Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► From Relay, this is Upgrade, the Upgrade Holiday Special.

00:00:19 ◼   ► In fact, this is episode 595.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Sentry, and ExpressVPN.

00:00:27 ◼   ► My name is Mike Hurley, and I have the pleasure of being joined by old Saint Nick himself, Jason Snell.

00:00:33 ◼   ► Hi, Jason Snell.

00:00:34 ◼   ► Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!

00:00:37 ◼   ► Wow, that was a level of enthusiasm I was not expecting, but I'm very excited about it.

00:00:42 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know, you set me up for it, so I guess...

00:00:46 ◼   ► It is our holiday special, so you know it's going to be jingles all the way,

00:00:50 ◼   ► so I would like to thank our friend Lex for the creation of our wonderful jingles that we use

00:00:56 ◼   ► at different episodes throughout the year.

00:00:58 ◼   ► I will point you over to Lex.games, which is Lex's games.

00:01:03 ◼   ► I'm going to say it's Lex Friedman.

00:01:05 ◼   ► It's not that Lex Friedman.

00:01:07 ◼   ► Every single time I say Lex Friedman, somebody writes in and says,

00:01:10 ◼   ► Oh, that Lex Friedman?

00:01:11 ◼   ► No, it's a different Lex Friedman.

00:01:12 ◼   ► No, it's not.

00:01:12 ◼   ► It's the other one.

00:01:13 ◼   ► It's the other one.

00:01:14 ◼   ► That's right.

00:01:15 ◼   ► But, Mike, we don't have time for all of that because...

00:01:17 ◼   ► We do not.

00:01:17 ◼   ► Oh, Jason, what do you think?

00:01:20 ◼   ► It's time for Snell Talk.

00:01:21 ◼   ► I have a Snell Talk question that comes to us from Drew, who wants to know,

00:01:27 ◼   ► Jason, do you have any favorite holiday snacks?

00:01:30 ◼   ► Holiday snacks.

00:01:34 ◼   ► So, this is a food question, is it?

00:01:37 ◼   ► Yes.

00:01:37 ◼   ► There's so much I eat for Christmas.

00:01:40 ◼   ► There's so much I eat for Christmas.

00:01:42 ◼   ► There's so much I eat for Christmas.

00:01:45 ◼   ► Could you grab me a beer?

00:01:47 ◼   ► All right.

00:01:48 ◼   ► We have a jingle for the food question.

00:01:49 ◼   ► Wait.

00:01:50 ◼   ► Where does that come from?

00:01:51 ◼   ► That's Lex.

00:01:52 ◼   ► Wait.

00:01:53 ◼   ► Did you have that made?

00:01:55 ◼   ► Last year.

00:01:57 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:58 ◼   ► Oh, man, I forgot about that.

00:01:59 ◼   ► Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

00:02:01 ◼   ► Favorite holiday snacks.

00:02:02 ◼   ► Ginger cookies.

00:02:03 ◼   ► I love a ginger cookie.

00:02:05 ◼   ► Wait.

00:02:05 ◼   ► Oh, we've done this before.

00:02:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:07 ◼   ► We've done this whole thing before.

00:02:09 ◼   ► That's okay.

00:02:09 ◼   ► It's part of the heartwarming charm.

00:02:11 ◼   ► We repeat these traditions.

00:02:12 ◼   ► I love a ginger cookie.

00:02:13 ◼   ► I asked about this because we just spoke about snacks, right?

00:02:17 ◼   ► So, Drew wrote in about Hollywood.

00:02:19 ◼   ► So, ginger cookie.

00:02:21 ◼   ► My friend Tina, who is not tuna, makes fudge every year.

00:02:26 ◼   ► That was a deep cut upgrade reference there.

00:02:28 ◼   ► Makes fudge every year.

00:02:29 ◼   ► And because my son doesn't like the taste of mint, to this day, we get half the fudge doesn't have mint on top of it.

00:02:36 ◼   ► It's just plain chocolate fudge.

00:02:38 ◼   ► And the other half has mint on it.

00:02:40 ◼   ► So, not everybody likes the mint.

00:02:41 ◼   ► What else?

00:02:45 ◼   ► Chex Mix.

00:02:45 ◼   ► I think I probably said that last year, too.

00:02:47 ◼   ► We make our own Chex Mix sometimes.

00:02:49 ◼   ► You literally said that last week.

00:02:51 ◼   ► We were talking about the Chex Mix.

00:02:52 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:02:54 ◼   ► No, there's the pretzels, but they're not a holiday snack.

00:02:57 ◼   ► Anyway, yeah, that's my answer.

00:02:59 ◼   ► Mike, do you have favorite holiday snacks?

00:03:00 ◼   ► And is it aspic?

00:03:02 ◼   ► Tell us.

00:03:02 ◼   ► No, thank you.

00:03:03 ◼   ► I was actually talking about that today with someone.

00:03:05 ◼   ► I have come to really love peppermint bark.

00:03:08 ◼   ► That's like a thing that I enjoy significantly.

00:03:12 ◼   ► So, that's chocolate with some peppermint on top of it.

00:03:15 ◼   ► It's awesome.

00:03:15 ◼   ► Big fan.

00:03:16 ◼   ► Gingerbread.

00:03:18 ◼   ► I make a gingerbread house every year.

00:03:21 ◼   ► I'm actually doing that this weekend, which I'm looking forward to a lot.

00:03:23 ◼   ► So, I'm going to make a gingerbread house.

00:03:25 ◼   ► And I like that.

00:03:26 ◼   ► You know, gingerbread with a little icing on it is really good.

00:03:29 ◼   ► But, yeah, ginger is fantastic.

00:03:30 ◼   ► And then, you know, in the UK, there are lots of like chocolate selection boxes, like little chocolates and stuff like that is a thing we do here.

00:03:38 ◼   ► And we do it well.

00:03:39 ◼   ► And I'm a big fan.

00:03:40 ◼   ► If you would like to send in a Snell Talk question of your own, just go to UpgradeFeedback.com and send in your own Snell Talk.

00:03:49 ◼   ► It's time for some follow-up, Jason Snell.

00:03:51 ◼   ► Follow-up.

00:03:52 ◼   ► Okay.

00:03:53 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:03:53 ◼   ► Sam writes in and says, the gingerbread Pepsi that we spoke about last time is actually quite nice.

00:04:01 ◼   ► Although it's not as nice as the discontinued Pepsi Max ginger.

00:04:06 ◼   ► What could possibly be the difference?

00:04:08 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:04:09 ◼   ► Oh, no.

00:04:10 ◼   ► What could possibly...

00:04:12 ◼   ► Well, that was Max.

00:04:12 ◼   ► That was Max.

00:04:14 ◼   ► Yeah, but what, why, you know, like ginger and gingerbread, surely there's not a difference, right?

00:04:19 ◼   ► Like, realistically, like in the flavor of the soda?

00:04:22 ◼   ► Ginger, more ginger, more ginger?

00:04:24 ◼   ► There can't be a difference.

00:04:25 ◼   ► There can't be a difference.

00:04:25 ◼   ► I can't imagine it.

00:04:26 ◼   ► But, says Sam, when they released the gingerbread Pepsi, they also did gingerbread Doritos.

00:04:33 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:04:34 ◼   ► Because they're both from the same company.

00:04:36 ◼   ► And the Doritos are weird because they're sweet.

00:04:39 ◼   ► I thought I didn't like them, but I kept picking away at them.

