Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [MUSIC]

00:00:09 ◼   ► From Relay, this is Upgrade, Episode 526 for August 26th, 2024.

00:00:16 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Vitaly and Ladder.

00:00:19 ◼   ► My name is Mike Hurley. I'm joined by Jason Snow. Hi, Jason.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Hello, Mike Hurley. How are you?

00:00:24 ◼   ► Summer of fun, baby.

00:00:26 ◼   ► Summer of fun. We're doing it. We're doing it.

00:00:28 ◼   ► This might be the last summer of fun.

00:00:31 ◼   ► I know. We got to get it out now because there may be draft.

00:00:37 ◼   ► Maybe draft next week.

00:00:38 ◼   ► Marching band warming up at the North Tunnel, ready to march in for next week, maybe.

00:00:43 ◼   ► Yep. We'll find out. We'll find out.

00:00:45 ◼   ► But for now, I have a snow talk question for you. It comes from Jerry.

00:00:49 ◼   ► Jerry wants to know, "Jason, what's your meal of choice to make on the grill?"

00:00:52 ◼   ► Or do you just say, "What's your meal of choice to grill?"

00:00:55 ◼   ► To grill, you could say that, "Oh, I don't know."

00:01:00 ◼   ► Meal of choice is weird. It's not the most common, maybe, but the one that...

00:01:05 ◼   ► Marinated flank steak and corn.

00:01:08 ◼   ► Look at him. No burgers and hot dogs in the snow house.

00:01:12 ◼   ► I mean, are the burgers more common? Yes.

00:01:16 ◼   ► They're not favorite.

00:01:17 ◼   ► Or chicken. I mean, like chicken we do out there and steak we do out there.

00:01:20 ◼   ► But my favorite is the marinated flank steak.

00:01:23 ◼   ► And then you soak corn for like an hour and then you just lay it just unshucked and you lay it on the grill for like 25 minutes.

00:01:31 ◼   ► And it cooks itself. It steams up.

00:01:34 ◼   ► And then you just have corn and steak and it's great.

00:01:37 ◼   ► You eat it outside and it's wonderful.

00:01:39 ◼   ► So there. That's my answer.

00:01:40 ◼   ► Need to have a barbecue at the snails house.

00:01:44 ◼   ► One of my favorite phrases that I've heard Steven use in the past is "cook out," which I think is a thing that he said in a lot of places in the South.

00:01:53 ◼   ► I think where that's grilling, AKA what we would call barbecuing.

00:01:57 ◼   ► And I just like that. We're having a cookout.

00:01:59 ◼   ► I like that. It's a cookout.

00:02:00 ◼   ► Well, yeah, because I always think about cookouts as being like camping or something.

00:02:05 ◼   ► And maybe this is just a Steven thing. I don't know.

00:02:07 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah. Maybe.

00:02:08 ◼   ► I mean, Casey has like that favorite chain restaurant, right?

00:02:13 ◼   ► It's called Cookout, isn't it? It's the same idea.

00:02:15 ◼   ► And I expect it's based on that term, right? Which is why.

00:02:18 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:02:19 ◼   ► It's like his familial thing.

00:02:21 ◼   ► I don't know. I don't know. Grilling. Barbecuing.

00:02:26 ◼   ► I love it.

00:02:27 ◼   ► Cookout.

00:02:28 ◼   ► If you'd like to send in a question of your own to help us open a future episode of the show, go to upgradefeedback.com and send in a Snail Talk question.

00:02:37 ◼   ► Now, Jason, we have a lot of fun today, but first we have some lawyer up to do, because it's been some really interesting news in the past week or so concerning Apple and maybe their approaches to the European Union.

00:02:49 ◼   ► First off is a report from Mark Gurman, who is reporting that Matt Fisher, who has been referred to in the article as the head of the App Store business.

00:02:59 ◼   ► I think that is like a specific job title that I'm not sure we fully understand what that means, but like the business of the App Store, we'll call it.

00:03:07 ◼   ► And also Apple Arcade. Fisher is departing the company in October due to a reorganization at Apple within the App Store team.

00:03:16 ◼   ► So Fisher has been in charge of the App Store business since 2010.

00:03:21 ◼   ► After his departure in October, the App Store is going to be split into two business groups.

00:03:26 ◼   ► You have one for the App Store as we know it, the Apple App Store, and then one group in charge of alternative app stores.

00:03:34 ◼   ► Which I find fascinating.

00:03:37 ◼   ► This is like my initial read on this is like, oh, they're very aware of how much work is going to be needed for this and how prevalent it's going to become.

00:03:45 ◼   ► Right. They're going to have somebody in charge of managing the relationships, if you would call them that, I guess, and the business of alternative app stores.

00:03:55 ◼   ► Yeah. I wonder if it's going to give them a little almost like deniability where they can say, look, we, you know, we now are keeping the App Store business separate from how we deal with alternative app stores.

00:04:05 ◼   ► So we're allowing them to be sort of separate.

00:04:07 ◼   ► It's interesting. I mean, he's been in charge since 2010, but I mean, Phil Schiller has been in charge of him since 2010, right?

00:04:13 ◼   ► Like he reports to Phil Schiller and this article makes it clear again that, you know, Phil Schiller is an Apple fellow and he's ascended and is on the roof and all of that.

00:04:20 ◼   ► But like he runs the App Store.

00:04:22 ◼   ► Yeah. Mark says this was Phil's idea.

00:04:24 ◼   ► Like this is Phil's thing to split it up like this.

00:04:27 ◼   ► And it is to kind of help them navigate this climate that they found themselves in.

00:04:32 ◼   ► A really quick quote from Gohen about who's coming in.

00:04:35 ◼   ► Carson Oliver, a longtime senior director, will run the App Store group while Anne Tai, a director in charge of App Store features like search and discovery, will lead the new team responsible for alternative distribution.

00:04:47 ◼   ► Both managers will report to Schiller.

00:04:49 ◼   ► I remember Anne being in part of a presentation about Apple Arcade once.

00:04:54 ◼   ► I know that she was like, she was involved in Apple Arcade in its beginning.

00:05:00 ◼   ► But yeah, so Anne is going to be running the alternative App Store group.

00:05:05 ◼   ► Yeah, it's very interesting, right?

00:05:06 ◼   ► I wonder what this says about, is this like a little tiny corner of Apple or is it, as you said, the anticipation that this is going to be a larger issue and that they need to essentially have a team for things outside the App Store and a team for things inside the App Store?

00:05:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:05:22 ◼   ► Like, I don't know.

00:05:23 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:05:24 ◼   ► And then the big question is, is there a level of unhappiness here, of feeling like they need to reset relationships?

00:05:32 ◼   ► Phil Schiller is still in charge of it all.

00:05:33 ◼   ► So if there is a top-down approach of policy, like the guy in charge is still the guy in charge, but maybe from a lower level, kind of like how are we dealing with alternative App Stores, having a refresh with new faces, they might find that useful.

00:05:51 ◼   ► I mean, you can begrudge it, but still respect it, right?

00:05:57 ◼   ► So like, this could be a scenario where they're like, we don't want to have to do this, but we understand we need to do this.

00:06:02 ◼   ► Like, that could be what we're seeing.

00:06:04 ◼   ► Apple have also announced some changes to the way that default apps on iOS and iPadOS in the EU will work.

00:06:11 ◼   ► So previously we had the browser choice screen, which was criticized by the European Commission as not being, the design was not good enough in their opinion.

00:06:20 ◼   ► It's not good enough information.

00:06:21 ◼   ► So the browser choice screen, so when users are shown, okay, what browser do you want to use?

00:06:27 ◼   ► I'm actually not clear if this is shown as part of startup, or I guess it's shown as part of maybe startup and also when somebody upgrades to whatever version of iOS will include this.

00:06:38 ◼   ► I guess they'll be shown this as part of the onboarding.

00:06:41 ◼   ► The browser choice screen will now include more information about the apps that you'll be choosing from, like App Store descriptions and information, which is one of the,

00:06:50 ◼   ► one of those things where you read it and you're like, it's kind of funny to not even have that, just like a random set of things.

00:06:56 ◼   ► Yeah, just names.

00:06:58 ◼   ► And then when you've made that selection, the app that you choose, if you don't choose Safari, will replace Safari's position on your home screen.

00:07:06 ◼   ► Whoa.

00:07:07 ◼   ► That's interesting, right?

00:07:09 ◼   ► Like, I mean, it kind of makes logical sense too.

00:07:12 ◼   ► It's like people have Safari because it is the web browser.

00:07:16 ◼   ► If you change the web browser, you kind of swap out for whatever is going to go in its place.

00:07:21 ◼   ► So, uh, it's fun.

00:07:22 ◼   ► That interesting as well as browsers, EU users will now be able to choose default apps in the settings of their iPhone or iPad for the following categories.

00:07:31 ◼   ► Apps to make phone calls, to filter call spam, messaging, navigation, password managers, keyboards, and translating text.

00:07:41 ◼   ► You'll also be able to delete the App Store messages, camera, photos, and Safari.

00:07:45 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:07:46 ◼   ► I would love to know these changes are rolling out over the next year or so.

00:07:51 ◼   ► I think all this is fine, ultimately.

00:07:53 ◼   ► What happens if you delete the App Store though?

00:07:55 ◼   ► How do you get it back?

00:07:56 ◼   ► I think you, hmm, that's a good question.

00:08:00 ◼   ► You can't go to the App Store.

00:08:01 ◼   ► As you're going to say, the rest of them, you just go to the App Store and download them again.

00:08:05 ◼   ► If you delete the App Store.

00:08:07 ◼   ► So I wonder if there's a setting somewhere.

00:08:09 ◼   ► You just bring it back?

00:08:11 ◼   ► Return that, yeah.

00:08:14 ◼   ► I feel like it's got to be for that one.

00:08:16 ◼   ► The rest of them, fine.

00:08:17 ◼   ► You just go to the App Store and download the camera app again.

00:08:20 ◼   ► I got to say like this thing, this is good.

00:08:26 ◼   ► This is good.

00:08:27 ◼   ► Like everyone should be able to do this, I think.

00:08:30 ◼   ► It's just setting defaults and having control over your device.

00:08:33 ◼   ► It's not unreasonable.

00:08:34 ◼   ► No.

00:08:34 ◼   ► I think this is good.

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00:10:45 ◼   ► Jason, tell us what we're doing today on Upgrade for our Summer of Fun topic.

00:10:52 ◼   ► It is a thing that I've thought of for a while now that I thought we would finally do, which

00:10:58 ◼   ► is a fun thing.

00:10:59 ◼   ► Just a fun thing.

00:11:00 ◼   ► Fun thing.

00:11:01 ◼   ► A Summer of Fun thing.

00:11:02 ◼   ► Summer of Fun things.

00:11:04 ◼   ► And it's an icon tier list.

00:11:08 ◼   ► That's what it is.

00:11:10 ◼   ► It's Apple's app icons as a tier list.

00:11:15 ◼   ► All of Apple's app icons.

00:11:18 ◼   ► We're gonna do it.

00:11:19 ◼   ► Where do they belong?

00:11:21 ◼   ► Yep.

00:11:21 ◼   ► In case you don't know what a tier list is, it's like a ranking system.

00:11:25 ◼   ► There are six categories.

00:11:27 ◼   ► It starts at S rank, S A B C D F. That is kind of the standard system.

00:11:33 ◼   ► We're gonna put a link in the show notes to an image of all of our rankings completed.

00:11:38 ◼   ► So don't click that image for spoiler reasons, I guess.

00:11:42 ◼   ► And we've mentioned that we do video version of the show.

00:11:45 ◼   ► There will be in the video version on YouTube for this show, which you can go and watch

00:11:50 ◼   ► after the fact.

00:11:51 ◼   ► You could just switch over right now if you want to do that.

00:11:53 ◼   ► There will be a live video of us doing the rankings.

00:11:56 ◼   ► So Jason's operating a tier list and we're gonna put them in that ranking so you can

00:12:00 ◼   ► see exactly where they are and where we put them.

00:12:02 ◼   ► But of course, as important around these parts, we were gonna do our very best to describe

00:12:06 ◼   ► these icons to you if you don't know what they look like.

00:12:10 ◼   ► Because we're gonna judge them.

00:12:11 ◼   ► That's what we're doing.

00:12:12 ◼   ► We're judging icons.

00:12:13 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:12:14 ◼   ► And deciding how we feel about them.

00:12:15 ◼   ► All right, should we get started?

00:12:19 ◼   ► Let's get started.

00:12:20 ◼   ► What do you got for me?

00:12:21 ◼   ► First up is TestFlight.

00:12:24 ◼   ► Okay.

00:12:26 ◼   ► It's a propeller that looks kind of like a, I guess, you know, a propeller, right?

00:12:31 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a propeller because it's your flying.

00:12:33 ◼   ► This is also interesting because the original TestFlight icon was, it was an actual propeller

00:12:41 ◼   ► because it was a company.

00:12:42 ◼   ► Do you remember that?

00:12:43 ◼   ► Like TestFlight was its own thing and Apple bought it.

00:12:45 ◼   ► And then Apple maintained that branding, but they actually made the little blades on the

00:12:53 ◼   ► propeller app icons that are like a weird angle.

00:12:57 ◼   ► So I like the, I like the symbolism of this one.

00:13:03 ◼   ► It's also a developer tool.

00:13:05 ◼   ► So it's got the blueprint style that's also present on Xcode, for example.

00:13:11 ◼   ► Now we should state that we're, we need to agree to this.

00:13:15 ◼   ► This is not like a individual tier list.

00:13:18 ◼   ► No, no, no.

00:13:18 ◼   ► We have to, we have to agree about where we, where we put them.

00:13:21 ◼   ► But yeah, TestFlight.

00:13:22 ◼   ► So you're taking a TestFlight with an airplane, therefore.

00:13:25 ◼   ► I want to think of some, some like, like, you know, we're going to, this is going to adapt

00:13:30 ◼   ► as we go through, but maybe some, some rules here, like some, some guidance points, right?

00:13:34 ◼   ► So like for me, metaphor, you get, you get some, you get like a bonus for metaphor, right?

00:13:39 ◼   ► I like that.

00:13:40 ◼   ► But I wonder like single color, like, is it just blue, right?

00:13:44 ◼   ► Blue and white.

00:13:45 ◼   ► That to me, I feel like you could do more, but then the metaphor, the blueprint though,

00:13:49 ◼   ► right?

00:13:49 ◼   ► So I think we go back to metaphor again.

00:13:51 ◼   ► Ooh, this is the first one's hard.

00:13:54 ◼   ► The first one's the hardest.

00:13:55 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:13:56 ◼   ► Where are you, do you, are you leaning anywhere right now?

00:14:01 ◼   ► Category wise TestFlight?

00:14:02 ◼   ► Uh, TestFlight, I'm gonna say, I don't know.

