Link to: https://parakeet.co/blog/the-shape-of-apps/
Louie Mantia: ‘The Shape of Apps’
Louie Mantia, with a thoughtful essay on app icon design and the squircle-jail controversy on the Parakeet blog:
It’s worth noting that some of the platform’s best icons look
worse, while some of the platform’s worst icons look better.
Ultimately this is what I object to with the squircle mandate. It favors the bottom of the heap by restricting the top. It makes bad icons mediocre but pushes great icons toward mediocrity too. That’s not The Macintosh Way.
Shape was often the most iconic thing about an icon. Now it’s no part at all.
App icons in MacOS are not mere buttons. You can drag them, move them, and drop things on them. You click them to select, and…
This weekend, I was wrapping up a new release of Iris and decided to have some fun with the app icon.
Rogue Amoeba’s Paul Kafasis is encouraged by the interface improvements Apple is making in macOS 27, but points out that there’s…
Link to: https://daringfireball.net/2026/07/whats_good_for_the_ios_goose_is_often_not_good_for_the_macos_gander
Link to: https://onefoottsunami.com/2025/11/05/tahoes-terrible-icons/