00:04:43 ◼   ► That is a crime.

00:04:45 ◼   ► So, I'll just tell you, I'll just tell you, Taco Bell used to have a dessert called, I think

00:04:52 ◼   ► they were called cinnamon crispas, but what they were is they were sugar cinnamon corn chips.

00:04:58 ◼   ► And they were good.

00:04:59 ◼   ► They're good.

00:05:00 ◼   ► I can imagine that, though.

00:05:02 ◼   ► Corn chips can be sweet.

00:05:03 ◼   ► They don't have to be savory.

00:05:05 ◼   ► You know, we think of Doritos.

00:05:06 ◼   ► I think Doritos, that's a misuse of the Doritos brand to call it that.

00:05:10 ◼   ► No, I would say sugar cinnamon on, like, is fine.

00:05:14 ◼   ► But I don't, just gingerbread Doritos seems wrong.

00:05:17 ◼   ► Like, that seems, like, really wrong.

00:05:19 ◼   ► I feel like, so Kate mentioned that they sold the gingerbread Pepsi here in the UK, like, in a store.

00:05:25 ◼   ► Well, I feel like I need to buy and drink the gingerbread Pepsi now at this point.

00:05:28 ◼   ► I think I have to do this.

00:05:30 ◼   ► I think I have to do this.

00:05:30 ◼   ► That's your challenge.

00:05:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:05:31 ◼   ► Challenge!

00:05:32 ◼   ► I do have follow-up.

00:05:35 ◼   ► Somebody wrote in, and they correctly identified what I was thinking of when I said that at the

00:05:40 ◼   ► Curling Club, we have weird-flavored Oreos, and that there was one that was, it was, like,

00:05:44 ◼   ► both sides, and it was Reese's peanut butter cups.

00:05:47 ◼   ► Okay.

00:05:48 ◼   ► There were Reese's Oreos, which I did try, and they also made Oreo Reese's.

00:05:52 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:05:53 ◼   ► I know these have been very popular.

00:05:54 ◼   ► It was a collab.

00:05:55 ◼   ► Yeah, those have been, but that, to me, makes way more sense, like, Oreo.

00:05:58 ◼   ► It does.

00:05:58 ◼   ► That's just, like, they're two sweet things.

00:06:01 ◼   ► Just putting them together, it's, like, fine, you know?

00:06:02 ◼   ► So my question is, if there's gingerbread Doritos, does that imply the existence of Doritos

00:06:07 ◼   ► gingerbread, where it's, like, Flamin' Hot gingerbread?

00:06:09 ◼   ► Cool Ranch gingerbread.

00:06:14 ◼   ► Cool Ranch gingerbread house.

00:06:16 ◼   ► Oh, my God.

00:06:17 ◼   ► It would be in a ranch style.

00:06:19 ◼   ► It would be in a ranch style.

00:06:19 ◼   ► There'd be little ginger cows out in front of it, and it would be Cool Ranch gingerbread.

00:06:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:24 ◼   ► Here's the thing that I wouldn't have expected.

00:06:26 ◼   ► Zoe says the gingerbread, Pepsi, and Doritos are UK exclusive?

00:06:29 ◼   ► What is happening?

00:06:31 ◼   ► No way.

00:06:32 ◼   ► What?

00:06:33 ◼   ► The Brits.

00:06:33 ◼   ► That's madness.

00:06:34 ◼   ► Okay.

00:06:35 ◼   ► You love the ginger.

00:06:36 ◼   ► Adam wrote in with a post on Mastodon that I'm going to put in the show notes of a screen

00:06:42 ◼   ► recording of us effectively gaming the Apple Podcast system last week, where we mentioned

00:06:46 ◼   ► a bunch of podcasts in succession, and it, in fact, showed them and added them to the links.

00:06:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:52 ◼   ► We actually were just, like, messing around and named a bunch of podcasts, and you can

00:06:56 ◼   ► see those podcasts just keep appearing in Apple Podcasts as we go.

00:07:00 ◼   ► Hilarious.

00:07:02 ◼   ► It works.

00:07:03 ◼   ► So, I don't know how long that's going to work for, but, you know, get all your good

00:07:06 ◼   ► podcasts, I guess.

00:07:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:08 ◼   ► Sorry.

00:07:09 ◼   ► It's time for some Rumor Roundup, Jason Snell.

00:07:13 ◼   ► Saddle up and ride into the future.

00:07:18 ◼   ► Saddle up and ride into the future.

00:07:22 ◼   ► Saddle up and ride into the future.

00:07:25 ◼   ► It's the Rumor Roundup.

00:07:31 ◼   ► I don't know if we had mentioned, if people could realize this, but we are just having

00:07:35 ◼   ► a bunch of really condensed segments in today's episode so we can play as many jingles as possible.

00:07:40 ◼   ► Yes, that's correct.

00:07:42 ◼   ► There is a rumor that the iMac Pro is coming back.

00:07:44 ◼   ► This is a thing, apparently.

00:07:46 ◼   ► What?

00:07:47 ◼   ► I don't understand it.

00:07:49 ◼   ► I don't know why they would do this, but there's a rumor that they're testing an iMac Pro

00:07:55 ◼   ► with a Max chip in it.

00:07:57 ◼   ► Yep.

00:07:57 ◼   ► And I dug it up.

00:07:59 ◼   ► Two years ago, Mark Gurman said, because he's been reporting that they aren't imminently

00:08:06 ◼   ► doing one, but that they have been thinking about it.

00:08:09 ◼   ► He said in the M1 generation, they were thinking about it and they decided to table it.

00:08:12 ◼   ► And then two years ago, he said they're still thinking about it, but they haven't done it yet.

00:08:16 ◼   ► And he actually said it was a 32-inch iMac with a higher-end chip, and he said it would

00:08:22 ◼   ► probably arrive maybe as late as late 2025.

00:08:26 ◼   ► Well, we're running out of time for that, but this new thing says that that Mac might actually

00:08:31 ◼   ► exist and be in testing for next year.

00:08:33 ◼   ► Okay, fair enough.

00:08:34 ◼   ► All the reports say this.

00:08:36 ◼   ► I just don't understand it.

00:08:37 ◼   ► I don't know why in Apple's current strategy where they've got a Mac Studio and a Mac Mini

00:08:41 ◼   ► and they've got studio displays, why they would make a 32-inch iMac, even if it's an

00:08:49 ◼   ► iMac Pro.

00:08:49 ◼   ► What's the market for that?

00:08:51 ◼   ► I mean, there's barely a market for the iMac and for a much more expensive iMac Pro where

00:08:56 ◼   ► people...

00:08:57 ◼   ► Is somebody with a 32-inch monitor not going to want to prefer to buy a Mac Studio or something

00:09:03 ◼   ► like that?

00:09:04 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:09:05 ◼   ► I find that very weird.

00:09:06 ◼   ► And then the other thought that I had was, again, how wasteful it is that Apple makes

00:09:14 ◼   ► these iMacs and they can't be repurposed as monitors.

00:09:16 ◼   ► Because even if you buy that 32-inch M5 Max iMac Pro that might be coming, when the M5 Max

00:09:23 ◼   ► has now been left in the dust by the M9 Max, are you going to toss the perfectly good 32-inch

00:09:31 ◼   ► monitor that came with it?

00:09:32 ◼   ► Which is, like, if they do stuff like this, they really need to build back in a mode that

00:09:38 ◼   ► just turns that into a studio display at the end of its life.