00:14:12 ◼   ► I mean, we got, yeah, we got to start somewhere.

00:14:13 ◼   ► I think it's, I think it's not colorful, but that's fitting with their color scheme.

00:14:17 ◼   ► And I like the concept of the airplane hang, you know, uh, propellers and all that.

00:14:21 ◼   ► I'd say, I don't know.

00:14:22 ◼   ► Uh, B?

00:14:23 ◼   ► I was leaning B.

00:14:25 ◼   ► Is this what it's like?

00:14:26 ◼   ► Is it S?

00:14:27 ◼   ► No.

00:14:27 ◼   ► Is it A?

00:14:28 ◼   ► No.

00:14:28 ◼   ► And I was like, is it C?

00:14:30 ◼   ► It's also not C.

00:14:31 ◼   ► Like, I feel like it's more than a C.

00:14:32 ◼   ► So let's say B rank for TestFlight.

00:14:34 ◼   ► All right.

00:14:35 ◼   ► Awesome.

00:14:35 ◼   ► Congratulations TestFlight.

00:14:36 ◼   ► You did it.

00:14:37 ◼   ► Good job for us.

00:14:39 ◼   ► What's next?

00:14:40 ◼   ► Uh, next up, podcasts.

00:14:42 ◼   ► Oh, podcasts.

00:14:45 ◼   ► Oh, podcasts.

00:14:47 ◼   ► It's, it's purple.

00:14:49 ◼   ► There's a little person and the person is radiating waves of sound.

00:14:55 ◼   ► This icon has been around since the beginning, right?

00:14:59 ◼   ► Like this has been what podcasts has looked like kind of since the, since the beginning.

00:15:04 ◼   ► The reel to reel tape days.

00:15:07 ◼   ► Well, I mean, since the beginning of podcasting.

00:15:11 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:15:11 ◼   ► Which was the reel to reel tape.

00:15:12 ◼   ► I thought you were making a joke.

00:15:13 ◼   ► No, but that was in the podcast app.

00:15:15 ◼   ► Had a reel to reel tape in it, but I mean, like from the original iTunes on the Mac,

00:15:21 ◼   ► I think it looked like that.

00:15:23 ◼   ► I think this was kind of the iconography that Apple gave.

00:15:26 ◼   ► With a little, a little person shape or my, oh, somebody's saying, is it a person or a

00:15:30 ◼   ► microphone?

00:15:30 ◼   ► No, it's a person.

00:15:31 ◼   ► It's a person.

00:15:32 ◼   ► It's definitely a person.

00:15:33 ◼   ► That's like who would tell you where to go to the bathroom?

00:15:36 ◼   ► It's a person.

00:15:36 ◼   ► I gotta tell you, I've never liked this.

00:15:41 ◼   ► I'd never liked the icon.

00:15:43 ◼   ► Like just like the general iconography that Apple's created for podcasting.

00:15:46 ◼   ► I agree.

00:15:47 ◼   ► I don't like it.

00:15:49 ◼   ► It's not like, it literally could be this person smells.

00:15:55 ◼   ► Yeah, but it's also just waves emanating from a, this isn't how podcasts work, right?

00:16:01 ◼   ► You like, they don't like transmit from a person.

00:16:05 ◼   ► It's not like how they work.

00:16:07 ◼   ► That's how my podcasts work.

00:16:09 ◼   ► I don't know what you're talking about.

00:16:10 ◼   ► D?

00:16:17 ◼   ► Oh, wow.

00:16:19 ◼   ► D.

00:16:20 ◼   ► Well, I've done, I've labeled our tiers in the Apple rainbow colors.

00:16:24 ◼   ► So D is the purple tier.

00:16:25 ◼   ► So that's appropriate for me.

00:16:27 ◼   ► There it is.

00:16:28 ◼   ► So does that mean TestFlight needs to be an F now?

00:16:31 ◼   ► Cause you labeled the F.

00:16:32 ◼   ► No, we're not color coding them.

00:16:33 ◼   ► I'm just saying it's like, it feels like an appropriate place for podcasts.

00:16:37 ◼   ► Oh, this is so good.

00:16:38 ◼   ► Tony in Discord, social distancing the app.

00:16:42 ◼   ► It kind of is.

00:16:43 ◼   ► It kind of is.

00:16:44 ◼   ► Stay away from me.

00:16:46 ◼   ► Here's my bubble.

00:16:47 ◼   ► Don't come near me.

00:16:48 ◼   ► It kind of is.

00:16:49 ◼   ► Okay.

00:16:49 ◼   ► Next up is Stocks.

00:16:50 ◼   ► This is a, it's one of my favorite apps.

00:16:54 ◼   ► You know, I love that everybody gets a Stocks app to watch their stocks.

00:16:58 ◼   ► All right.

00:16:59 ◼   ► So here's my next question.

00:17:00 ◼   ► Can my feelings of the application influence my feelings of the icon?

00:17:06 ◼   ► I think they will.

00:17:07 ◼   ► But you know, but maybe they shouldn't as much as you can help them.

00:17:10 ◼   ► But yes, I have, I have no, I don't like, I don't like this app.

00:17:15 ◼   ► I don't like that.

00:17:17 ◼   ► It's that Apple thinks it's a standard thing.

00:17:20 ◼   ► I don't like that Apple encourages people to think short term about stock prices,

00:17:24 ◼   ► which is not a healthy way to do investing.

00:17:27 ◼   ► And this app is not colorful.

00:17:29 ◼   ► The icon, it shows a chart.

00:17:32 ◼   ► I mean, I guess I like charts.

00:17:33 ◼   ► I will point out that it's very similar to Activity Monitor,

00:17:37 ◼   ► which is a totally different use case with a totally different metaphor.

00:17:42 ◼   ► And yet they look shockingly similar.

00:17:45 ◼   ► Okay.

00:17:45 ◼   ► I'm looking at, uh, cause you know, the way that the tier list works,

00:17:48 ◼   ► you have like all of the app icons at the bottom.

00:17:51 ◼   ► Right.

00:17:51 ◼   ► And so like, I can see everything we're going to talk about and like,

00:17:54 ◼   ► there are a bunch where it's like, wow, those are shockingly similar,

00:17:59 ◼   ► but yet unrelated looking applications.

00:18:01 ◼   ► It's not an F.

00:18:07 ◼   ► No, because it's not ugly.

00:18:08 ◼   ► I feel like, no.

00:18:09 ◼   ► And like, and to their credit has been pointed out in our discord.

00:18:14 ◼   ► Um, they, they don't show it like a stock going up or a stock going down.

00:18:20 ◼   ► It's just kind of like kicking around.

00:18:21 ◼   ► I mean, I think I would probably go with C.

00:18:26 ◼   ► I like it more than podcasts because at least it's doing something.

00:18:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:30 ◼   ► It feels real generic to me.

00:18:31 ◼   ► So I think C is pretty good.

00:18:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:33 ◼   ► Oh, that's, that's a good, that's actually a pretty good, uh, way to think about C.

00:18:36 ◼   ► Right.

00:18:37 ◼   ► Like it's just like, it is average.

00:18:38 ◼   ► The cut, I like the blue that they chose.

00:18:40 ◼   ► I liked it as a little bit of detail going on.

00:18:42 ◼   ► And it also kind of shows what the application is, where a lot of these icons don't do that at all.

00:18:48 ◼   ► It does.

00:18:48 ◼   ► Like podcasts.

00:18:50 ◼   ► I come back to podcasts.

00:18:52 ◼   ► It doesn't.

00:18:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:53 ◼   ► Um, next up is watch, which shows a profile of an Apple watch with a band.

00:19:00 ◼   ► I love this icon.

00:19:03 ◼   ► A.

00:19:04 ◼   ► Yes.

00:19:04 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:19:05 ◼   ► I love this.

00:19:06 ◼   ► Does what it says on the tin for sure.

00:19:07 ◼   ► Absolutely.

00:19:08 ◼   ► And icons are iconic.

00:19:12 ◼   ► This is the iconic view of an Apple watch.

00:19:15 ◼   ► My negative about the Apple watch app icon is it's a lot of empty space, right?

00:19:22 ◼   ► Because it's the Apple watch scene profile with a band on it.

00:19:26 ◼   ► And so there's a big hole in the middle.

00:19:27 ◼   ► However, they're trying to get across the app shape, a circular app inside the round

00:19:35 ◼   ► wrecked that so many icons have.

00:19:37 ◼   ► That's what they're also going for there.

00:19:39 ◼   ► Um, so I'll go along with you.

00:19:42 ◼   ► I'll go along with a, I might've put it B, but I'll go with a.

00:19:45 ◼   ► I feel like too, like what more could you, how else could you show the Apple watch?

00:19:51 ◼   ► Right?

00:19:51 ◼   ► Like if you showed it front on, I don't think that would, it would look like a little phone.

00:19:56 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:19:57 ◼   ► Like this is like the perfect way to show the screen within a screen.

00:20:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:02 ◼   ► It's kind of weird.

00:20:02 ◼   ► It's like what's on the screen.

00:20:04 ◼   ► Like I tell you what, the only way that can make this an S rank is if the app icon was

00:20:08 ◼   ► my actual watch face.

00:20:09 ◼   ► Oh man.

00:20:11 ◼   ► Changed it.

00:20:12 ◼   ► Now that would be something else.

00:20:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:14 ◼   ► Well, and they changed the icon based on what, what a model watch you have.

00:20:18 ◼   ► Oh, that would also be good.

00:20:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:19 ◼   ► Cause like, that's not the ultra, you know, like that thing.

00:20:23 ◼   ► It's not, it's not.

00:20:25 ◼   ► But I like it.

00:20:25 ◼   ► I like that one a lot.

00:20:27 ◼   ► Let's move on to weather.

00:20:29 ◼   ► Look cloud, little blue sky going on the gradient.

00:20:33 ◼   ► There's a little, little cloud, little translucent cloud with the sun.

00:20:36 ◼   ► I don't know if I've ever noticed before until looking at it here that the cloud is translucent

00:20:43 ◼   ► with the sun poking in.

00:20:44 ◼   ► I don't know if I'd noticed that before.

00:20:45 ◼   ► I mean, I don't use the weather app, right?

00:20:47 ◼   ► I use Carrot.

00:20:48 ◼   ► It's like, I don't get to see this icon a lot.

00:20:50 ◼   ► I mean, it's cute, right?

00:20:55 ◼   ► I think it's really good.

00:20:56 ◼   ► I think that this says weather.

00:20:57 ◼   ► I think, I think it's, it's cute.

00:20:59 ◼   ► And I think that it's pretty.

00:21:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:01 ◼   ► And I think it, it, it gets across exactly what the app is, which is, is it cloudy, partly

00:21:08 ◼   ► cloudy, sunny.

00:21:09 ◼   ► I think it's really nice.

00:21:10 ◼   ► It sounds like we're going somewhere weather.

00:21:13 ◼   ► It sounds like we're going somewhere.

00:21:15 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:21:17 ◼   ► I mean, I, I feel more positive about it.

00:21:19 ◼   ► I mean, I also use third-party weather apps, but like as a, as an icon to say, this app

00:21:24 ◼   ► shows you the weather.

00:21:25 ◼   ► I think it's really good.

00:21:26 ◼   ► Is it an S though?

00:21:28 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:21:30 ◼   ► What do you think?

00:21:30 ◼   ► Uh, I think it's the best, best one of the five we've seen so far.

00:21:33 ◼   ► I would be, here's what I'll say.

00:21:36 ◼   ► Let's just give ourselves the opportunity at the very end.

00:21:39 ◼   ► If we want to reshuffle any.

00:21:42 ◼   ► Okay.

00:21:43 ◼   ► That's fair.

00:21:43 ◼   ► That's fine.

00:21:44 ◼   ► I would say this is an S this is an S.

00:21:47 ◼   ► Okay.

00:21:48 ◼   ► For these reasons, like it is not dramatic, right?

00:21:51 ◼   ► But like it is as good a job, I think, as you could do to show a weather app.

00:21:58 ◼   ► And they also take it a step further.

00:22:01 ◼   ► Like that cloud does not need to be translucent and it would get the job done, but like they,

00:22:06 ◼   ► they have done, they've gone a little bit extra on it and I like that.

00:22:09 ◼   ► And also the gradient of the blue is real good.

00:22:11 ◼   ► It's real pretty.

00:22:12 ◼   ► It's a great icon.

00:22:13 ◼   ► Good icon.

00:22:14 ◼   ► Okay.

00:22:16 ◼   ► Voice memos, everybody's favorite voice memos next.

00:22:19 ◼   ► It's a wave form with like a play head in it and it's like a colored on one side and

00:22:26 ◼   ► it's like a colored on one side and a white on the other side on black background.

00:22:32 ◼   ► Like so many utilities are.

00:22:33 ◼   ► Is this actually how the app works?

00:22:37 ◼   ► Like, is it red and white on the other side?

00:22:42 ◼   ► I think the color scheme is.

00:22:45 ◼   ► I think the color scheme matches, but, um, you know, it's not how the app works.

00:22:53 ◼   ► I need to go to voice memos and see.

00:22:54 ◼   ► Okay.

00:22:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:22:55 ◼   ► This is going to be important to my rank.

00:22:57 ◼   ► You refer back.

00:22:58 ◼   ► All right.

00:22:58 ◼   ► All right.

00:22:59 ◼   ► Voice memos.

00:23:01 ◼   ► There's no wave form in the app at all.

00:23:03 ◼   ► Now when you record, does it show you a little wave form?

00:23:07 ◼   ► Oh, that's a good point.

00:23:08 ◼   ► Let me record something.

00:23:09 ◼   ► Yeah, it does.

00:23:11 ◼   ► And it's red.

00:23:13 ◼   ► I can see that, but like there's no white part.

00:23:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:17 ◼   ► That's affected my ranking.

00:23:19 ◼   ► Okay.

00:23:21 ◼   ► What are you thinking?

00:23:21 ◼   ► See.

00:23:23 ◼   ► Uh, here's where I started.

00:23:25 ◼   ► This is very similar to stocks for me.

00:23:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:28 ◼   ► Right.

00:23:28 ◼   ► But I thought if it was like a little indication of like what the app looked like in use, then

00:23:34 ◼   ► I would want to bump it up one.

00:23:36 ◼   ► But it's only partly that because.

00:23:39 ◼   ► You know, there was like, oh, I thought that would be cute.

00:23:43 ◼   ► Right.

00:23:43 ◼   ► But instead they've kind of, they've pushed it a little bit, a little bit too far for

00:23:46 ◼   ► me.

00:23:47 ◼   ► So I think it bumps it down.

00:23:48 ◼   ► I agree with you.

00:23:49 ◼   ► I also don't like how generic some of Apple's app icons are.

00:23:52 ◼   ► I think it's almost too cute because regular people don't know about audio waveforms.

00:23:56 ◼   ► Yes.

