouldn’t have been upset at all.
My love for ink bottles aside, I generally think the later versions are better than the original, and the ACS implementation is probably the most appealing.
what is your opinion? Is Apple heading in the wrong direction or in the right direction? Take our poll and share your thoughts in the comments.
Main image: BasicAppleGuy