00:09:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:41 ◼   ► It's worth noting that this has come up again because at Mac Rumors, they were talking about

00:09:47 ◼   ► finding references to an iMac of an M5 Max in kernel files.

00:09:52 ◼   ► The 32-inch thing is something that Mark Gurman had reported on previously.

00:09:56 ◼   ► Like, there's nothing to suggest that this Mac has a screen size that's any different to

00:10:02 ◼   ► the one that we currently have, right?

00:10:03 ◼   ► Well, it's unclear, but I think Gurman's report would suggest that that was the idea at least

00:10:11 ◼   ► a couple of years ago.

00:10:12 ◼   ► I'm all for the idea that the iMac enclosure can hold other chips.

00:10:17 ◼   ► That's fine.

00:10:18 ◼   ► I don't understand the idea that they would build this 32-inch iMac because the iMac is

00:10:23 ◼   ► just, it is a niche product now.

00:10:24 ◼   ► It's perfectly fine.

00:10:25 ◼   ► It's not needed anymore.

00:10:26 ◼   ► It's not needed.

00:10:27 ◼   ► It's not needed.

00:10:27 ◼   ► We only talk about a Pro iMac because they made one once because there was nothing else.

00:10:33 ◼   ► One time.

00:10:34 ◼   ► There was, that was supposed to be the Mac Pro, right?

00:10:37 ◼   ► The Mac Pro, yeah.

00:10:38 ◼   ► Now, personally, I think it would be hilarious if this product existed and the Mac Pro did

00:10:45 ◼   ► not get an update.

00:10:46 ◼   ► That would be very funny to me just because of how weird that is.

00:10:50 ◼   ► But ultimately, for all the reasons you're saying, I don't see why or where this product

00:10:57 ◼   ► has any reason for existing anymore.

00:10:59 ◼   ► A bigger iMac is one thing.

00:11:01 ◼   ► An iMac with a Max chip in it makes no sense.

00:11:05 ◼   ► Like, I think if you're going to have the iMac, there should be two sizes and that maybe you

00:11:12 ◼   ► can choose between the standard and Pro chips.

00:11:13 ◼   ► And Pro chips.

00:11:15 ◼   ► But really, the only reason you do that is because you're going to have two sizes of

00:11:19 ◼   ► iMac, which I think would just be a good thing to have.

00:11:21 ◼   ► It doesn't make any sense to me to put the M5 Max or any Max chip in the iMac as it is today.

00:11:30 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:11:31 ◼   ► I mean, unless the only thing I can guess is that they've got signals that iMac buyers would

00:11:36 ◼   ► prefer a larger screen.

00:11:37 ◼   ► But again, that would fit better into your suggestion that they just make a bigger iMac.

00:11:42 ◼   ► And then that iMac might be big enough that they could have better thermals in it and so

00:11:46 ◼   ► that they could let you upgrade to a Pro chip maybe or maybe even a Max chip.

00:11:50 ◼   ► Maybe that's what the story is.

00:11:52 ◼   ► It's just that they're going to sell a larger iMac and it's going to have different chips

00:11:55 ◼   ► that are on offer because they can have a bigger cooling system in it.

00:11:58 ◼   ► Maybe that would make a little more sense.

00:12:00 ◼   ► But yeah, it's very weird because I feel like they're in a really good place on the desktop.

00:12:04 ◼   ► Keeping in mind, too, that three quarters of the Macs that they sell are laptops.

00:12:08 ◼   ► And so external displays are like a great story because if you've got a laptop, you can connect

00:12:12 ◼   ► it.

00:12:12 ◼   ► Otherwise, you can choose Mac Mini or if you want more power, Mac Studio.

00:12:16 ◼   ► This makes sense.

00:12:18 ◼   ► Only, you know, the iMac exists because you want a self-contained thing that you can move

00:12:23 ◼   ► around or put on a desk or put on a hotel lobby and things like that.

00:12:28 ◼   ► Like, which is fine.

00:12:29 ◼   ► It's good that that product exists.

00:12:30 ◼   ► It's nice.

00:12:31 ◼   ► It's a nice product.

00:12:32 ◼   ► I just don't know how much more iMac we need in the world.

00:12:35 ◼   ► And again, I'm just going to say, I really hope the next time they re-engineer the iMac,

00:12:39 ◼   ► especially since, let's say this, especially since the studio display already has an A-series

00:12:45 ◼   ► chip in it.

00:12:46 ◼   ► Right?

00:12:47 ◼   ► So they've written software that will run on Apple Silicon that basically makes the Apple

00:12:52 ◼   ► Silicon chip just drive a Thunderbolt display.

00:12:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:12:55 ◼   ► Right?

00:12:55 ◼   ► Please, Apple, if you're going to do that and if you're going to sell more iMacs, engineer

00:13:02 ◼   ► a mode that just turns it into a studio display.

00:13:06 ◼   ► Because one, if I'm home and I've got an iMac and I want to plug, and I'm like for my

00:13:12 ◼   ► kids and I want to plug my laptop into it to get a bigger screen, that's a nice use case.

00:13:17 ◼   ► And at the end of their usable lives as a computer, they could become a studio display and still

00:13:25 ◼   ► get use.

00:13:25 ◼   ► And like, that is what they should be doing.

00:13:27 ◼   ► So yeah.

00:13:29 ◼   ► So I find this a very weird rumor.

00:13:31 ◼   ► But there it is.

00:13:31 ◼   ► It's a rumor.

00:13:32 ◼   ► We've got to watch it for next year.

00:13:33 ◼   ► iMac Pro.

00:13:34 ◼   ► I did not have that on the big go card, but there it is.

00:13:36 ◼   ► Well, if more models is what you would like, I have more models for you, but it's of the

00:13:42 ◼   ► iPhone.

00:13:43 ◼   ► I don't.

00:13:44 ◼   ► Okay.

00:13:44 ◼   ► More iPhones.

00:13:45 ◼   ► Great.

00:13:45 ◼   ► Let's do it.

00:13:46 ◼   ► So the information is reporting on the next two years of Apple's iPhone roadmap.

00:13:52 ◼   ► So they've kind of mapped things out.

00:13:53 ◼   ► There's some little piece of information that they seem to have.

00:13:57 ◼   ► So I'm going to start with these, I think this will go in chronological order.

00:14:01 ◼   ► The iPhone 17e coming in spring 2026.

00:14:04 ◼   ► The main difference between this and the 16e that is reported is it will be bringing MagSafe

00:14:10 ◼   ► back to the product, which is absolutely should have.

00:14:13 ◼   ► Wild that the 16e did not.

00:14:15 ◼   ► The iPhone 18 Pro will have a, quote, left aligned selfie camera and a new camera image

00:14:22 ◼   ► sensor that can capture more light at night while preventing washed out photos during

00:14:27 ◼   ► the day.

00:14:28 ◼   ► Now that left aligned selfie camera, that would only make sense to me in a scenario where they've

00:14:33 ◼   ► put Face ID under the display.

00:14:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:35 ◼   ► Because otherwise, why would you do that?

00:14:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:37 ◼   ► Right?

00:14:38 ◼   ► So.

00:14:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:40 ◼   ► Is it, is it, is it hitting in, is it hidden in the bezel?

00:14:44 ◼   ► In that scenario?

00:14:45 ◼   ► Or is there a punch out in the upper left corner?