00:23:58 ◼   ► You know, honestly, a microphone, like a little microphone might do a better job for this,

00:24:03 ◼   ► to be honest.

00:24:04 ◼   ► Yep.

00:24:05 ◼   ► Okay.

00:24:07 ◼   ► Calculator.

00:24:09 ◼   ► Calculator.

00:24:18 ◼   ► So Zach in the discord has provided an important piece of followup, which you can actually,

00:24:22 ◼   ► I don't know how they did this, but got a waveform view in the voicemail of his app,

00:24:27 ◼   ► but it's still not red.

00:24:28 ◼   ► So it doesn't count for me.

00:24:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:30 ◼   ► I just don't think, I think, I think waveform in general is a thing that people don't care

00:24:34 ◼   ► about.

00:24:35 ◼   ► They just want to record their audio.

00:24:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:36 ◼   ► I think C is good.

00:24:37 ◼   ► I think C is good for, especially for that reason too.

00:24:40 ◼   ► Calculator.

00:24:41 ◼   ► Calculator.

00:24:41 ◼   ► It's a cute little calculator with not that many of the things that you can do.

00:24:45 ◼   ► It's a cute little calculator with not very many, not enough buttons to do all the numbers.

00:24:50 ◼   ► Not a good calculator.

00:24:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:51 ◼   ► We can start with that.

00:24:53 ◼   ► Not a good calculator.

00:24:54 ◼   ► Calculator, I think, is important in its design because there are quite a few apps that are

00:25:01 ◼   ► like this, which are like, here's gray with a simplified thing on top.

00:25:06 ◼   ► You can tell it's a calculator.

00:25:09 ◼   ► You can tell it's a calculator.

00:25:10 ◼   ► I don't know why it has a space bar, I guess.

00:25:14 ◼   ► It's got like a double wide one just for variety.

00:25:17 ◼   ► Zero, right?

00:25:18 ◼   ► Like that is the zero.

00:25:19 ◼   ► Yeah, the zero is double wide in the actual app itself.

00:25:24 ◼   ► Okay.

00:25:25 ◼   ► And then it's got the colored buttons down the side and then the other buttons are generic.

00:25:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:31 ◼   ► So it's following like the Braun calculator that the calculator design emulates.

00:25:35 ◼   ► I wanted to knock it down for the not having enough numbers, but really that's kind of

00:25:43 ◼   ► silly because what are they going to do?

00:25:44 ◼   ► Then you wouldn't be able to see them anymore.

00:25:46 ◼   ► I think this is like a, I would, I would B grade this maybe.

00:25:50 ◼   ► What do you think?

00:25:52 ◼   ► I think it's an A.

00:25:53 ◼   ► Okay.

00:25:54 ◼   ► And the reason is because I think it pops a little bit, right?

00:25:59 ◼   ► Which is hard to do because it's just sort of like black on the gray background, but

00:26:02 ◼   ► it pops a little bit and it's 100% clear what this is.

00:26:06 ◼   ► This is not a metaphor.

00:26:08 ◼   ► It's not like numbers flying through space or something.

00:26:11 ◼   ► It's a calculator.

00:26:13 ◼   ► And it's pretty, here's what I say.

00:26:15 ◼   ► The orange, the orange puts it to a right.

00:26:20 ◼   ► Like, cause I think that's a little flare.

00:26:22 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm good with that.

00:26:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:26:24 ◼   ► I'm good with that.

00:26:24 ◼   ► Calculator head to the A tier.

00:26:27 ◼   ► Congrats calculator.

00:26:28 ◼   ► Hey Mike, remember when you got an envelope in the mail?

00:26:34 ◼   ► All right.

00:26:35 ◼   ► F well, it's time for the mail icon.

00:26:37 ◼   ► F we need to make a statement here.

00:26:41 ◼   ► Like, I'm sorry, Apple, right?

00:26:43 ◼   ► You didn't make this happen, but the fact that email is an envelope.

00:26:49 ◼   ► It's just ridiculous that we do that.

00:26:52 ◼   ► Like everyone does this, every app, every email app is some piece of paper, which just

00:26:57 ◼   ► doesn't make any sense.

00:26:58 ◼   ► It's like the save icon be on a floppy disk at this point.

00:27:01 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:27:02 ◼   ► Honestly, I think worse even because like the floppy disk thing, that's just save, right?

00:27:07 ◼   ► Envelopes that exist in the world, right?

00:27:09 ◼   ► Like, yes, that's true.

00:27:11 ◼   ► And I just also as well, this is like the worst version of this icon that could be bad.

00:27:18 ◼   ► Okay.

00:27:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:27:18 ◼   ► This is what I was going to say is, and Zach points out in the discord that, uh, on the

00:27:22 ◼   ► Mac, it used to be a postage stamp and here's the thing.

00:27:24 ◼   ► I know that's also literal.

00:27:26 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:27:26 ◼   ► I know that it's also literal, but it's got personality and it's about a detail and it's

00:27:31 ◼   ► about the metaphor here.

00:27:33 ◼   ► This is the laziest mail icon you could possibly come up with.

00:27:37 ◼   ► It's the back of a folded envelope, the color of the seams or the stroke on the shape of

00:27:47 ◼   ► the envelope is the blue color.

00:27:49 ◼   ► Which just doesn't make any logical sense.

00:27:51 ◼   ► The background gradient that's here.

00:27:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:27:55 ◼   ► It is, uh, it's bad philosophically and execution wise.

00:28:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:04 ◼   ► So I agree.

00:28:04 ◼   ► I'm going to miss one and a half.

00:28:06 ◼   ► Look at this list.

00:28:07 ◼   ► We're setting the precedent.

00:28:09 ◼   ► We are setting a precedent here.

00:28:10 ◼   ► Just looking at some of these things around.

00:28:14 ◼   ► No, no, it's fine.

00:28:15 ◼   ► I actually think the precedent might be mostly okay for like some of these especially iOS

00:28:21 ◼   ► icons, like some of the iOS system apps.

00:28:23 ◼   ► We'll see where we end up, but I think what really pushes this is that envelopes and email,

00:28:31 ◼   ► like they should not be together.

00:28:32 ◼   ► Like it's not Apple's fault.

00:28:34 ◼   ► I agree.

00:28:34 ◼   ► Maybe, or maybe it is Apple's fault.

00:28:36 ◼   ► I don't know who did this first.

00:28:37 ◼   ► I feel like there's an envelope metaphor icon that would be better than this.

00:28:41 ◼   ► And also again, the example of the Mac mail is a good one, which is a stamp with an Eagle

00:28:46 ◼   ► on it and stuff.

00:28:46 ◼   ► It's like, I know that's kind of wild, but at the same time, it's also like so far removed

00:28:52 ◼   ► that at least you're making an effort to sort of like create some sort of abstract idea.

00:28:56 ◼   ► Whereas this is just, Oh yeah.

00:28:58 ◼   ► What if it's just a super generic envelope?

00:29:01 ◼   ► Yay.

00:29:02 ◼   ► That's closed.

00:29:03 ◼   ► I would say like MimeStream, MimeStream did a, does a good job.

00:29:06 ◼   ► Like there's an, it's an interesting looking thing at least.

00:29:09 ◼   ► Well, MimeStream, so for people who don't know, MimeStream on the Mac, it has the round

00:29:13 ◼   ► rect that apps are supposed to have.

00:29:15 ◼   ► The round rect is an envelope and come and it's got the envelope is open.

00:29:21 ◼   ► So the top of it is the top of the round rect and the bottom of it, it's got the little

00:29:25 ◼   ► V fold, but it's open.

00:29:27 ◼   ► And inside is a message, is a letter.

00:29:31 ◼   ► And like, it's so much better.

00:29:33 ◼   ► It's so much better.

00:29:34 ◼   ► Come on.

00:29:35 ◼   ► Like I don't like sparks icon, but it's still, it's a paper plane.

00:29:40 ◼   ► Like that's still better.

00:29:41 ◼   ► Like a paper plane is better than an envelope.

00:29:43 ◼   ► I know.

00:29:44 ◼   ► I know.

00:29:46 ◼   ► All right.

00:29:47 ◼   ► Calendar.

00:29:49 ◼   ► It's the date calendar is like a round rect with the date.

00:29:54 ◼   ► Calendar is a bad icon, like visually, but super useful.

00:30:00 ◼   ► Super functional.

00:30:01 ◼   ► I know.

00:30:01 ◼   ► Well, I think, I think this is one of the shame of, uh, Apple and how it does icons

00:30:06 ◼   ► is that I believe other apps when they're closed, can't update their icon, but calendar

00:30:11 ◼   ► can, which really, I think that's true.

00:30:13 ◼   ► I think that's still true, but I like it.

00:30:16 ◼   ► I like it.

00:30:17 ◼   ► I like the idea of it as being information that's helpful to you.

00:30:23 ◼   ► If that makes sense.

00:30:25 ◼   ► Now tell me this the first iPhone, uh, the calendar.

00:30:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:30:32 ◼   ► The calendar didn't do this, right?

00:30:34 ◼   ► Like this got added and like, what's so incredible.

00:30:39 ◼   ► Well, you know what?

00:30:40 ◼   ► It may have done it actually, because like I'm looking at some images now and they've

00:30:44 ◼   ► got different numbers on them.

00:30:46 ◼   ► So I don't know when this, when maybe the first icon or first calendar or first app

00:30:51 ◼   ► did that on the iPhone.

00:30:53 ◼   ► On the Mac, I should say on the Mac, it's got a red, uh, portion at the top that has

00:30:59 ◼   ► the M like the month on it.

00:31:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:02 ◼   ► And on the, I, on the iPhone, it's a white and it's got the date, the day on it, but

00:31:08 ◼   ► they're similar.

00:31:09 ◼   ► They're in the ballpark.

00:31:09 ◼   ► I like honestly, like maybe the only ones I actually liked the original looking at it.

00:31:14 ◼   ► The original iPhone one was nicer than this one where it was that it was a big red portion.

00:31:18 ◼   ► It had the day and then the number like the new one, it's a little bit bland.

00:31:23 ◼   ► Little bit watch washed out.

00:31:25 ◼   ► It's just like, not very, I, you know, it's just not for me now.

00:31:29 ◼   ► It's like a little bit compared to some of Apple's other icons.

00:31:32 ◼   ► I think it's lacking detail, but I like the functionality.

00:31:35 ◼   ► The utility is really, really good.

00:31:37 ◼   ► Like really good.

00:31:39 ◼   ► So B, C.

00:31:43 ◼   ► Let's do B.

00:31:45 ◼   ► Let's do B.

00:31:46 ◼   ► This could so easily have been an A if it just, it just like had a visual flare of some

00:31:51 ◼   ► kind, like of any kind.

00:31:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:54 ◼   ► Like I, I really am not an iOS six icon person.

00:32:00 ◼   ► Like I know that these people exist.

00:32:02 ◼   ► They want that style back and I don't because everything looks dark and gross and muddy.

00:32:07 ◼   ► But this is one room.

00:32:09 ◼   ► Like, oh, I think they lost something, but by losing the color and she's saying something.

00:32:13 ◼   ► I don't need to see the ripped top of the page.

00:32:16 ◼   ► No.

00:32:17 ◼   ► And I don't need to see the stitching on the leather binding.

00:32:20 ◼   ► No.

00:32:21 ◼   ► But having it just be a white background, at least on the Mac, it's not.

00:32:24 ◼   ► It's just too plain.

00:32:25 ◼   ► You're totally right.

00:32:26 ◼   ► The Mac one, the Mac one, I would, I would give that an A.

00:32:29 ◼   ► But we're, we're judging.

00:32:32 ◼   ► We can, I, I sort of picked haphazardly from iOS and Mac.

00:32:35 ◼   ► So, um, I think it's A or B.

00:32:37 ◼   ► I think it's one of those.

00:32:38 ◼   ► No, let's do B because like they should, it should be the same everywhere.

00:32:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:32:45 ◼   ► B stands for be better on iOS.

00:32:47 ◼   ► Okay.

00:32:48 ◼   ► Contacts, this is, um, an icon that exists.

00:32:52 ◼   ► It is a gray with a person circle in it, a circle with their head and the top of their

00:32:58 ◼   ► weird oval body.

00:33:00 ◼   ► And then on the side, they're like little tabs.

00:33:02 ◼   ► Cause it's like a, like an address book kind of thing where the tabs are references and

00:33:06 ◼   ► the tabs are colorful.

00:33:07 ◼   ► Why don't, why don't people have necks?

00:33:10 ◼   ► Because their heads float magically above their bodies in the generic.

00:33:15 ◼   ► It's just like, you know, bathrooms and stuff.

00:33:17 ◼   ► Depicts a human of which there are multiple, they never have a neck.

00:33:22 ◼   ► Why is that?

00:33:24 ◼   ► Because they don't on like bathroom signs and stuff, the generic kind of like human

00:33:29 ◼   ► body that you see on like crosswalks and bathroom signs and all that.

00:33:32 ◼   ► They all are kind of like the, the neck is hard to draw and makes it a little less clean.

00:33:37 ◼   ► So they, they don't.

00:33:38 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:33:39 ◼   ► They don't, but it's an interesting idea.

00:33:41 ◼   ► Good question.

00:33:41 ◼   ► Good question, Mike.

00:33:42 ◼   ► Why don't people have necks?

00:33:46 ◼   ► I'm just asking questions here.

00:33:47 ◼   ► What do you think about contacts?

00:33:49 ◼   ► I like the color in the little like thumb tabs on the side.

00:33:56 ◼   ► I like that they did that.

00:33:57 ◼   ► That's the best thing about it.

00:33:58 ◼   ► That's a nice touch to it.

00:34:00 ◼   ► And I would say for representing, it's like what this is representing is like your address

00:34:08 ◼   ► book.

00:34:08 ◼   ► Right.

00:34:09 ◼   ► And I, and I do think of the, the kind of representations kind of, kind of thing.

00:34:14 ◼   ► I think this does a good job of it.

00:34:16 ◼   ► Like it's not going too far, but also the idea of having contacts is such an old thing

00:34:21 ◼   ► anyway.

00:34:21 ◼   ► Like it's like such a weird thing that I'm actually ever making the choice to save my

00:34:27 ◼   ► contacts.

00:34:28 ◼   ► And so, but, but I think that the imagery of this is, is good enough, especially because

00:34:33 ◼   ► the app itself, while it doesn't have like the colored tabs, it is still kind of organized

00:34:38 ◼   ► in the alphabetized way on the right hand side.

00:34:40 ◼   ► Right.

00:34:40 ◼   ► Like you're still kind of, so it is evoking that.

00:34:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:34:45 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:34:45 ◼   ► At the moment I'm leaning towards B because I really like the colors that they chose.

00:34:51 ◼   ► I agree with you.

00:34:54 ◼   ► This is a boring icon for a boring app, which is fine.

00:34:57 ◼   ► And then they put a little flare in the colors and that for me is enough to elevate it above

00:35:01 ◼   ► C to B.

00:35:03 ◼   ► Cause they could have just made this just a gray round right with the person in the middle.

00:35:07 ◼   ► They could have, and they added a little flare.

00:35:10 ◼   ► They did something.

00:35:11 ◼   ► They did something.

00:35:12 ◼   ► We should be clear, we're also just doing the light mode and mostly iOS with some Mac

00:35:15 ◼   ► apps at the end.

00:35:16 ◼   ► So there are variations.

00:35:17 ◼   ► We're not going to talk about them.

00:35:18 ◼   ► If you want to see the exact ones, we are like, that will be in the screenshot that

00:35:22 ◼   ► we put in the notes and also the video.

00:35:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:25 ◼   ► Okay.

00:35:27 ◼   ► FaceTime.

00:35:28 ◼   ► So this is the precedent I was talking about.

00:35:32 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:35:33 ◼   ► FaceTime is just what?

00:35:35 ◼   ► An old school film camera.

00:35:36 ◼   ► It's like an old movie camera or camcorder with a big old lens and then a rectangle and

00:35:43 ◼   ► it's sitting inside a big green gradient bound rect and that's FaceTime.

00:35:48 ◼   ► So let's think about this for a second, right?

00:35:51 ◼   ► Okay.

00:35:51 ◼   ► All right.

00:35:52 ◼   ► How else would you do this?

00:35:54 ◼   ► What else could you do?

00:35:55 ◼   ► It depends.

00:35:59 ◼   ► I mean, it depends on the era, but you could show a face.

00:36:01 ◼   ► With another face in the corner, right?

00:36:04 ◼   ► Like you could.

00:36:05 ◼   ► You could.

00:36:06 ◼   ► You could maybe smiling.

00:36:07 ◼   ► But like you could just have like a body and then have a smaller body in a box, right?

00:36:14 ◼   ► Like it could just look like a FaceTime call, right?

00:36:16 ◼   ► Like, and then that makes it sound like that's quite some small detail, but there's lots

00:36:19 ◼   ► of small details.

00:36:20 ◼   ► Look at the calculator, right?

00:36:22 ◼   ► It's a tiny little box.

00:36:23 ◼   ► Yeah, this is silly, really.

00:36:26 ◼   ► Like this one might be worse than male in its own ways.

00:36:32 ◼   ► So I think we're, um, in the interest of expediency, I'm going to move us along and

00:36:35 ◼   ► just say, um, I agree.

00:36:38 ◼   ► I think this is a failure.

00:36:39 ◼   ► I think it's one of Apple's older icons and they've done a bad job, uh, letting it sit

00:36:44 ◼   ► there the way it is.

00:36:45 ◼   ► And I think they probably think, well, it's for continuity reasons.

00:36:47 ◼   ► We got to keep it that way.

00:36:48 ◼   ► And I say, I say, no, I think the, I do think just like the envelope, the movie camera representing

00:36:56 ◼   ► video as a thing is a mistake.

00:36:58 ◼   ► I think you need to not do it that way.

00:37:01 ◼   ► And so, um, uh, fail see me after class.

00:37:05 ◼   ► Can I make a suggestion at this point?

00:37:07 ◼   ► Yes.

00:37:08 ◼   ► Should we lightning round the similar ones?

00:37:11 ◼   ► Uh, we can, if you, uh, yeah, let's do, let's do, we're going to go on a little green binge

00:37:18 ◼   ► here, everybody.

00:37:19 ◼   ► I think that's what you mean.

00:37:20 ◼   ► And if you don't mean it well, well, that's what we're doing anyway.

00:37:23 ◼   ► Messages.

00:37:24 ◼   ► F.

00:37:25 ◼   ► Cause like, iMessage is blue.

00:37:30 ◼   ► Oh, well, oh, that's a hundred percent.

00:37:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:37:31 ◼   ► But I mean, well, they get in trouble with a regulator for having a RCS green, not be

00:37:36 ◼   ► represented properly in the icon.

00:37:38 ◼   ► Should it be the color of the message you received most recently?

00:37:41 ◼   ► Not even the shape of the bubbles.

00:37:43 ◼   ► I don't like this one.

00:37:46 ◼   ► I think it's an F.

00:37:46 ◼   ► Okay.

00:37:49 ◼   ► I'll go with you.

00:37:49 ◼   ► I might, I might be persuaded to D, but, um, but I see what you're saying.

00:37:54 ◼   ► I see what you're saying.

00:37:55 ◼   ► Cause, okay.

00:37:56 ◼   ► So next up, should we say phone?

00:37:57 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:00 ◼   ► I would put phone in D.

00:38:04 ◼   ► I agree.

00:38:06 ◼   ► It's okay.

00:38:10 ◼   ► I have a few thoughts here and I know that it's hard.

00:38:13 ◼   ► I know that it's hard.

00:38:14 ◼   ► And I know a lot of people don't use their phone as a phone and maybe the people who

00:38:18 ◼   ► use their phone as a phone and use the phone app, think of phones and think of a phone

00:38:22 ◼   ► that looks like a, uh, uh, a phone from the eighties without the cord or a cordless phone,

00:38:29 ◼   ► but the cordless phones often had like a little antenna at the top and it's not that either.

00:38:33 ◼   ► And I think a lot of people would look at this and go, I don't know what this is.

00:38:36 ◼   ► Is this a C is it like a little man laying back on a, I, what is it?

00:38:41 ◼   ► It's a, it's a telephone handset from the before times.

00:38:46 ◼   ► And I don't know.

00:38:49 ◼   ► I, I get why they're doing it.

00:38:50 ◼   ► And, and I'm not sure what's better here, but it also feels really wrong.

00:38:55 ◼   ► Here's what I like about this icon and why I actually think that it works better than

00:38:58 ◼   ► some of the other ones.

00:38:59 ◼   ► And I might even be, I may even be talking myself up from D they use that icon to mean

00:39:04 ◼   ► answer this call.

00:39:05 ◼   ► It's the same icon and it's, that's true.

00:39:08 ◼   ► Right.

00:39:08 ◼   ► So like, that's true.

00:39:09 ◼   ► You don't need to know what a phone is, but you're like, oh, that's the answer.

00:39:13 ◼   ► The call icon, right?

00:39:15 ◼   ► Where like mail and FaceTime and messages don't look like in the applications, the things

00:39:21 ◼   ► that they put on the icons.

00:39:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:39:23 ◼   ► What I would say is they, they may need to uncouple this metaphor because it is rapidly

00:39:27 ◼   ► becoming floppy disk, right?

00:39:30 ◼   ► People understand what floppy disk is, but they don't know what it, what it means, but

00:39:33 ◼   ► not what it is.

00:39:34 ◼   ► And I look at this and I think, I get why it's the way it is, which is why I don't think

00:39:38 ◼   ► it's an F but I, I think to myself, um, one, it, it gets dragged down by being part of

00:39:43 ◼   ► Apple's generic green icon group.

00:39:47 ◼   ► And two, it is when you start to think about it, it's like, it doesn't express anything

00:39:52 ◼   ► about how that app is used today in terms of being a communication app over the phone

00:39:58 ◼   ► system to make a voice call.

00:40:00 ◼   ► And I, you know, maybe I'm willing to hear that the best they can do is this and that's

00:40:09 ◼   ► fine, but I don't think that that makes it any better than a D or maybe a C just because

00:40:13 ◼   ► this is the best it can be.

00:40:15 ◼   ► I don't think that makes it good enough.

00:40:17 ◼   ► Also, several people in the discord have mentioned, there could be some whimsy here.

00:40:21 ◼   ► You can make it more like a toy phone or something.

00:40:23 ◼   ► And instead it's this super simplified streamline.

00:40:27 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:40:27 ◼   ► I think that the problem is nobody under a certain age knows what a telephone is anymore.

00:40:32 ◼   ► You can make it a phone booth.

00:40:33 ◼   ► That's why I like that at least this icon is represented inside of the phone app.

00:40:38 ◼   ► You know, I know the calculator might cause some confusion here, but even having it be

00:40:42 ◼   ► like a dial pad with kind of that kind of thing might be a better metaphor here than

00:40:47 ◼   ► the phone, right?

00:40:48 ◼   ► That you're dialing a phone number kind of thing?

00:40:50 ◼   ► Yeah, that could.

00:40:51 ◼   ► It's old school.

00:40:52 ◼   ► Like if it looked like the UI of making a phone call.

00:40:55 ◼   ► I would say D.

00:40:56 ◼   ► I think it's better than the other ones of which it is in the group with, which is mail,

00:41:01 ◼   ► FaceTime and messages.

00:41:02 ◼   ► Are there others you want to clean up here or were those the ones you were thinking of?

00:41:05 ◼   ► Those were the ones.

00:41:06 ◼   ► Like they're the like the system and also they were like, it goes with mail.

00:41:10 ◼   ► It's like the system, basic things where they just have the most basic.

00:41:14 ◼   ► The greenies.

00:41:15 ◼   ► So those greenies, they like that.

00:41:17 ◼   ► All right, music.

00:41:17 ◼   ► Red music.

00:41:19 ◼   ► Remember when they changed the music app icon a few times?

00:41:24 ◼   ► Made it white.

00:41:25 ◼   ► You know, they've done this.

00:41:28 ◼   ► I miss that one.

00:41:30 ◼   ► The one that was white with the colored music note.

00:41:32 ◼   ► That was better looking than the like pink with the white music note.

00:41:35 ◼   ► So Apple has done, Apple suffers here from a decision that they made, which is every

00:41:39 ◼   ► app should really basically just sit on a round rec and have a thing inside of it.

00:41:43 ◼   ► And so here it is.

00:41:45 ◼   ► It's a musical note.

00:41:46 ◼   ► And I know it's iTunes and Apple music branding and all of that.

00:41:51 ◼   ► And I think it does the job in terms of being recognition.

00:41:55 ◼   ► But can I just say as somebody who took piano lessons for many years, I don't really like

00:42:01 ◼   ► the musical note as a way to play your popular music.

00:42:07 ◼   ► I don't love it as a metaphor.

00:42:10 ◼   ► Honestly, I don't know.

00:42:13 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, they could have given like, why did they not try and give this a visual

00:42:18 ◼   ► brand of its own?

00:42:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:42:20 ◼   ► You know?

00:42:20 ◼   ► Right?

00:42:20 ◼   ► Yeah, this is really love.

00:42:23 ◼   ► Right?

00:42:23 ◼   ► Like, I mean, they had to steal it from GarageBand.

00:42:26 ◼   ► But what if it was like an Apple logo and like a guitar or something?

00:42:29 ◼   ► It'd be like, we're playing your music here, man.

00:42:31 ◼   ► Instead, it's like, no, it's a couple of eighth notes.

00:42:39 ◼   ► Yay.

00:42:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, D?

00:42:44 ◼   ► Because I at least like the color.

00:42:49 ◼   ► Yeah, sure.

00:42:51 ◼   ► But it's not the best.

00:42:52 ◼   ► Yeah, it's not the best.

00:42:53 ◼   ► All right.

00:42:54 ◼   ► Apple TV.

00:42:56 ◼   ► It's a round record, but you see the Apple TV is itself a round record.

00:43:01 ◼   ► And then on the top of it, there is an Apple logo and the letters TV saying,

00:43:07 ◼   ► Apple TV saying, this is literally, you don't even need to look below me to see what my icon is.

00:43:13 ◼   ► You know who I am because my icon just says what I am.

00:43:16 ◼   ► Jason, this was going to be an F, but you just bumped it up for me.

00:43:20 ◼   ► Well, this is the thing.

00:43:23 ◼   ► I think on one level, it's entirely uninspiring.

00:43:26 ◼   ► On another level though, it matches the hardware.

00:43:28 ◼   ► And I kind of like it for that.

00:43:29 ◼   ► Which is unnecessary and that it's very clear what it is because they literally put the

00:43:34 ◼   ► label in the icon, which is cheating and yet also clear.

00:43:38 ◼   ► C?

00:43:39 ◼   ► C or D?

00:43:44 ◼   ► I think C.

00:43:45 ◼   ► I think for functionality, I'm going to put it at C and I know people are going to be mad.

00:43:48 ◼   ► I think as a work of art, it's terrible, but as a functional piece of information design,

00:43:54 ◼   ► I think it's actually very good.

00:43:55 ◼   ► So I like that it's fun because it looks like how the Apple TV used to look and it is like

00:44:00 ◼   ► a little black Apple TV.

00:44:01 ◼   ► Like I like it.

00:44:02 ◼   ► It's like a little Apple TV.

00:44:03 ◼   ► It still looks like that, right?

00:44:04 ◼   ► From the top.

00:44:05 ◼   ► That's what it looks like.

00:44:06 ◼   ► It's that shape.

00:44:06 ◼   ► It's literally the shape of the Apple TV hardware.

00:44:08 ◼   ► And I know the TV app isn't necessarily tied to the TV hardware, but it's like a little

00:44:13 ◼   ► thing, a little gift.

00:44:15 ◼   ► I don't know if it still has TV on it.

00:44:17 ◼   ► Oh, no, no, no.

00:44:20 ◼   ► That's just a label for icon users.

00:44:22 ◼   ► Yeah, it used to.

00:44:23 ◼   ► It used to be.

00:44:24 ◼   ► It used to look just like this.

00:44:25 ◼   ► The third generation Apple TV.

00:44:27 ◼   ► It wasn't white, but it had this exact logo on it.

00:44:30 ◼   ► And that I like it more for that reason.

00:44:33 ◼   ► All right.

00:44:34 ◼   ► Here's a, this is going to be controversial.

00:44:37 ◼   ► I predict news.

00:44:39 ◼   ► I don't know what you're going to say about this icon, Mike.

00:44:45 ◼   ► We haven't practiced.

00:44:46 ◼   ► We haven't done anything in advance.

00:44:48 ◼   ► Here's what I'm going to say about the Apple news icon.

00:44:51 ◼   ► It's a piece of garbage.

00:44:53 ◼   ► It is, it's like a couple of wavy lines.

00:44:57 ◼   ► It's it's diagonal lines.

00:44:59 ◼   ► I know they're trying to get the shape of an N, but it's just like lines in a box inside

00:45:07 ◼   ► a box.

00:45:08 ◼   ► And then you look at it and you're like, you get, are you getting it yet?

00:45:11 ◼   ► It's like an N, but it's lines in a box inside another box.

00:45:15 ◼   ► First off, why is it not the whole box?

00:45:20 ◼   ► Why is it on a box itself?

00:45:22 ◼   ► And then second, it doesn't, it does.

00:45:25 ◼   ► This doesn't mean news.

00:45:27 ◼   ► The most important thing about Apple news is that it starts with the letter N.

00:45:30 ◼   ► Is that what you're saying here?