00:14:48 ◼   ► I reckon there's a, there's a punch out in the upper left corner.

00:14:51 ◼   ► That's what I reckon you've got going on there, but maybe it's small.

00:14:54 ◼   ► Remember it was described in another rumor as a pinhole.

00:14:57 ◼   ► Maybe it's like a really small cut out.

00:14:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:59 ◼   ► You can't.

00:15:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:15:00 ◼   ► Okay.

00:15:01 ◼   ► Weird.

00:15:02 ◼   ► Then the iPhone fold.

00:15:03 ◼   ► The iPhone fold will have a 5.3 inch outside display and a 7.7 inch inside display.

00:15:09 ◼   ► Okay.

00:15:10 ◼   ► Keeping in mind that the, the 5.3 will be very tall and the 7.7 will be very square.

00:15:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:15:17 ◼   ► So it, it'll, it'll be a much, many more pixels.

00:15:20 ◼   ► But what that will be like to do things on, we just don't know yet.

00:15:25 ◼   ► Right.

00:15:25 ◼   ► Did you see MKBHD's video about the tri-fold?

00:15:28 ◼   ► Yeah, I did.

00:15:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:15:28 ◼   ► Samsung tri-fold.

00:15:29 ◼   ► I thought it was a really, it's a really good video.

00:15:32 ◼   ► And he talks about how it is ridiculous that it, it, you know, it's thick.

00:15:37 ◼   ► Although he said it's not as thick as the first five generations of Samsung fold.

00:15:41 ◼   ► Which is amazing.

00:15:42 ◼   ► And he said, and he also said, I don't think it can get much thinner because it's so thin

00:15:47 ◼   ► because it has to be like, you can't make it that much thinner.

00:15:50 ◼   ► But his point was more, it is really nice to have a rectangular screen when it unfolds instead

00:16:00 ◼   ► of the little square screen.

00:16:01 ◼   ► Now, his argument, and I've seen this argument before is, if what you want to do when you

00:16:06 ◼   ► unfold your phone is watch video, unfolding a two-fold, like the iPhone fold is supposed

00:16:12 ◼   ► to be, doesn't help you because it's square.

00:16:15 ◼   ► And so your video is not any bigger.

00:16:17 ◼   ► That's true.

00:16:18 ◼   ► I, I find that kind of a bogus argument because there are lots of things you probably want to

00:16:23 ◼   ► do with that interior display.

00:16:25 ◼   ► I don't think, I mean, obviously it just goes without saying, if, if the primary thing you

00:16:30 ◼   ► want the folding phone to do is have a bigger video playing, don't buy it because it won't

00:16:35 ◼   ► work.

00:16:35 ◼   ► I think it's, it's just an argument, right?

00:16:37 ◼   ► Like, I don't think he's saying that it's like bad or whatever, but it's just like, this

00:16:40 ◼   ► is a thing which makes it interesting that it can get real big.

00:16:44 ◼   ► It's a terrible use of the pixels though, but his argument is still very interesting.

00:16:48 ◼   ► And just in the sense that you've got so much more space with that trifold.

00:16:51 ◼   ► The trifold is on one level ridiculous and another level actually kind of, what he says

00:16:56 ◼   ► is basically once you unfold it, you're like, oh, this is actually pretty cool.

00:16:59 ◼   ► It's like an actual tablet, like honest to goodness tablet where before this, they're

00:17:05 ◼   ► like, well, this is a really big phone, you know, like this, which is how the folding phones

00:17:09 ◼   ► all feel, which is lovely.

00:17:10 ◼   ► And the 7.7, 7.7 iPhone folder, that screen will be like a, a kind of mini iPad, um, but

00:17:20 ◼   ► like not quite an iPad mini, but a small iPad and we'll have to see.

00:17:24 ◼   ► But anyway, that was good video about, um, what people want in folding phones and, and, uh,

00:17:29 ◼   ► I recommend, I mean, I don't recommend the MKBHG channel in general, but that's a really

00:17:33 ◼   ► good video.

00:17:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:17:34 ◼   ► I liked it a lot.

00:17:35 ◼   ► Um, seeing him use that thing is like, oh my gosh, that is actually just a tablet and it

00:17:40 ◼   ► folds into a phone.

00:17:41 ◼   ► Like that is really interesting.

00:17:42 ◼   ► Uh, then we have the iPhone 18 and 18 E coming in spring of 2027.

00:17:48 ◼   ► So this is the start of the split strategy.

00:17:50 ◼   ► Uh, the iPhone air two will also come alongside that possibly of a price cut and a second camera.

00:17:57 ◼   ► Great.

00:17:59 ◼   ► Then in fall of 2027, the iPhone 20, this will feature a radically new design.

00:18:05 ◼   ► This is quoting from the information, curved glass on all four sides and a narrow metal

00:18:10 ◼   ► band running around the midpoint of the device's edge where the buttons sit.

00:18:14 ◼   ► Can't fully get my head around that.

00:18:16 ◼   ► You know, like, I think that that's like, I can imagine what it might look like, but I

00:18:21 ◼   ► just don't know.

00:18:21 ◼   ► Um, and then the iPhone 19, 19 pro and fold two could launch alongside the iPhone 20, which

00:18:29 ◼   ► would result in 10 distinct iPhone releases in the next two years.

00:18:32 ◼   ► Wow.

00:18:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:34 ◼   ► This is, I mean, Tim Cook did say, and I know he says this sort of thing a lot, but he, he,

00:18:39 ◼   ► it seemed to me that he emphasized the strength of the iPhone pipeline in the last year.

00:18:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:46 ◼   ► And this is, this strikes me as being why he did that.

00:18:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:51 ◼   ► Because he knows that there's this, just a whole bunch of new stuff that they're going

00:18:55 ◼   ► to put out.

00:18:56 ◼   ► And that, um, when he said it's stronger than ever, again, you could just take, take it

00:18:59 ◼   ► as word that it's just like, he always says that it's just hype, whatever.

00:19:03 ◼   ► But like it, to me, it felt like a different sort of hype than usual.

00:19:08 ◼   ► And this just on its own, the 20 and the fold are going to be really exciting.

00:19:14 ◼   ► Let alone all of the other things that might happen to the other regular phones and the,

00:19:18 ◼   ► all this kind of stuff.

00:19:19 ◼   ► So.

00:19:19 ◼   ► And the beauty is if the fold and the 20 are, um, expensive and sort of like for a more niche

00:19:27 ◼   ► audience, I, I made this point a bunch, but I'll say it again.

00:19:29 ◼   ► Apple still really likes the idea of exploring the upper reaches of what people are willing

00:19:34 ◼   ► to pay for an iPhone because there is a portion of their audience that will pay a lot more

00:19:37 ◼   ► than they're even now paying for an iPhone.

00:19:39 ◼   ► There are people who will say, if you can give me a super awesome cutting edge phone at the

00:19:42 ◼   ► high, high end, I will buy it.

00:19:44 ◼   ► And they want those people to spend more money on their iPhone.

00:19:46 ◼   ► It makes sense for them.

00:19:47 ◼   ► They make more money that way.

00:19:48 ◼   ► But also important to that strategy is you still sell an iPhone 19 pro and an iPhone 19.

00:19:55 ◼   ► And, and so people are like, I'm not ever going to buy a $2,200 phone or a $2,500 phone.

00:20:00 ◼   ► It's fine.