00:45:32 ◼   ► Is that what this is diagonal lines going from top to bottom?

00:45:36 ◼   ► What says, keep up with what the events that are happening in the mass of humanity that

00:45:41 ◼   ► lives on planet earth and diagonal lines going from top to bottom, left to right.

00:45:46 ◼   ► Yay.

00:45:47 ◼   ► It's Apple news.

00:45:48 ◼   ► It doesn't help that I don't really like the Apple news app or the news plus service, but

00:45:52 ◼   ► I think this is as F tier as an icon gets.

00:45:56 ◼   ► What do you think?

00:45:58 ◼   ► I love your passion.

00:46:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:00 ◼   ► I'm bringing the passion today.

00:46:02 ◼   ► Like, so here's what I like about the news icon that like compared to music is they actually

00:46:08 ◼   ► tried to brand it.

00:46:09 ◼   ► Right?

00:46:11 ◼   ► Like they tried to come up with, this is the logo for this service.

00:46:16 ◼   ► And like they did something original where like, that's what I don't like about music

00:46:20 ◼   ► is like.

00:46:21 ◼   ► Yes.

00:46:21 ◼   ► Like you look at Spotify, they made an icon, right?

00:46:25 ◼   ► They made something.

00:46:26 ◼   ► This is their brand.

00:46:27 ◼   ► Like they made a thing and like Apple music.

00:46:30 ◼   ► It's just a music note, which for me is not enough.

00:46:33 ◼   ► Where like podcasts, even though I don't like what they did, they at least tried.

00:46:36 ◼   ► And same here with news.

00:46:37 ◼   ► They tried.

00:46:38 ◼   ► This is a liability that Apple has with all of its products, which is all of its products

00:46:41 ◼   ► now are Apple followed by a generic term, which means they can't really brand them as

00:46:47 ◼   ► something.

00:46:47 ◼   ► Like if Apple music was called, you know, DJ beat Meister, they'd be like, Oh, I got

00:46:54 ◼   ► a vibe for DJ beat Meister.

00:46:55 ◼   ► We can make an icon for that, but it's just music.

00:46:57 ◼   ► Right?

00:46:57 ◼   ► Whereas Spotify is, I don't know, spots in fi high fidelity, high fi spots.

00:47:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:05 ◼   ► That's what it is.

00:47:06 ◼   ► So what I think they need to do is what they've done with some of the other ones, like stocks

00:47:10 ◼   ► where it's like, well, if it's just called the thing, then like do a fun version of the

00:47:15 ◼   ► thing.

00:47:15 ◼   ► Right?

00:47:16 ◼   ► So they didn't do that with Apple news, which they could have done.

00:47:20 ◼   ► There was maybe like a version of this icon, honestly, which was just a newspaper.

00:47:27 ◼   ► This should be a newspaper.

00:47:28 ◼   ► Like this should look like what newsstand look like, right?

00:47:31 ◼   ► Like this icon should be a newspaper or something.

00:47:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:35 ◼   ► Something just, it looks like a street sign.

00:47:38 ◼   ► It looks like, Hey, you can cross the street here.

00:47:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:43 ◼   ► Right.

00:47:43 ◼   ► Cause it's like, there's the street and then there's the arrows that say you can cross

00:47:46 ◼   ► either way here.

00:47:46 ◼   ► When I look at it, I'm like, there must be a metaphor that I'm missing.

00:47:51 ◼   ► Like that's what I look at when I look at this, but I don't think there is, I'm happy

00:47:56 ◼   ► with F tier for this.

00:47:57 ◼   ► F tier.

00:47:58 ◼   ► It's like in the bin.

00:47:59 ◼   ► It's like barbershop is what it looks like more than anything else.

00:48:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:03 ◼   ► That's true too.

00:48:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:04 ◼   ► It's all candy cane.

00:48:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:06 ◼   ► Something like that.

00:48:06 ◼   ► Home.

00:48:09 ◼   ► It's a house with a bunch of like little house gradients inside it.

00:48:15 ◼   ► I, I love this one.

00:48:18 ◼   ► This is exactly what I'm talking about.

00:48:21 ◼   ► Right.

00:48:21 ◼   ► What can you do for home?

00:48:23 ◼   ► Well, really there's not, you kind of have to, it has to look a certain way, right?

00:48:28 ◼   ► You can't do a ton with it.

00:48:29 ◼   ► It's a home.

00:48:30 ◼   ► Right.

00:48:31 ◼   ► But they branded it.

00:48:33 ◼   ► I feel like they created an icon which shows you what it is, but it has flair and also

00:48:40 ◼   ► has a look to it, which is like that kind of looks like a, you know, the home is radiating.

00:48:45 ◼   ► It's doing something like maybe there are waves of wifi inside of the house.

00:48:50 ◼   ► I don't know, but I really liked the home icon.

00:48:53 ◼   ► I think it's okay.

00:48:56 ◼   ► I, I feel like this is one of those examples where when we talked about Mime stream earlier,

00:49:04 ◼   ► where Apple's insistence on everything just being a slab laid down on a round

00:49:09 ◼   ► rect hurts them because I wonder if there's a better version of the home icon where the

00:49:15 ◼   ► round rect is integrated into the home somehow, right?

00:49:19 ◼   ► Like the home is itself around wrecked, but the way they built it, you can't make like

00:49:24 ◼   ► a full round rect with like a little chimney poking out the top of it because you're

00:49:27 ◼   ► going to run out of space.

00:49:28 ◼   ► I'm not quite sure how they would do it, but like, I feel like there is a little more

00:49:32 ◼   ► whimsical, a little less generic version of this icon that could exist and it doesn't.

00:49:41 ◼   ► And I do wonder if there are other metaphors that might've worked here for, for especially

00:49:45 ◼   ► smart home stuff, like, I don't know, like a light switch or something, but it gets it

00:49:50 ◼   ► across clearly.

00:49:51 ◼   ► And it's not without style.

00:49:53 ◼   ► Again, I just feel like they're probably leaving something on the table by having it

00:49:56 ◼   ► just be sitting generically inside the round rect.

00:49:59 ◼   ► I'm not a fan of that.

00:50:00 ◼   ► I wish there was something that even if it was like the round rect was the driveway and

00:50:07 ◼   ► the lawn and the sky or something, which would hurt its contrast, but I don't know, just

00:50:14 ◼   ► on the white background, it really is not that exciting, but it's okay.

00:50:19 ◼   ► A, B, B?

00:50:21 ◼   ► A?

00:50:21 ◼   ► - I think B is a better fit between the two of us.

00:50:26 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:50:27 ◼   ► We'll put it in B.

00:50:28 ◼   ► That's fair.

00:50:30 ◼   ► - Give me one more for now.

00:50:31 ◼   ► - Oh boy.

00:50:33 ◼   ► Well, we're going to go with what I think is a good one to take us into the break.

00:50:37 ◼   ► Maps.

00:50:39 ◼   ► - S.

00:50:41 ◼   ► - Oh, Mike, I love to disagree with you here, but I can't.

00:50:48 ◼   ► This is an S tier app icon.

00:50:50 ◼   ► It's been an S tier app icon for a while, especially the fact that when you looked at

00:50:56 ◼   ► it, you realized they were showing you infinite loop and the 280 freeway, and now they've

00:51:02 ◼   ► simplified it, but if you look at it, it is Apple park up in the upper right hand corner.

00:51:07 ◼   ► And it's got the blue, the dot with the arrow showing you navigation and you're on a road

00:51:13 ◼   ► and the blue on the road shows that you're navigating up there.

00:51:16 ◼   ► And then there you're going over what is the freeway underneath of it and coming back

00:51:21 ◼   ► from the backside there.

00:51:22 ◼   ► Like it is colorful.

00:51:24 ◼   ► It is informational.

00:51:25 ◼   ► It says maps and it's got an Easter egg inside it.

00:51:29 ◼   ► I think it's the best.

00:51:30 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:51:30 ◼   ► Pink and yellow. Why is it there?

00:51:32 ◼   ► Dunno, but I love it.

00:51:33 ◼   ► Right?

00:51:33 ◼   ► Like, yes.

00:51:34 ◼   ► Like if you're going to do it, do it.

00:51:36 ◼   ► Right.

00:51:36 ◼   ► And yes, the fact that it perfectly shows what the app is and includes an unnecessary

00:51:42 ◼   ► piece of whimsy.

00:51:43 ◼   ► Can't beat that.

00:51:45 ◼   ► Right?

00:51:45 ◼   ► Like that's it.

00:51:46 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:51:47 ◼   ► - This is top tier.

00:51:47 ◼   ► - I think that's what we're going for here.

00:51:49 ◼   ► I think that's, yes.

00:51:50 ◼   ► I think that this is kind of a paragon of app design for me.

00:51:53 ◼   ► I think the more you think about it, the better it gets.

00:51:57 ◼   ► - Yep.

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00:53:14 ◼   ► What you got for me next?

00:53:18 ◼   ► Okay.

00:53:19 ◼   ► Let's do shortcuts.

00:53:25 ◼   ► Okay.

00:53:26 ◼   ► This is a, um, it's two squares, round recs on their side, kind of vibing with each other,

00:53:37 ◼   ► melding with each other.

00:53:38 ◼   ► It's two, yeah, and then the, so it's like a stack of little things that are kind of

00:53:44 ◼   ► connected.

00:53:45 ◼   ► I think the opacity suggests that, and it's making a stylized S for shortcuts on a dark

00:53:51 ◼   ► background.

00:53:51 ◼   ► This is high up there for me, this one.

00:53:54 ◼   ► I think it's good.

00:53:55 ◼   ► I think it's trying to do an abstract concept in a clever way, I think is what it's.

00:54:03 ◼   ► And it's an S, right?

00:54:05 ◼   ► And it's an S, that's right.

00:54:07 ◼   ► This is S, this is S, S for S.

00:54:09 ◼   ► Oh, S for S.

00:54:11 ◼   ► The more I'm looking at it, I'm like, man, someone really had a good cup of coffee that

00:54:16 ◼   ► day.

00:54:16 ◼   ► Because like, it is two app icons, they're transferring between each other, which is

00:54:23 ◼   ► what Shortcast does.

00:54:25 ◼   ► Yes.

00:54:25 ◼   ► And it's in the style of a letter S. I mean, come on.

00:54:29 ◼   ► It's pretty good.

00:54:30 ◼   ► It's pretty good.

00:54:31 ◼   ► I think I agree with you.

00:54:34 ◼   ► I would put an A or S.

00:54:35 ◼   ► I think that two S tier in a row.

00:54:37 ◼   ► You're going to follow up with a third S tier, Jason?

00:54:40 ◼   ► No, but I'm going to go related to shortcuts, which is Automator.

00:54:46 ◼   ► F, F.

00:54:47 ◼   ► This thing is so gross.

00:54:49 ◼   ► Look at it.

00:54:50 ◼   ► Why is he holding a tube?

00:54:52 ◼   ► Why has he got a blue eye?

00:54:54 ◼   ► One blue eye?

00:54:56 ◼   ► Like, no, I hate it.

00:54:57 ◼   ► F tier.

00:54:58 ◼   ► The Automator, I don't care.

00:55:01 ◼   ► This thing is scary.

00:55:02 ◼   ► It's a little robot.

00:55:04 ◼   ► Think of it in today.

00:55:05 ◼   ► Like today, we're great in this today, right?

00:55:08 ◼   ► You want to think about this little humanoid robot all up inside your computer connecting

00:55:13 ◼   ► pipes together?

00:55:13 ◼   ► These little claw hands?

00:55:16 ◼   ► Connecting pipes together.

00:55:17 ◼   ► That's what Automator does, connects pipes together.

00:55:19 ◼   ► I don't like it.

00:55:21 ◼   ► I also like that they put him, they were forced to put him on a round-wrecked, and they didn't

00:55:27 ◼   ► put him on a generic round-wrecked because of course there's some perspective in that

00:55:30 ◼   ► icon.

00:55:31 ◼   ► So they have him on like a little stand, little circular rippling out kind of stand with a

00:55:36 ◼   ► gradient that I think was a really nice touch for a product that was basically so old that

00:55:40 ◼   ► it didn't need any kind of update, but somebody made them put him on a round-wrecked.

00:55:44 ◼   ► And this is what they got.

00:55:46 ◼   ► And he's busting out of his pipe.

00:55:49 ◼   ► Otto the Automator is I think adorable.

00:55:52 ◼   ► I think whimsical.

00:55:53 ◼   ► I think is of a time.

00:55:57 ◼   ► I will grant you, but I like the effort they've made to make it more modern.

00:56:01 ◼   ► I can't give this an F tier.

00:56:03 ◼   ► Okay.

00:56:04 ◼   ► I'm going to be honest.

00:56:05 ◼   ► I can't do it.

00:56:06 ◼   ► I don't really think it's an F tier.

00:56:07 ◼   ► I just thought it would be funny, but it's low though.

00:56:10 ◼   ► I don't like it.

00:56:11 ◼   ► Well, what I like about it again is that they, Apple made a mascot for one of its features

00:56:17 ◼   ► of its OS, which is a robot that helps you.

00:56:19 ◼   ► And how did they treat that?

00:56:21 ◼   ► You know, well, he's still kicking.

00:56:24 ◼   ► He's still out there.

00:56:25 ◼   ► I used a thing in Automator today, but I didn't see the icon.

00:56:30 ◼   ► It's disconcerting that he's still running.

00:56:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:34 ◼   ► I mean, he's so of another time when we, when I put him in our little lineup here, he's

00:56:38 ◼   ► going to look completely different from everything else.

00:56:40 ◼   ► Cause he's so skeuomorphic.

00:56:42 ◼   ► But I still kind of love him.

00:56:44 ◼   ► Well, we'll, we're going to make him a D.

00:56:47 ◼   ► His time has passed.

00:56:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:48 ◼   ► Well, guy.

00:56:49 ◼   ► Does that work for you?

00:56:50 ◼   ► I mean, he's even got like an Aqua eyeball, right?

00:56:55 ◼   ► Is he shine on it?

00:56:56 ◼   ► It's like, Oh God.

00:56:57 ◼   ► Yeah, he does.

00:56:58 ◼   ► Come on.

00:56:59 ◼   ► I know I just upset a bunch of Stevens in the world, but.

00:57:03 ◼   ► I know it's true.

00:57:04 ◼   ► Um, okay.

00:57:06 ◼   ► Wallet.

00:57:06 ◼   ► A.

00:57:08 ◼   ► Okay.

00:57:10 ◼   ► So this is a little wallet with a bunch of cards, more cards than fit in Apple's iPhone

00:57:15 ◼   ► wallet, by the way.

00:57:15 ◼   ► Uh, sitting on a black background.

00:57:17 ◼   ► Um, and the colors are different colors, which is nice.

00:57:22 ◼   ► It's uh, yeah, they've got it.