00:20:01 ◼   ► They also still sell an iPhone for you.

00:20:04 ◼   ► So, um, that, that it's, we'll see how it goes, but like, I think that's the strategy

00:20:08 ◼   ► they're, they're doing there.

00:20:09 ◼   ► I have just now at this point worked out how difficult the next few years are going to be

00:20:14 ◼   ► because they're bringing out a folding iPhone and then this really interesting new 20.

00:20:20 ◼   ► I'm like, what am I going to want?

00:20:22 ◼   ► Right.

00:20:23 ◼   ► And an Air 2.

00:20:25 ◼   ► And an Air 2.

00:20:25 ◼   ► Man, oh man, man, man, how many iPhones can one man own?

00:20:29 ◼   ► I think that's what they're going to try and work out.

00:20:31 ◼   ► We'll find out.

00:20:32 ◼   ► It's time for the details.

00:20:34 ◼   ► It's the details.

00:20:37 ◼   ► Ooh, woo-hoo.

00:20:40 ◼   ► Future software of features.

00:20:44 ◼   ► They're coming right at you.

00:20:48 ◼   ► Woo-hoo.

00:20:51 ◼   ► Funny story.

00:20:53 ◼   ► When, when I, uh, asked Lex for this jingle, he didn't know that it was a DuckTales reference.

00:20:59 ◼   ► He thought it was a Beatles reference, which explains that song.

00:21:02 ◼   ► So there we go.

00:21:03 ◼   ► I didn't know that it was like that.

00:21:05 ◼   ► That's why it was like that.

00:21:07 ◼   ► That's why it's like that.

00:21:08 ◼   ► I just thought it was trying to be similar to Rumor Roundup because like they, they feel

00:21:12 ◼   ► similar, those two songs.

00:21:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:14 ◼   ► Woo-hoo.

00:21:15 ◼   ► Uh, part of this is follow-up.

00:21:18 ◼   ► So 26.3 Beta 1 is out now.

00:21:22 ◼   ► Uh-huh.

00:21:22 ◼   ► And it includes Apple's, thank you, Apple's side of the, um...

00:21:29 ◼   ► Android iPhone migration.

00:21:31 ◼   ► That's it.

00:21:32 ◼   ► That's what I'm looking for.

00:21:33 ◼   ► You found the words for me.

00:21:34 ◼   ► So it includes that.

00:21:35 ◼   ► So we now know from Apple's perspective that you'll be able to quote, users can opt to move

00:21:41 ◼   ► over photos, messages, notes, apps, passwords, phone numbers, and more.

00:21:45 ◼   ► Data transfers occur with no need to download and use a separate app, making the process simpler.

00:21:50 ◼   ► This is from Mac Rumors.

00:21:51 ◼   ► Health data, devices paired with Bluetooth, and protected items like locked notes are not

00:21:57 ◼   ► transferred over to the new device.

00:21:59 ◼   ► So to do this, you need to use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

00:22:02 ◼   ► You have to have those turned on to perform the transfer, and it will be initiated via

00:22:06 ◼   ► a QR code that you scan, or you can also use a, like, a manual pairing code as well to kind

00:22:12 ◼   ► of set the two devices up.

00:22:13 ◼   ► So I guess this is, like, you know, a more simple way of doing the kind of QR code thing

00:22:19 ◼   ► than the one that Apple creates, where it's got that, like, weird, like, pulsing orb thing,

00:22:24 ◼   ► you know, that they do with all, like, the shimmery stars or whatever.

00:22:27 ◼   ► I guess it's just, like, a kind of really basic version of that.

00:22:30 ◼   ► Also, notification forwarding for non-Apple device, non-Apple wearable devices is showing up.

00:22:38 ◼   ► This will allow users to send notifications to a single third-party connected device.

00:22:43 ◼   ► They can choose which apps, so it can be a subset, just kind of like with the Apple Watch,

00:22:48 ◼   ► where you can say, like, don't show all of my apps, just show certain apps.

00:22:52 ◼   ► This was a DMA requirement, and will only be available to European iPhone users.

00:22:56 ◼   ► Oh, interesting.

00:22:58 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:22:59 ◼   ► I thought that was going to go everywhere.

00:23:00 ◼   ► It is showing everywhere.

00:23:03 ◼   ► Apparently, it will only be available in Europe.

00:23:06 ◼   ► Oh, interesting.

00:23:07 ◼   ► At least to start with.

00:23:08 ◼   ► That Mac rumor story got updated, which smacks of somebody from Apple calling and saying,

00:23:14 ◼   ► no, no, no, no, no, this is not going to be in Europe.

00:23:16 ◼   ► Well, I mean, if you download Beta 1 in America, you see the option, but it just doesn't work.

00:23:24 ◼   ► It's just, like, the idea that this would make something like the Pebble work a lot better,

00:23:28 ◼   ► and they're going to be like, no, you don't get to do that, only in Europe, is frustrating.

00:23:32 ◼   ► But this is, like, part of the crux of the Department of Justice case.

00:23:36 ◼   ► It's, like, this exact thing.

00:23:37 ◼   ► This is, like, one of the only good things in that DOJ case is that idea of, like, of third-party devices,

00:23:44 ◼   ► because they're thinking about, like, meta stuff or whatever.

00:23:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:47 ◼   ► Speaking of frustrating, I wrote a piece about this.

00:23:51 ◼   ► 1873 is out, as well as 26.2, and they both patch a bunch of security holes,

00:23:59 ◼   ► including a zero-day WebKit bug and a messages bug that's bad and a bunch of other stuff.

00:24:04 ◼   ► And in a very weird quirk, iPhones that are capable of running 26 are currently not being offered 1873

00:24:12 ◼   ► if they're running on iOS 18.7.

00:24:15 ◼   ► They're only offered 26.2, which goes against Apple's longstanding tradition of releasing updates

00:24:23 ◼   ► so that you can update your security without going to a new version for a year or two or three or whatever.

00:24:30 ◼   ► On the iPad, if you're running 18.7.2, you are offered 18.7.3.

00:24:35 ◼   ► You don't have to go to 26, which is why, to me, this sounds like a mistake.

00:24:39 ◼   ► Like, either it's a bug or there was something wrong with the 18.7.3 build they were offering

00:24:44 ◼   ► and that they removed it.

00:24:45 ◼   ► But it has the net effect of sort of saying, if you want to patch security holes,

00:24:49 ◼   ► we're going to force you to update your phone to 26 if it runs 26.

00:24:53 ◼   ► Phones that don't run 26 are offered the update.

00:24:56 ◼   ► Phones that do run 26 are only being offered 26.

00:24:59 ◼   ► So my gut feeling is it's an error and not a sneaky way of Apple forcing everybody on to 26

00:25:05 ◼   ► in order to get a security update.

00:25:08 ◼   ► But that's the net result.

00:25:09 ◼   ► Man, I bet that is a rampantly running wild conspiracy theory right now, I'm sure.

00:25:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:16 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:25:17 ◼   ► People want to believe that.

00:25:18 ◼   ► But the fact that the iPad is fine suggests to me that something went wrong somewhere.

00:25:25 ◼   ► And I asked Apple about this a couple of days ago.

00:25:27 ◼   ► No response.

00:25:28 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:25:29 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:25:30 ◼   ► I tried.

00:25:31 ◼   ► This is your final call to put your votes in for the Upgradeys.

00:25:35 ◼   ► Go to Upgradeys.vote.