00:57:24 ◼   ► They're not in the Apple rainbow sequence, but they're still really nice.

00:57:28 ◼   ► Let me tell you what would take this from an A to an S you're going to love this.

00:57:32 ◼   ► The whole icon is a wallet.

00:57:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:57:36 ◼   ► See, that's it.

00:57:37 ◼   ► Yes.

00:57:37 ◼   ► Right.

00:57:38 ◼   ► Instead of it being just on a plan.

00:57:39 ◼   ► To look like, I think that's what possible.

00:57:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:57:41 ◼   ► You still look like.

00:57:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:57:43 ◼   ► I think in general, I mean, this is just me getting my grievances out about Apple,

00:57:47 ◼   ► forcing everything onto a round wrecked platter without using it properly a lot of the time.

00:57:53 ◼   ► So I agree with you.

00:57:55 ◼   ► I think it's an A.

00:57:56 ◼   ► I just found, uh, an icon, like a pass book icon.

00:58:01 ◼   ► I don't know if it ended up being the one that Apple shipped, but it's like a little

00:58:05 ◼   ► leather wallet.

00:58:06 ◼   ► The whole thing is a square and it's got like three little tickets inside of it.

00:58:09 ◼   ► And it's like, yeah, that's what I want this thing to look like.

00:58:12 ◼   ► Something like what I want is this whole thing to be a wallet and like just expand this out.

00:58:17 ◼   ► Like you just expand it.

00:58:19 ◼   ► Round wrecked is the wallet.

00:58:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:21 ◼   ► But I like the cards are slid into it.

00:58:24 ◼   ► Again, like I'm realizing I really like when they put a bunch of color into icons that

00:58:28 ◼   ► that like it's not necessarily you need would need to go this vibrant or whatever with them.

00:58:34 ◼   ► And I think that that tends to look really good.

00:58:36 ◼   ► If you like color, I got an icon for you, Mike photos.

00:58:41 ◼   ► Let me tell you what I like about photos.

00:58:42 ◼   ► Okay.

00:58:43 ◼   ► They did the thing where this, they just created a brand.

00:58:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:49 ◼   ► And it's a flower.

00:58:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:52 ◼   ► People take photos of flowers.

00:58:54 ◼   ► It's also, I think it's reminiscent of something in photography, but I don't know what, like

00:59:00 ◼   ► that, like a kind of color chart.

00:59:02 ◼   ► You're summing, summing up different colors and it's also got all eight colors of the

00:59:06 ◼   ► rainbow.

00:59:07 ◼   ► I guess they decided to go with that.

00:59:11 ◼   ► Um, um, so what I like about it is that it's a brand.

00:59:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:17 ◼   ► And what I like about it is that it shows all those colors, which is fun.

00:59:20 ◼   ► What I don't like about it is it doesn't say photography to me at all, but that's a problem.

00:59:27 ◼   ► This is where my photos and videos are is in this app, which is just a rainbow flower.

00:59:33 ◼   ► Okay.

00:59:33 ◼   ► So let me ask you, this is, this is the issue that they have, right?

00:59:36 ◼   ► How do you show photography?

00:59:39 ◼   ► How about a movie camera?

00:59:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:41 ◼   ► Right.

00:59:42 ◼   ► And they already have a camera.

00:59:44 ◼   ► Right.

00:59:45 ◼   ► And so like, I like it.

00:59:47 ◼   ► I would A rank this.

00:59:49 ◼   ► I think that this is, as for icons that are abstract, this is a good looking one.

00:59:57 ◼   ► And, and the fact that it looks so good means it, it just becomes the thing and you're like

01:00:03 ◼   ► good with it.

01:00:04 ◼   ► So like, I really liked this one a lot.

01:00:07 ◼   ► I'm torn because although I think it's actually a nice icon, I don't like the fact that it

01:00:13 ◼   ► doesn't say photography to me.

01:00:14 ◼   ► I mean, oh, it's like light.

01:00:15 ◼   ► And so it's saying like light, right?

01:00:17 ◼   ► That's what, who thinks of that?

01:00:19 ◼   ► Like who thinks of that really?

01:00:20 ◼   ► Light.

01:00:21 ◼   ► And then, but that, that's that, well, this is my point.

01:00:23 ◼   ► What takes this away from being a better icon for me is that the metaphor is a bit of a

01:00:27 ◼   ► stretch, even if it's a nice icon.

01:00:29 ◼   ► Like this could have been an icon for like a scanner that finds the right color of an

01:00:35 ◼   ► object, right?

01:00:35 ◼   ► It would still be this icon.

01:00:37 ◼   ► It doesn't say photography to me at all.

01:00:40 ◼   ► And I don't know how you would do that without going and having it be like a lens or the

01:00:44 ◼   ► camera bump on the back of an iPhone or something, which would be the camera.

01:00:49 ◼   ► It should be a camera app, right?

01:00:50 ◼   ► It shouldn't be this app.

01:00:51 ◼   ► Can I say B?

01:00:53 ◼   ► Yeah, let's say B.

01:00:54 ◼   ► I think these are all fair things that you're saying.

01:00:57 ◼   ► These are all fair.

01:00:58 ◼   ► All right.

01:01:00 ◼   ► Well, since, since we're doing that, let's do the camera app.

01:01:04 ◼   ► It's a point and shoot camera from the before time.

01:01:07 ◼   ► I like that they put the yellow on it, right?

01:01:11 ◼   ► Like that maybe gives it a point.

01:01:14 ◼   ► Little sensor or indicator light.

01:01:17 ◼   ► You're taking a picture.

01:01:19 ◼   ► It's just got something going on.

01:01:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:21 ◼   ► It's on a gray gradient.

01:01:23 ◼   ► The least interesting of all gradients.

01:01:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:25 ◼   ► Maybe a D?

01:01:26 ◼   ► Like it's better than the male one, right?

01:01:31 ◼   ► Like it's better than like male FaceTime and messages.

01:01:35 ◼   ► At this point, I'm going to say it.

01:01:36 ◼   ► They have a round wreck camera bump.

01:01:38 ◼   ► I actually kind of like the idea of having the camera icon be the camera bump.

01:01:41 ◼   ► It 100% should be that.

01:01:43 ◼   ► Yes, right.

01:01:44 ◼   ► Definitely.

01:01:44 ◼   ► Definitely.

01:01:46 ◼   ► It should be that.

01:01:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:48 ◼   ► Cause it's not even unlike photos, which could come from anywhere.

01:01:51 ◼   ► The camera app is for taking pictures on your device that has a camera bumper of some sort.

01:01:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:56 ◼   ► Like this is the, yeah, the issue with phone is the phone is a phone and there is no phone on the

01:02:01 ◼   ► phone, but there is a camera on the phone.

01:02:03 ◼   ► You just look at the back of it.

01:02:05 ◼   ► Everyone would know what that meant.

01:02:06 ◼   ► They, why don't they do that?

01:02:08 ◼   ► They should totally do that.

01:02:09 ◼   ► Right.

01:02:10 ◼   ► I know.

01:02:10 ◼   ► Huh.

01:02:12 ◼   ► We're really solving a lot of problems here.

01:02:14 ◼   ► Okay.

01:02:14 ◼   ► Here's a, here's a, a difficult one.

01:02:17 ◼   ► Safari.

01:02:19 ◼   ► Also, I'll point out in a continuing case here, this is an example of an icon that was designed

01:02:27 ◼   ► before the round wrecked phenomenon where everything had to be on a shape.

01:02:32 ◼   ► And so it's a circle on a, on a round wrecked in a box circle in a box.

01:02:38 ◼   ► It's a, it's a compass.

01:02:41 ◼   ► And historically Safari has been a compass.

01:02:45 ◼   ► It was originally skeuomorphic and now it's not.

01:02:48 ◼   ► So it was originally literally a compass and now it's sort of a, the face of a compass,

01:02:54 ◼   ► a little more abstract.

01:02:55 ◼   ► What I like about that and the name Safari, right.

01:02:58 ◼   ► Is they're trying to get across exploring the web, getting things from out in the world

01:03:03 ◼   ► without, you know, how do you do that without just calling it like web browser.

01:03:10 ◼   ► And so, although a compass and Safari, the connection, the word Safari is kind of tenuous.

01:03:16 ◼   ► They've been doing it for a long time.

01:03:18 ◼   ► When people go on safaris, do they need compasses?

01:03:21 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:03:24 ◼   ► Historically.

01:03:25 ◼   ► Yes.

01:03:27 ◼   ► Okay.

01:03:28 ◼   ► I mean, it's particularly funny that they have a compass icon when they also have an

01:03:32 ◼   ► app called compass.

01:03:33 ◼   ► Well, yeah, there is that too.

01:03:36 ◼   ► It's a challenge.

01:03:39 ◼   ► I don't like the Safari brand, which doesn't help me.

01:03:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:03:45 ◼   ► Safari is a great name for a search engine.

01:03:48 ◼   ► Like, you know, I feel like it's a better name for a search engine because the metaphor

01:03:53 ◼   ► is getting a bit broken, right?

01:03:54 ◼   ► Because like, people aren't like going to the web to explore when the web is everything.

01:04:02 ◼   ► No, right.

01:04:03 ◼   ► It's in everything.

01:04:05 ◼   ► But I feel like it's just a like iMac.

01:04:08 ◼   ► It's just a name, an iPhone.

01:04:09 ◼   ► It's a name that can't go away.

01:04:11 ◼   ► It is just the brand.

01:04:11 ◼   ► It's just going to be with us forever regardless.

01:04:13 ◼   ► But I think if that's the case, like this isn't a particularly good looking compass.

01:04:19 ◼   ► I agree.

01:04:21 ◼   ► Right.

01:04:21 ◼   ► Like this.

01:04:21 ◼   ► I mean, it looks like a clock.

01:04:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:26 ◼   ► A temperature gauge or something.

01:04:28 ◼   ► It just isn't.

01:04:29 ◼   ► It's yeah, it's just a circle with marks on it and then a needle, basically.

01:04:33 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm not a fan of it.

01:04:35 ◼   ► I'm not a fan of it.

01:04:36 ◼   ► I don't like the color.

01:04:37 ◼   ► I don't like that it's on that background again.

01:04:40 ◼   ► I feel like, I feel like again, what you could do to plus this up if you're living in a world

01:04:45 ◼   ► where everything's got to be on a round wreck is make the round wreck the frame of the compass

01:04:51 ◼   ► and have the arrows stick out or something or point to like little, have the marks be on the outside.

01:04:58 ◼   ► There are, there's a way you could do this that embraces the fact that everything is a round

01:05:02 ◼   ► wreck and instead it's just lazily plopped down on the white background.

01:05:07 ◼   ► I think that is a demerit for it.

01:05:10 ◼   ► It's also actually a bad compass because it doesn't tell you where you're looking.

01:05:18 ◼   ► It doesn't have the cardinal directions or anything.

01:05:19 ◼   ► It doesn't have anything.

01:05:20 ◼   ► It doesn't have anything.

01:05:22 ◼   ► Yeah, D is good.

01:05:23 ◼   ► D is good for this.

01:05:24 ◼   ► It's a D.

01:05:25 ◼   ► All right, a compass.

01:05:26 ◼   ► See now compass is a better compass.

01:05:31 ◼   ► It's a pretty good compass, right?

01:05:33 ◼   ► Than Safari's compass and they're doing what you wanted.

01:05:35 ◼   ► It's a round wrecked of the compass.

01:05:38 ◼   ► It's a compass is the round wrecked, right?

01:05:39 ◼   ► Like they have the circle and then the little icon is pointing.

01:05:42 ◼   ► The little red triangle pointing north coming out of the circle.

01:05:44 ◼   ► You're a real solid C for me.

01:05:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's about right.

01:05:49 ◼   ► I think it lives with Apple TV in the C category.

01:05:53 ◼   ► You know what's also kind of funny about this is like it also kind of says news, which is funny.

01:05:57 ◼   ► You know, like it kind of it's maybe a better news icon.

01:06:01 ◼   ► It's got Nana on it so why wouldn't it?

01:06:04 ◼   ► Well, no, N-E-W-S says news.

01:06:07 ◼   ► Northeast, west, south, you're right.

01:06:09 ◼   ► It depends on how you read.

01:06:10 ◼   ► We cracked the code.

01:06:12 ◼   ► We cracked the code.

01:06:13 ◼   ► I read top to bottom, right to left.

01:06:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:06:18 ◼   ► N-E-W-S news.

01:06:19 ◼   ► It's the secret code.

01:06:21 ◼   ► Okay, workout.

01:06:23 ◼   ► This is a running person on a green circle because this is the Apple watch version of it.

01:06:30 ◼   ► I like this.

01:06:30 ◼   ► I like this.

01:06:34 ◼   ► You're not gonna have any comments about the neck?

01:06:36 ◼   ► Well, I mean we've already established this.

01:06:38 ◼   ► I can't talk about that.

01:06:38 ◼   ► There's no neck.

01:06:39 ◼   ► It's a floating head.

01:06:40 ◼   ► I like this one.

01:06:42 ◼   ► I like this one.

01:06:42 ◼   ► I agree.

01:06:43 ◼   ► I like that the person's in action and I really like the green that they've chosen.

01:06:47 ◼   ► Like it's a very vibrant green.

01:06:48 ◼   ► I'd say it's a...

01:06:52 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

01:06:53 ◼   ► Yeah, okay.

01:06:53 ◼   ► I was gonna say B, but I'd go for A.

01:06:55 ◼   ► Go for A.

01:06:56 ◼   ► I can say A.

01:06:57 ◼   ► All right.

01:06:58 ◼   ► It does what it says on the tin.

01:07:01 ◼   ► I like that about it.

01:07:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:02 ◼   ► Health.

01:07:05 ◼   ► Okay.

01:07:06 ◼   ► It's a light round wrap with a heart in the upper right corner.

01:07:10 ◼   ► Because it loves you.

01:07:14 ◼   ► I like this a lot.

01:07:16 ◼   ► Okay.

01:07:17 ◼   ► I like it a lot because they put the heart where the heart goes.

01:07:23 ◼   ► That's what I like about this.

01:07:26 ◼   ► The easy thing to do here, we should put heart in the middle.

01:07:30 ◼   ► That's the easy thing to do.

01:07:32 ◼   ► But I like that they put the heart where the heart on a human would be.

01:07:37 ◼   ► That's kind of where they're aiming for.

01:07:39 ◼   ► And I think that's a real nice touch.

01:07:41 ◼   ► I would B grade this.

01:07:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I have an instinct to say I wish it was more.

01:07:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:52 ◼   ► But I also appreciate the minimalist nature of it.

01:07:58 ◼   ► By being offset in the round-wrecked, it's actually using the...

01:08:00 ◼   ► Even though it's a white round-wrecked, which I've just complained about,

01:08:02 ◼   ► it's using it because it's using it positionally.

01:08:05 ◼   ► It's actually using it to do something meaningful.