00:25:37 ◼   ► The voting will close on December 23rd.

00:25:39 ◼   ► So when you're listening to this on the day it comes out, this is your last call to get your votes in.

00:25:44 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:25:44 ◼   ► We're going to be recording the 12th annual Upgradeys next week, which I'm really excited about.

00:25:50 ◼   ► So I'm really looking forward to that.

00:25:51 ◼   ► Go to Upgradeys.vote.

00:25:54 ◼   ► That's how you send in.

00:25:55 ◼   ► Do it now.

00:25:56 ◼   ► Because depending on when you're listening to this, you have almost no time.

00:25:59 ◼   ► Yes, exactly.

00:26:00 ◼   ► Or you have no time.

00:26:01 ◼   ► It's done.

00:26:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:26:02 ◼   ► And you missed it.

00:26:03 ◼   ► Or it's done.

00:26:03 ◼   ► Don't be that person.

00:26:04 ◼   ► Don't miss it.

00:26:05 ◼   ► You don't want to miss it.

00:26:05 ◼   ► Do it now.

00:26:06 ◼   ► Speaking of time running out, you don't have much longer to get 20% off an annual plan to support this show and get Upgrade Plus.

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00:26:21 ◼   ► It's about a dollar an episode and you'll be supporting this show.

00:26:24 ◼   ► So we'll probably be talking about it just one more time next week.

00:26:28 ◼   ► But, you know, if you're listening to this in Christmas week, this is like maybe a perfect Christmas gift for you.

00:26:33 ◼   ► You can give it to a friend or family member.

00:26:35 ◼   ► They can go buy it for you.

00:26:36 ◼   ► Go to GetUpgradePlus.com with the code 2025Holidays at checkout.

00:26:41 ◼   ► And you'll get 20% off the first year of supporting the show.

00:26:45 ◼   ► And we will really appreciate it.

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00:28:23 ◼   ► So, Jason, what are we doing for the holiday special this year?

00:28:29 ◼   ► For the holiday special this year, we are going to revisit a classic from Upgrade 526, the amazingly titled Journal and Learnal.

00:28:38 ◼   ► Journal and Learnal.

00:28:39 ◼   ► Which is, we are going to look at Tahoe icons, and we're going to place them in a tier list.

00:28:48 ◼   ► We're going to compare the previous icon to the current icon, have some thoughts about that, and then place each of them on a tier list, which goes in the traditional tier list format of S, A, B, C, D, F.

00:29:04 ◼   ► So, we're tier ranking the new icon, right?

00:29:08 ◼   ► Yes.

00:29:08 ◼   ► Even though we're going to compare them for fun, but we're going to rank them against each other.

00:29:12 ◼   ► Also, this isn't every icon.

00:29:13 ◼   ► I believe you have picked a subset which you think do a good job of summing up what's on Tahoe.

00:29:19 ◼   ► It's 28 icons from Tahoe that we're going to cover if we get through them all.

00:29:25 ◼   ► And I find it valuable because, one, we want to see how they changed in Tahoe.

00:29:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:29 ◼   ► And we can comment on that because some of this is like, did they get better or worse?

00:29:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:34 ◼   ► And then if we will say, if we previously rated the icon in Journal and Learnal back in 526, we will say what we gave that app as a rating.

00:29:44 ◼   ► Amazing.

00:29:45 ◼   ► So, we're going to just go through and dig through, you know, the somewhat controversial new icon designs in Tahoe.

00:29:52 ◼   ► That's the plan here.

00:29:53 ◼   ► I look forward to establishing a set of rules that we don't follow.

00:29:57 ◼   ► Yep.

00:29:59 ◼   ► I think that's what we did last time.

00:30:00 ◼   ► All right.

00:30:00 ◼   ► So, what are we starting with?

00:30:02 ◼   ► We are starting with Audio MIDI Setup.

00:30:06 ◼   ► Okay.

00:30:07 ◼   ► Not previously rated in Journal and Learnal.

00:30:09 ◼   ► We didn't do it there.

00:30:10 ◼   ► This is an icon that, both versions, it shows a piano keyboard.

00:30:16 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:30:16 ◼   ► The old version was a piano keyboard with some sort of, it's a black keyboard with some controls at the top.

00:30:26 ◼   ► Some dials.

00:30:26 ◼   ► The new one, it's all shrunk.

00:30:29 ◼   ► The keys went all the way down on the old one to almost the edge.

00:30:32 ◼   ► The new one, the keys are pushed up.

00:30:33 ◼   ► There's more of a black border around the round track here, the squircle.

00:30:38 ◼   ► And there are now six colorful buttons in a familiar color pattern just above the keyboard.

00:30:45 ◼   ► And then there are some, a little more cartoony controls above that for the Audio MIDI Setup.

00:30:52 ◼   ► What I like about this icon that we're starting with here is you have chosen one that is absolutely better on tile.

00:31:01 ◼   ► It is.

00:31:02 ◼   ► Because what I really don't like about-

00:31:04 ◼   ► These are in alphabetical order, by the way.

00:31:06 ◼   ► Only the alphabet chose.

00:31:07 ◼   ► No, you chose.

00:31:08 ◼   ► The alphabet chose.

00:31:09 ◼   ► You know what?

00:31:10 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:31:10 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:31:11 ◼   ► In the designers, they started at A, and this was the first one, so it was really good.

00:31:15 ◼   ► And they ran out of steam.

00:31:15 ◼   ► It's like, we're done now.

00:31:17 ◼   ► We haven't got any more in us.

00:31:18 ◼   ► We're done.

00:31:19 ◼   ► We did it, everybody.

00:31:19 ◼   ► This is it.

00:31:20 ◼   ► Audio MIDI Setup.

00:31:21 ◼   ► This is it.

00:31:22 ◼   ► What, what, pre-Tahoe, we'll say pre-Tahoe, what I really don't like about the pre-Tahoe icon

00:31:29 ◼   ► is that the square keys on the keyboard clash with the roundness of the icon, like the round rack.

00:31:38 ◼   ► It's very unpleasing to me that those corners kind of hit into each other in a way that I do not like.

00:31:44 ◼   ► The keys on the Tahoe icon are curved at the corners, so they form that kind of,

00:31:49 ◼   ► curved border around it.

00:31:50 ◼   ► Which doesn't really make sense for a keyboard, but looks nice, you know?

00:31:54 ◼   ► It does look nice.

00:31:55 ◼   ► And also, I just think, also, this icon is just a good-looking icon.

00:31:58 ◼   ► I agree.

00:31:59 ◼   ► The Apple six-color rainbow as colorful controls above, it's so good.

00:32:05 ◼   ► Yep.

00:32:05 ◼   ► I think it's really good.

00:32:06 ◼   ► And I also, I always really appreciate it when they pander, you know?

00:32:11 ◼   ► And that is the pandering.

00:32:13 ◼   ► I like the pandering of the six colors.

00:32:16 ◼   ► They know who they're getting with that, you know?

00:32:18 ◼   ► They do.

00:32:19 ◼   ► They do.

00:32:20 ◼   ► So where do we put this?

00:32:21 ◼   ► I think this is at least A tier.

00:32:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:32:25 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so.

00:32:26 ◼   ► I think that's good.

00:32:26 ◼   ► I don't know if I want to hold it out for S tier.

00:32:28 ◼   ► Well, as I like to do in all of my tier lists, you've got to allow for a re-rank at the end.