01:08:07 ◼   ► There are a lot of ways that you could do a health app and they become negative, right?

01:08:12 ◼   ► Like you could show scales or graphs and then it's not very friendly.

01:08:16 ◼   ► It's not very welcoming.

01:08:18 ◼   ► And this is a very welcoming app icon.

01:08:22 ◼   ► So I like it for that.

01:08:23 ◼   ► Okay.

01:08:24 ◼   ► Next up is clock.

01:08:26 ◼   ► It's a clock on a round-wrecked.

01:08:29 ◼   ► All I need to do here is work out how high.

01:08:33 ◼   ► Like this is up there for me.

01:08:37 ◼   ► It's a good clock.

01:08:38 ◼   ► I mean, this is one of those areas where it's a category where you can put what it is in the icon

01:08:44 ◼   ► and have it look good.

01:08:45 ◼   ► You know why this works, Jason?

01:08:46 ◼   ► I have on my desk a version of this clock.

01:08:49 ◼   ► It's based on the Braun clock, right?

01:08:52 ◼   ► And it looks just like it.

01:08:54 ◼   ► I will say kind of missed the Swiss railway clock.

01:08:59 ◼   ► That is beautiful.

01:09:00 ◼   ► But the Braun clock is also excellent.

01:09:03 ◼   ► And it functions.

01:09:06 ◼   ► You can't get any better than that really.

01:09:08 ◼   ► I think this is S2.

01:09:09 ◼   ► It's true.

01:09:10 ◼   ► I will go with you.

01:09:13 ◼   ► This is what calendar wished it was.

01:09:14 ◼   ► The clock.

01:09:15 ◼   ► Like this is right.

01:09:16 ◼   ► Like calendar wished it was clock, you know?

01:09:19 ◼   ► Hey, it's a new app.

01:09:22 ◼   ► It's sports.

01:09:24 ◼   ► It's Apple sports.

01:09:25 ◼   ► One of the new apps.

01:09:28 ◼   ► Why do you think they chose a soccer field?

01:09:33 ◼   ► I said MLS, right?

01:09:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:34 ◼   ► Okay.

01:09:34 ◼   ► All right.

01:09:35 ◼   ► There you go.

01:09:36 ◼   ► Because they didn't go with any of the national pastimes, right?

01:09:41 ◼   ► You're right.

01:09:41 ◼   ► It's not a basketball court.

01:09:43 ◼   ► It's not a football field.

01:09:44 ◼   ► It's not a baseball diamond.

01:09:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:45 ◼   ► It's a soccer pitch.

01:09:46 ◼   ► But they do have the MLS deal.

01:09:48 ◼   ► Also, I think that in some ways, I mean, a basketball court would also have worked, but

01:09:54 ◼   ► it would have, I think it's easier to simplify the soccer pitch.

01:09:59 ◼   ► And so it's a white outline of a soccer pitch on a green round record.

01:10:05 ◼   ► And the green is great, right?

01:10:07 ◼   ► Because that's like the grass.

01:10:09 ◼   ► It's great.

01:10:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:11 ◼   ► I don't know how much, how good I feel about the white outline.

01:10:16 ◼   ► Like I think it's clever.

01:10:16 ◼   ► I think this is very clever and it does say sports.

01:10:18 ◼   ► The white outline works because it's painted, right?

01:10:21 ◼   ► It's like, yeah, that's the chalk outline.

01:10:22 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:10:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:24 ◼   ► I mean, there's a lot to say.

01:10:25 ◼   ► I could argue for more stuff in here, but again, I feel like I'm arguing for complication

01:10:31 ◼   ► where complication isn't necessary.

01:10:34 ◼   ► This could be cuter, but it would be messier.

01:10:36 ◼   ► And maybe it doesn't need to be any more complex than it is because it gets across what it

01:10:42 ◼   ► is.

01:10:42 ◼   ► I'm going to push for C because I think it perfectly shows what it is, but I actually

01:10:48 ◼   ► think it is ugly.

01:10:50 ◼   ► Like I don't, I don't appreciate the way that it looks, but it's doing the job perfectly

01:10:58 ◼   ► to describe what it is.

01:10:59 ◼   ► So I think it is very middle of the road for me.

01:11:03 ◼   ► Hmm.

01:11:04 ◼   ► Hmm.

01:11:05 ◼   ► I'll go with that.

01:11:07 ◼   ► I was tempted to rate it a little higher, but I think you're right that I think I appreciate

01:11:13 ◼   ► it, but I don't like it.

01:11:14 ◼   ► Because I know what they're doing and they've done a good thing, but like putting what looks

01:11:19 ◼   ► like a squished app icon inside of an app icon, it's just like, I don't find that very

01:11:25 ◼   ► appealing.

01:11:26 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree.

01:11:27 ◼   ► Well, I think this is one of those cases where the round rec mandate, it makes it worse.

01:11:31 ◼   ► And if this was just a soccer field icon in green, it would be nicer.

01:11:36 ◼   ► It'd be wonderful.

01:11:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:37 ◼   ► If it could just be that shape.

01:11:38 ◼   ► Well, that's what I was thinking is you could take it out to the edges and then have like

01:11:42 ◼   ► a bracket at the top and bottom that were kind of like stands, even if they were just

01:11:45 ◼   ► gradients and make it like a little stadium, but instead it's just trapped in the green

01:11:53 ◼   ► round rec.

01:11:53 ◼   ► And of course the green round rec is all the same color.

01:11:56 ◼   ► And so you've lost the uniqueness of the color of the field.

01:11:59 ◼   ► Even if you just, as you say, if you just took all of the outside border and made it

01:12:03 ◼   ► gray, it would elevate this.

01:12:04 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree.

01:12:06 ◼   ► Because you would look like you were looking down at a stadium.

01:12:09 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:12:10 ◼   ► I feel like it's just a little short of it.

01:12:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:12:13 ◼   ► Journal.

01:12:16 ◼   ► Journal is a butterfly with two, that's two pages that are different colors and they make

01:12:25 ◼   ► the form of a butterfly.

01:12:26 ◼   ► And you could also argue that it's a J and a backward J if you want to do that.

01:12:30 ◼   ► Journal and learner as they call it.

01:12:32 ◼   ► The journey and learning.

01:12:35 ◼   ► That's what we do.

01:12:36 ◼   ► All right.

01:12:39 ◼   ► So like I really appreciate what they're going for with this one, right?

01:12:44 ◼   ► The metaphor is good.

01:12:47 ◼   ► That is paper.

01:12:48 ◼   ► It's also kind of a book, right?

01:12:50 ◼   ► At the same time, because they're opening up.

01:12:53 ◼   ► A butterfly is nice because your journal is supposed to be soft and the colors are good.

01:12:59 ◼   ► It doesn't particularly excite me as an icon, but I could put it in A and I think I would

01:13:10 ◼   ► be okay with that because I do think they're doing a decent job.

01:13:14 ◼   ► I also think like the navy color that they chose for the background is also like, I think

01:13:19 ◼   ► that's doing something with the round rec, right?

01:13:21 ◼   ► Like it's not just, you know, basically this feels like they got the shortcuts app icon

01:13:27 ◼   ► designer to make another one.

01:13:29 ◼   ► Yes.

01:13:30 ◼   ► And they came up with this.

01:13:31 ◼   ► It absolutely feels like that.

01:13:32 ◼   ► Because they're similar and also you could tell, like I can see a lot of thought in this,

01:13:38 ◼   ► even though it doesn't like rev my engines.

01:13:41 ◼   ► Like I do still like it.

01:13:44 ◼   ► I don't think it's A tier mostly because it doesn't say journal to me.

01:13:50 ◼   ► It's a nice icon and it's a butterfly and it's colorful and I like everything about

01:13:57 ◼   ► it visually and it has never said journal to me.

01:14:00 ◼   ► So B?

01:14:02 ◼   ► But what would though?

01:14:04 ◼   ► What would say journal?

01:14:05 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:14:06 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:14:06 ◼   ► A pen?

01:14:07 ◼   ► Ink on a page?

01:14:10 ◼   ► But then we're bringing in the issue we have with like the old school.

01:14:16 ◼   ► Yeah, I know.

01:14:19 ◼   ► It's skeuomorphism for things that aren't what people do anymore.

01:14:21 ◼   ► Yeah, no, I get it.

01:14:24 ◼   ► I just, it doesn't necessarily, it's really nice, but I feel like it's missing something

01:14:30 ◼   ► to give me, to make me latch onto it that just isn't there.

01:14:33 ◼   ► I can do B.

01:14:34 ◼   ► I'm good with B.

01:14:34 ◼   ► I would say B.

01:14:35 ◼   ► Okay, we'll say B.

01:14:36 ◼   ► All right.

01:14:39 ◼   ► What is next?

01:14:41 ◼   ► Let's do, well, this will be a quickie because I just want to get it in here.

01:14:44 ◼   ► Apple Music classical, which is the music app, but with a treble clef instead of a note.

01:14:51 ◼   ► So here's what I say.

01:14:53 ◼   ► If we were ranking, what we're not doing is like ranking these against each other with

01:14:57 ◼   ► inside of the tiers.

01:14:58 ◼   ► But if we were, I would put this higher than the Apple Music icon.

01:15:04 ◼   ► I agree.

01:15:04 ◼   ► But still D.

01:15:05 ◼   ► I agree.

01:15:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree 100%.

01:15:08 ◼   ► I would feel better if this was the icon for Apple Music, honestly.

01:15:12 ◼   ► Like if it is just Apple Music, I would feel better, but it might be a bit too much.

01:15:17 ◼   ► But I think that they did a decent job of like, it's got to be close.

01:15:21 ◼   ► It's got to match music.

01:15:23 ◼   ► And I think for classical, the treble clef is kind of perfect, right?

01:15:27 ◼   ► Yeah, no, I think that's good.

01:15:30 ◼   ► I think that's good.

01:15:31 ◼   ► Next up is Freeform.

01:15:37 ◼   ► Or as we knew it back when I was a kid, the jazz paper cup design.

01:15:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I love it for that, by the way.

01:15:47 ◼   ► So it's a circle of a square on top with a little squiggly line across it and it looks

01:15:52 ◼   ► like jazz.

01:15:53 ◼   ► I really like this icon.

01:15:57 ◼   ► I think it does a very good job of showing what the app is.

01:16:04 ◼   ► It is not blowing my mind, but I really like it.

01:16:08 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree.

01:16:10 ◼   ► It does show what the app is.

01:16:13 ◼   ► I love that it's referencing the jazz paper cup design from the 80s, which we, none of

01:16:22 ◼   ► us knew what it was called, but that's what it was called.

01:16:23 ◼   ► I think I can appreciate that Apple's current icon style is never going to allow something

01:16:29 ◼   ► more detailed than this, even though it would be funnier if it was even more jazzy.

01:16:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:16:35 ◼   ► I'm going to put a link in the show notes, by the way, to episode 188 of Ungenius, where

01:16:40 ◼   ► me and Steven talk about jazz design, where it comes from, what it is, that kind of thing.

01:16:46 ◼   ► So I feel about the Freeform icon.

01:16:50 ◼   ► Like, again, do I look at it and say, "Aha, that's Freeform."

01:16:57 ◼   ► No, I got to think about it a little bit, but I think it's fundamentally...

01:17:02 ◼   ► And I don't think it's a beautiful icon, but I think it does the job.

01:17:05 ◼   ► I guess that's what I'd say.

01:17:06 ◼   ► I feel like it's the flip side of the journal icon, where I think the journal icon is beautiful

01:17:12 ◼   ► and doesn't do the job as well as I wish it did.

01:17:15 ◼   ► I think the Freeform icon is less beautiful, but absolutely does the job.

01:17:18 ◼   ► I think it's still B, though.

01:17:20 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree.

01:17:21 ◼   ► If I look at the other stuff we have in B, that kind of fits the bill of health and home

01:17:27 ◼   ► and photos and contacts, right?

01:17:30 ◼   ► These are good looking and they do the job, but they're not like this big high concept

01:17:35 ◼   ► thing or just something that is just very iconic in its design, right?

01:17:39 ◼   ► Like in A at the moment, we have watch, calculate, a wallet, and fitness.

01:17:45 ◼   ► And they are all very iconic designs, I think.

01:17:48 ◼   ► Like, they're just like, these are perfectly showing the thing.

01:17:53 ◼   ► Okay, find my, which is a gray round rect with a green circle, like a radar ping from

01:18:01 ◼   ► like a submarine or something.

01:18:03 ◼   ► Green concentric circles and then a blue dot in the center and then like a line extending

01:18:07 ◼   ► from it like it's looking in that direction, like it's the radar is going to swoop around

01:18:11 ◼   ► kind of thing.

01:18:12 ◼   ► I really like this one.

01:18:14 ◼   ► I'm sounding like a broken record, which is a thing people don't know either.

01:18:21 ◼   ► It's an old metaphor, skeuomorphism in speech.

01:18:24 ◼   ► But I like it too.

01:18:27 ◼   ► I think that it is not helped at all by being on a gray round rect.

01:18:31 ◼   ► Again, I just think it's not helped, but for what it is and the metaphor that it's

01:18:37 ◼   ► trying to get across in a way that how else would you describe find my, which is itself

01:18:43 ◼   ► on like an Apple Watch, isn't it like four different apps?

01:18:46 ◼   ► I mean, it is as a unified app.

01:18:49 ◼   ► How do you explain it?

01:18:50 ◼   ► I think this is cute and does a good job.

01:18:53 ◼   ► Where would you want it to go?

01:18:56 ◼   ► A?

01:18:58 ◼   ► I was leaning A, but I wasn't sure if you was, but yes, I think that what I just said

01:19:03 ◼   ► about like it is iconically the thing.

01:19:05 ◼   ► I think this is iconically what it is.

01:19:08 ◼   ► Like it's even like showing the UI of the app in the icon.

01:19:14 ◼   ► I think it's great.

01:19:15 ◼   ► I think it's really, really great.

01:19:16 ◼   ► Yeah, A tier.

01:19:18 ◼   ► All right.

01:19:20 ◼   ► Settings, gears, metallic gears and a metallic background.

01:19:26 ◼   ► F.

01:19:28 ◼   ► Really?

01:19:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:19:31 ◼   ► Why?

01:19:33 ◼   ► Don't like the metaphor?

01:19:34 ◼   ► Don't like the look?

01:19:35 ◼   ► What are the gears for?

01:19:36 ◼   ► I don't like the metaphor and I don't like the look.

01:19:39 ◼   ► It's the internal workings of your device that get affected by the gears.

01:19:43 ◼   ► Okay.

01:19:46 ◼   ► Why isn't it like actually what it, why is this not like a computer chip then?

01:19:51 ◼   ► Because it's a metaphor.

01:19:54 ◼   ► That would also be a metaphor, right?