00:32:34 ◼   ► Of course.

00:32:35 ◼   ► So, you know, this may go up.

00:32:37 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:32:37 ◼   ► We're going to have to see what's in there.

00:32:39 ◼   ► Well, we'll put it in A tier for now.

00:32:41 ◼   ► We're doing this.

00:32:42 ◼   ► We'll put a link in the show notes at the end to the, I guess, the tier list before and after.

00:32:47 ◼   ► So people can see some imagery.

00:32:50 ◼   ► Yeah, sure.

00:32:50 ◼   ► We're doing this in free form, which is fun.

00:32:53 ◼   ► We are.

00:32:53 ◼   ► That's fun for us.

00:32:55 ◼   ► So I love that.

00:32:56 ◼   ► So we've got some fun.

00:32:57 ◼   ► I mean, we've got some fun.

00:32:58 ◼   ► I've got an iPad in front of me because I opened the free form board before we started.

00:33:02 ◼   ► I'm not on Tahoe on this Mac.

00:33:04 ◼   ► I'm on whatever.

00:33:04 ◼   ► What is it?

00:33:05 ◼   ► High Sierra?

00:33:06 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:33:06 ◼   ► What am I doing?

00:33:07 ◼   ► You're forbidden.

00:33:08 ◼   ► Mountain Lion?

00:33:09 ◼   ► What am I on here?

00:33:10 ◼   ► What operating system was before Tahoe?

00:33:12 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:33:14 ◼   ► Sequoia.

00:33:15 ◼   ► It was the one Sequoia.

00:33:16 ◼   ► It was the one where we both picked a location that was the same distance away.

00:33:20 ◼   ► And I opened the free form board on Sequoia and it said, this is not supported.

00:33:27 ◼   ► Update your operating system.

00:33:29 ◼   ► I was like, wow.

00:33:30 ◼   ► Jason's doing some advanced graphics work.

00:33:32 ◼   ► I got it.

00:33:32 ◼   ► I got it.

00:33:33 ◼   ► We're doing great here.

00:33:34 ◼   ► Okay.

00:33:34 ◼   ► That means we're up to Automator.

00:33:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:33:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:33:40 ◼   ► So Automator, the old icon, we had given a D rank in the tier list.

00:33:47 ◼   ► You didn't like it.

00:33:48 ◼   ► This is Otto, the Automator.

00:33:49 ◼   ► I don't like it.

00:33:49 ◼   ► He's the robot mascot of Automator.

00:33:51 ◼   ► He's got his head with his one eye and he's got his robot arms holding a pipe and standing

00:33:57 ◼   ► in a circle that kind of ripples out from that.

00:34:00 ◼   ► And it's the classic kind of Automator icon.

00:34:02 ◼   ► Don't like it.

00:34:02 ◼   ► You didn't like it.

00:34:03 ◼   ► No.

00:34:04 ◼   ► Why are his arms like a spring?

00:34:06 ◼   ► Why has he got claw hands?

00:34:07 ◼   ► Why is he holding a pipe threateningly?

00:34:09 ◼   ► Like nothing is good about the old icon.

00:34:13 ◼   ► I disagree, but that's why it's not F tier is because I made you do it at D tier.

00:34:19 ◼   ► The new one is so bad.

00:34:23 ◼   ► It's like, why did you even bother?

00:34:25 ◼   ► Mike, Mike, let me, let me try to characterize the new icon.

00:34:30 ◼   ► The new icon is the old robot icons driver's license photo.

00:34:35 ◼   ► Or a mugshot.

00:34:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:34:39 ◼   ► Or a mugshot.

00:34:40 ◼   ► He knows what he did.

00:34:41 ◼   ► He beat somebody with that pipe.

00:34:42 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:34:43 ◼   ► He got arrested for the pipe.

00:34:44 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:34:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:34:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:34:46 ◼   ► It's his mugshot.

00:34:47 ◼   ► You got it.

00:34:47 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:34:48 ◼   ► You got it.

00:34:49 ◼   ► It's just, it has no personality at all.

00:34:51 ◼   ► It's literally just his head and it's the same shape, right?

00:34:53 ◼   ► It's his head and the top, like his shoulders facing forward in a gray round direct.

00:34:59 ◼   ► It is, it is, what, yes.

00:35:01 ◼   ► What did they do?

00:35:02 ◼   ► What did they do to my boy?

00:35:03 ◼   ► What did they do to him?

00:35:04 ◼   ► It's so bad.

00:35:04 ◼   ► It's such a bad one.

00:35:06 ◼   ► Like, it is funny that they ran out of steam between audio MIDI and Automator.

00:35:11 ◼   ► Automator, they're already done.

00:35:12 ◼   ► It's like the next one.

00:35:13 ◼   ► Bankruptcy.

00:35:14 ◼   ► It's bad.

00:35:15 ◼   ► It's bad.

00:35:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:16 ◼   ► This is, if, if, if the old one where he was at least kind of a, an interesting looking robot

00:35:21 ◼   ► is a D tier, I, I, I, this is F tier.

00:35:23 ◼   ► This is mugshot territory.

00:35:25 ◼   ► It's bad.

00:35:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:26 ◼   ► There kind of is nowhere else for it to go.

00:35:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:30 ◼   ► It's, it's real bad.

00:35:31 ◼   ► Like, I mean, you know, I also think the old one's bad, but at least it had, it had a

00:35:38 ◼   ► personality.

00:35:39 ◼   ► It's not a personality that vibes with me at all, but this one is just like, they did the absolute

00:35:43 ◼   ► bare minimum.

00:35:44 ◼   ► They may as well have just, just, I don't know.

00:35:47 ◼   ► I've just made it a pipe.

00:35:48 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:35:49 ◼   ► Like do anything.

00:35:50 ◼   ► Actually my, my theory, I mean, they did have to do a new illustration, but my theory is that

00:35:54 ◼   ► they didn't have the art for the old robot.

00:35:57 ◼   ► Cause they could have just shrunk down the old robot and put them in a bigger round rect.

00:36:00 ◼   ► And I think they may be like, didn't have the file and they're like, nah, we'll just

00:36:03 ◼   ► make a new one and we'll make a mugshot.

00:36:05 ◼   ► It barely has a body.

00:36:06 ◼   ► What, what does it communicate to you?

00:36:08 ◼   ► What does, what does that communicate to you?

00:36:10 ◼   ► A faceless robot.

00:36:12 ◼   ► It's more threat.

00:36:13 ◼   ► Facing forward.

00:36:13 ◼   ► It's, it's looking directly at me.

00:36:16 ◼   ► Why is it good?

00:36:17 ◼   ► I guess, I guess they did bring that over from version to version is the, the, the like threat

00:36:23 ◼   ► of Otto.

00:36:24 ◼   ► The all seeing eye.

00:36:25 ◼   ► Yes.

00:36:27 ◼   ► All right.

00:36:28 ◼   ► So we move on.

00:36:29 ◼   ► Should we move on?

00:36:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:29 ◼   ► Let's move on to calendar.

00:36:31 ◼   ► Calendar.

00:36:32 ◼   ► Now I hadn't realized how bad a job they'd done with calendar.

00:36:39 ◼   ► So the previous version of the calendar icon.

00:36:41 ◼   ► We put a B tier.

00:36:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:43 ◼   ► Oh, actually I have a question for you.

00:36:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:48 ◼   ► Cause this may have changed.