01:19:57 ◼   ► Because you're not actually changing like the silicon.

01:19:59 ◼   ► I don't like the gears.

01:20:01 ◼   ► And what I, here's what I say, like there are lots of examples of this in history for

01:20:06 ◼   ► Apple, right?

01:20:07 ◼   ► They've had the gears for a long time.

01:20:09 ◼   ► I've seen the gears done significantly better than this.

01:20:14 ◼   ► I don't, because okay, like the thing about gears, the thing that is fun about gears is

01:20:20 ◼   ► seeing them interact with each other.

01:20:22 ◼   ► These gears are just overlapping with each other.

01:20:27 ◼   ► Right.

01:20:29 ◼   ► They're not doing anything.

01:20:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:20:31 ◼   ► Like what are these gears operating at all?

01:20:34 ◼   ► How are these gears moving?

01:20:36 ◼   ► I don't like it.

01:20:38 ◼   ► Okay.

01:20:39 ◼   ► I think it's functional.

01:20:43 ◼   ► So I would give it a D.

01:20:44 ◼   ► I'm totally happy with D.

01:20:47 ◼   ► But I think it's functional, but that's about all.

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01:22:32 ◼   ► All right, what we got next?

01:22:34 ◼   ► Reminders.

01:22:37 ◼   ► Okay.

01:22:38 ◼   ► It's a little like a little colored buttons with little radio buttons with lines next

01:22:43 ◼   ► to them.

01:22:43 ◼   ► I like it.

01:22:46 ◼   ► I think it's colorful and it gets across what it's trying to do.

01:22:50 ◼   ► Right?

01:22:52 ◼   ► Simple.

01:22:53 ◼   ► I think it's clear.

01:22:54 ◼   ► It's got the different colored buttons.

01:22:58 ◼   ► Like the app looks like that.

01:23:00 ◼   ► The app looks like that?

01:23:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:23:01 ◼   ► Okay, where would you want to put it?

01:23:03 ◼   ► Uh, A?

01:23:08 ◼   ► If not S.

01:23:08 ◼   ► Oh, I couldn't go to S. Uh, A.

01:23:11 ◼   ► A.

01:23:12 ◼   ► I think A.

01:23:12 ◼   ► A.

01:23:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:23:13 ◼   ► Okay.

01:23:14 ◼   ► I think that's fitting.

01:23:15 ◼   ► Let's uh, we're just lightning around here.

01:23:19 ◼   ► Uh, notes.

01:23:20 ◼   ► S tier.

01:23:24 ◼   ► Oh, notes is an S tier for you.

01:23:26 ◼   ► So it's skeuomorphic, but it uses the round rect as the, not just as the note, but as

01:23:32 ◼   ► the, it's got the top of the note and the yellow at the top.

01:23:35 ◼   ► And then it's got the line and it's got the little dots.

01:23:38 ◼   ► It's like an iconic representation of a skeuomorphic object in the red, in the round

01:23:43 ◼   ► rect.

01:23:44 ◼   ► Yep.

01:23:44 ◼   ► I think this is an S tier.

01:23:47 ◼   ► It's perfect.

01:23:48 ◼   ► It's perfect.

01:23:49 ◼   ► I'll go with you.

01:23:49 ◼   ► I think, I think that's what icons should aspire to be.

01:23:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:23:54 ◼   ► And with that, I need to follow up with, um, stickies.

01:23:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:03 ◼   ► I mean, it's also S right?

01:24:04 ◼   ► Like it is, it is.

01:24:05 ◼   ► I was wondering if I would be like, oh, is it better or worse than the notes icon?

01:24:09 ◼   ► It's actually might in some ways be better because it's got the little folding, you know,

01:24:13 ◼   ► like the peeling off, off of the stack.

01:24:15 ◼   ► The top sticky note is coming off.

01:24:17 ◼   ► And again, they're using the round rect as the physical stack of sticky notes.

01:24:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:20 ◼   ► Stickies.

01:24:21 ◼   ► Stickies is where I, I didn't know stickies looked like this now.

01:24:25 ◼   ► Stickies, stickies got some good love on the app, on the new app icon.

01:24:29 ◼   ► Stickies has gotten a glow up.

01:24:32 ◼   ► That's for sure.

01:24:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:33 ◼   ► All right.

01:24:35 ◼   ► Um, let's see.

01:24:36 ◼   ► Next up is files.

01:24:42 ◼   ► A white round rect with a blue folder on it.

01:24:49 ◼   ► Now the blue folder does have a piece of paper in it because you can see a little bit of

01:24:54 ◼   ► the white coming out of the folder on files.

01:24:59 ◼   ► It's a file folder.

01:25:00 ◼   ► You see a file.

01:25:01 ◼   ► Folder.

01:25:04 ◼   ► Okay.

01:25:05 ◼   ► I'm going to, I'm not going to bring as much passion this time.

01:25:08 ◼   ► I'm going to say, I think this app's a failure.

01:25:10 ◼   ► I think it's a failure.

01:25:11 ◼   ► I think it's a metaphor that doesn't work really that well.

01:25:13 ◼   ► Files.

01:25:14 ◼   ► We put, we gave you the app is called files.

01:25:16 ◼   ► We gave you a file.

01:25:17 ◼   ► We put it on a white background because we had to do that.

01:25:20 ◼   ► So it's a blue file on a white background and you can use it.

01:25:26 ◼   ► I just, I don't know what else they would do here.

01:25:29 ◼   ► It just feels so uninspired and generic and boring.

01:25:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:25:33 ◼   ► I mean, finder, which is the max equivalent of this is a smiley face, but here it's just

01:25:44 ◼   ► look, you want, it's almost as if the iPad team, especially is like, look, you want a

01:25:49 ◼   ► file system here.

01:25:49 ◼   ► It is fine.

01:25:50 ◼   ► Take it.

01:25:51 ◼   ► Here's your folder.

01:25:52 ◼   ► Take it.

01:25:53 ◼   ► I don't like it.

01:25:55 ◼   ► I think it's bad.

01:25:56 ◼   ► It's how bad?

01:25:57 ◼   ► F tier.

01:25:59 ◼   ► Okay.

01:25:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:26:01 ◼   ► I'm not going to argue.

01:26:02 ◼   ► I'm angry about it now.

01:26:03 ◼   ► Whoa.

01:26:03 ◼   ► I'm not going to argue.

01:26:04 ◼   ► The folder is wrong to me somehow.

01:26:06 ◼   ► All right.

01:26:08 ◼   ► Well, we'll just quickly move on to books.

01:26:10 ◼   ► Books.

01:26:12 ◼   ► It's an orange gradient.

01:26:16 ◼   ► It's got a white representation of an open book inside.

01:26:20 ◼   ► Just so much wasted potential.

01:26:23 ◼   ► So much wasted potential.

01:26:26 ◼   ► The icon should look like a book.

01:26:31 ◼   ► It should, it should, it should be more like stickies.

01:26:35 ◼   ► Yes.

01:26:37 ◼   ► Be more like notes.

01:26:37 ◼   ► Just in general.

01:26:38 ◼   ► Be more.

01:26:38 ◼   ► Look, I don't think this is F tier.

01:26:41 ◼   ► No.

01:26:42 ◼   ► But I think it's D tier as well.

01:26:45 ◼   ► Orange is pleasing.

01:26:46 ◼   ► And also like, I think that the visual representation of the book is better than mail and camera

01:26:52 ◼   ► messages.

01:26:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:26:54 ◼   ► App store.

01:26:59 ◼   ► I don't understand this anymore.

01:27:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:27:04 ◼   ► App app store is three breadsticks in a triangle that spells out the letter a for app store.

01:27:14 ◼   ► Cause it's one of those it's from the era where you need to spell out the name, which,

01:27:20 ◼   ► you know, we've got shortcuts with an asset in S tier and we've got news with an N in

01:27:25 ◼   ► F tier. So, you know, it's, it's not fundamentally good or bad.

01:27:29 ◼   ► My problem with app store branding is this feels like we are stuck with it because that's

01:27:35 ◼   ► how we started.

01:27:36 ◼   ► And I never thought the metaphor for the app store logo was any good anyway.

01:27:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:27:43 ◼   ► It was a pencil, a paintbrush and a ruler.

01:27:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:27:47 ◼   ► It's like three items.

01:27:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:27:48 ◼   ► Across from each other, making a, um, you know, this symbol for application, which is what

01:27:54 ◼   ► can't you do with it?

01:27:55 ◼   ► You can ruler or brush or pencil with it.

01:27:58 ◼   ► And now they're just breadsticks.

01:28:00 ◼   ► Now they're just things, the, the shapes of it, which on one level, like, okay, we removed

01:28:05 ◼   ► the skeuomorphism, but like, it wasn't that good a metaphor to begin with.

01:28:09 ◼   ► Like test flights doing it right.

01:28:11 ◼   ► You know, like sure.

01:28:14 ◼   ► It's doing something fun with app icons, you know?

01:28:17 ◼   ► Right.

01:28:19 ◼   ► What if this was a round rec and it was a stack of apps?

01:28:22 ◼   ► Like, like, like.

01:28:24 ◼   ► It's just look at all the apps that are in here.

01:28:26 ◼   ► What if it just said 30% on the, just a dollar sign, money mouth, uh, emoji.

01:28:33 ◼   ► Uh, I mean, I'm historically opposed to the app store as a concept.

01:28:39 ◼   ► I think it is at least, it is at least benefiting from it being a brand, right?

01:28:46 ◼   ► Like they at least made a brand out of it.

01:28:48 ◼   ► They did.

01:28:49 ◼   ► They did.

01:28:50 ◼   ► I would honestly, I would say this is a, this is a C I think it is better than the stuff

01:28:56 ◼   ► that's in D.

01:28:57 ◼   ► I think it's a C.

01:28:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:29:00 ◼   ► I agree.

01:29:01 ◼   ► I just don't like it.

01:29:03 ◼   ► No, I don't like it either.

01:29:05 ◼   ► It would be like the bottom of C right.

01:29:07 ◼   ► But like it is, it is, it's better than the stuff that's in D that's for sure.

01:29:10 ◼   ► All right.

01:29:11 ◼   ► Apple store.

01:29:12 ◼   ► It's a, uh, it's a round rec shopping bag with an Apple logo on it with a little handle

01:29:19 ◼   ► in a white round rack generic.

01:29:22 ◼   ► I like this icon and I hate the fact that it's in the empty Johnny.

01:29:27 ◼   ► I've it's been banished to the Johnny.

01:29:29 ◼   ► I've white room because I feel like there's another version of this that is like more,

01:29:34 ◼   ► a little more baggy and is not surrounded by the white round wreck.

01:29:37 ◼   ► But I do like the image of it.

01:29:39 ◼   ► It's very clear to me what this is.

01:29:40 ◼   ► Interesting.

01:29:42 ◼   ► I was going to say I've really don't like this.

01:29:43 ◼   ► Like it kind of just felt like they weren't trying.

01:29:47 ◼   ► I'd rather this be the app store icon.

01:29:49 ◼   ► Honestly, I would be on board with that.

01:29:53 ◼   ► I would be on the Apple store icon slightly, very slightly different.

01:29:57 ◼   ► I'm okay with giving it like a C I think it's functional.

01:30:00 ◼   ► I think it could be way better than it is, but I don't think it's ugly.

01:30:04 ◼   ► And I think it does get across what it's trying to do, which is it's the, your shopping Apple.

01:30:08 ◼   ► I think C is too high.

01:30:10 ◼   ► It's just so basic.

01:30:12 ◼   ► It is.

01:30:14 ◼   ► But so is sports.

01:30:17 ◼   ► I think, I think sports is better than this though.

01:30:20 ◼   ► Okay.

01:30:21 ◼   ► Oh, well we'll plow it into D let's do it.

01:30:24 ◼   ► D is getting packed.

01:30:25 ◼   ► D is there's a lot of mediocrity going on here.

01:30:28 ◼   ► Xcode it's a, it's a, it's a round wrecked of the breadsticks, but they're like a blueprint.

01:30:36 ◼   ► And they're in a, like a little circle.

01:30:38 ◼   ► Like it's a, uh, like Galileo was drawing the idealized three breadsticks in a triangle.

01:30:44 ◼   ► And then there's a round wrecked around that, that I think symbolizes your app.

01:30:48 ◼   ► And then there's a blue round wrecked around that, that symbolizes the paper of the blueprint,

01:30:53 ◼   ► I guess.

01:30:53 ◼   ► And then on top of that, a whole round rack sticking out is a hammer.

01:30:58 ◼   ► Now I will say I have a hammer that looks a lot like this.

01:31:01 ◼   ► That hammer is awesome and super skeuomorphic in a way that's no longer allowed in most

01:31:06 ◼   ► applications.

01:31:07 ◼   ► So there's a lot going on in Xcode, I guess is what I would say.

01:31:12 ◼   ► And while I, it's a complex idea that it's a development tool, I think that's too many

01:31:19 ◼   ► things to be on an icon.

01:31:21 ◼   ► Interesting.

01:31:21 ◼   ► I love this one.

01:31:22 ◼   ► Uh, because it's, I like the blueprint because then there is a consistent family theme, right?

01:31:29 ◼   ► Which we've established with test drive.

01:31:31 ◼   ► And I love that the hammer is all black.

01:31:35 ◼   ► Like it's a pro hammer.

01:31:36 ◼   ► This is Apple's pro hammer.

01:31:38 ◼   ► It's a great hammer.

01:31:40 ◼   ► I don't, I almost want the Xcode icon to be a hammer.

01:31:43 ◼   ► Honestly, it has always had a hammer in it, right?

01:31:46 ◼   ► Like if I'm, I think there's always been a hammer in it, which is why the hammer is there.

01:31:50 ◼   ► Cause it is so weird to have a hammer, right?

01:31:53 ◼   ► Like couldn't be further away from app development.

01:31:56 ◼   ► A hammer.

01:31:57 ◼   ► Yeah, I know.

01:31:57 ◼   ► Also it's just hammers.

01:31:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:31:58 ◼   ► I mean it's constructive, but also destructive.

01:32:00 ◼   ► I would put this in B. I think this is, this is just a solid B.

01:32:05 ◼   ► All right.

01:32:05 ◼   ► I think it's a, I think it's kind of a mess and I'd put it at the bottom of B below a

01:32:09 ◼   ► like test flight, but I think it's a, I'll go with you on that.

01:32:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:32:13 ◼   ► Oh boy.

01:32:14 ◼   ► We're getting into some really good ones now here at the end.

01:32:16 ◼   ► Quick time player.

01:32:19 ◼   ► Quick time.

01:32:20 ◼   ► It's on a black background round wrecked.

01:32:23 ◼   ► It is a cue metallic brush metal cue.

01:32:25 ◼   ► The cue is also like a minute hand sticking out, which is not how that works, but it's

01:32:31 ◼   ► interesting and it makes a cue.