00:36:49 ◼   ► This is changed.

00:36:49 ◼   ► Maybe changing my opinion here.

00:36:51 ◼   ► Maybe changes my opinion of myself in the past.

00:36:54 ◼   ► Did the Mac version of the calendar icon have the date on it?

00:36:59 ◼   ► Or was it always July 17th?

00:37:01 ◼   ► Uh, when it's launched and running in the dock, it has the current date.

00:37:05 ◼   ► Okay.

00:37:05 ◼   ► And the new version doesn't, it seems.

00:37:08 ◼   ► And the new version, um, when it's launched and running in the dock, it has the current

00:37:13 ◼   ► date.

00:37:13 ◼   ► Okay.

00:37:14 ◼   ► That hasn't changed.

00:37:15 ◼   ► It's just, what is the icon of the app out in the finder?

00:37:18 ◼   ► It has gone from a proxy date, July 17th to a, uh, calendar.

00:37:25 ◼   ► That's got a red, the red stripe at the top with nothing in it.

00:37:27 ◼   ► And then a bunch of dots, including one red dot indicating the date.

00:37:31 ◼   ► So they've kind of gone from, from a date that is not the date.

00:37:36 ◼   ► To, uh, a thing that looks like it's a calendar.

00:37:40 ◼   ► So this is actually done the opposite of what I thought was going on here, because I thought

00:37:46 ◼   ► they had replaced the calendar with a date on it with like just no date anymore.

00:37:51 ◼   ► So this has actually made it better because I think as a, just a proxy, the app is an open

00:37:58 ◼   ► icon.

00:37:59 ◼   ► The new one is a better icon for a calendar than the old one that had a date that wasn't

00:38:04 ◼   ► today.

00:38:05 ◼   ► Right.

00:38:07 ◼   ► You know, like if you're just looking at this in, in spotlight or launch pad or whatever

00:38:12 ◼   ► you would call it, uh, seeing July 17th is not particularly helpful to you if it's not

00:38:17 ◼   ► July 17th.

00:38:19 ◼   ► And actually in spotlight, it shows the date in the new version, that white.

00:38:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:24 ◼   ► There's a, it's a white background and it has, you know, the, the day of the week at

00:38:30 ◼   ► the top in red and then in black, the number of the date.

00:38:33 ◼   ► So it's actually, you know, this icon is not seen a lot, um, but they decided, I, yeah, I

00:38:39 ◼   ► think you're right.

00:38:39 ◼   ► I think they decided that having that stat, cause the way it works is a finder icon can't

00:38:45 ◼   ► be updated dynamically.

00:38:47 ◼   ► Uh, the other ones can be, although some of it is like Apple gets to play by rules that

00:38:52 ◼   ► other people don't get to play by, but they, you know, you, they're like launched apps.

00:38:57 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure that other apps can't dynamically update themselves in spotlight, although I

00:39:02 ◼   ► might be wrong about that.

00:39:03 ◼   ► Um, uh, yeah, fantastic Cal is updated in my doc, but not in spotlight.

00:39:08 ◼   ► So Apple's got some special sauce they're doing there, but they must've just decided, look,

00:39:11 ◼   ► we don't like the fact that if you look at this app icon out in the finder, it can't be

00:39:16 ◼   ► dynamic.

00:39:16 ◼   ► And so it's just going to say July 17th on it.

00:39:19 ◼   ► So let's just dump it and have the image of a calendar.

00:39:23 ◼   ► So this is, cause I think this has improved the icon.

00:39:27 ◼   ► I don't know if it's improved it from B to A though.

00:39:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:39:31 ◼   ► I think it's just keeping it in B.

00:39:33 ◼   ► I think I agree.

00:39:34 ◼   ► What we liked about it, I think last time was the idea that it, it imparts with a red stripe,

00:39:39 ◼   ► it, you know, imparts calendar-ness with a little bit of personality and it still has all of that.

00:39:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:39:45 ◼   ► In fact, my disappointment is that when you launch it, uh, it's just a white background.

00:39:51 ◼   ► They didn't, they didn't do the, the like styling of the app.

00:39:55 ◼   ► It's just, I mean, it's more readable.

00:39:56 ◼   ► Actually a rare thing for Apple to make something more readable.

00:39:59 ◼   ► Um, let's put it at a B tier.

00:40:02 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so.

00:40:03 ◼   ► I think that's the right place to put it for now.

00:40:09 ◼   ► Uh, let's move on to everybody's favorite app.

00:40:11 ◼   ► It's been there since the beginning.

00:40:13 ◼   ► It's still there.

00:40:13 ◼   ► It's chess.

00:40:14 ◼   ► And they decided, Oh, chess.

00:40:16 ◼   ► The old icon was a chess board inside a round wreck.

00:40:19 ◼   ► And then a chess piece in front of it in the old Apple style.

00:40:22 ◼   ► It used to be, you had a round wreck.

00:40:24 ◼   ► And then you had like an object that would be out of the round wreck.

00:40:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:40:27 ◼   ► We can't have that anymore.

00:40:28 ◼   ► Everything must be inside the lines.

00:40:30 ◼   ► And so they replaced the chess board with a chess with a, it's a night.

00:40:34 ◼   ► It's the, you know, the horse, uh, with a new one where there's just four squares of the chess board.

00:40:40 ◼   ► And then a glass, I guess, translucent brown night, just in profile from the side, sort of flat.

00:40:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:40:49 ◼   ► Here's the thing.

00:40:50 ◼   ► As Kate, Kate, Kate just said in our discord, why is the horsey a ghost?

00:40:53 ◼   ► Okay.

00:40:54 ◼   ► Look, here's the thing.

00:40:55 ◼   ► The new one is from a like graphical perspective, obviously worse, right?

00:41:04 ◼   ► It's just four squares and it's, it's a clear horse flat.

00:41:09 ◼   ► The old one, that horse is just got way too much detail.

00:41:13 ◼   ► You can see like the individual muscles and hairs on the horse.

00:41:17 ◼   ► It's like, it's too much.

00:41:19 ◼   ► So I actually, from a perspective of an icon, I prefer the new one to the old one, but I don't think it's good.

00:41:28 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:41:29 ◼   ► I don't think it's good either.

00:41:30 ◼   ► Like, I don't think it's good, but I like the new one more.

00:41:33 ◼   ► The old one, I would have given like a D.

00:41:36 ◼   ► So congratulations to the chest icon designer.

00:41:40 ◼   ► You improved it, but it's still bad.

00:41:42 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:41:43 ◼   ► Like, I think it is a better icon because again, it's like, we're going back to the automator problem.

00:41:48 ◼   ► And I actually think this is maybe a thing in certain spots here.

00:41:51 ◼   ► A classic Apple design, design problem from 20 years ago when these icons were designed.

00:41:57 ◼   ► A lot of the icons have way too much detail for how small they are in the system.

00:42:01 ◼   ► Like, so many of Apple's icons are only good when you see them a size that you never see them at.

00:42:09 ◼   ► So you lose the detail.

00:42:10 ◼   ► And I know it's like whimsy and detail.

00:42:13 ◼   ► I get that.

00:42:14 ◼   ► But is that actually helpful to the user in any way?

00:42:17 ◼   ► It is actually a usability argument.

00:42:19 ◼   ► Lauren and I talk about this.

00:42:20 ◼   ► So when we drive to Curling, we're driving on the interstate through Oakland.

00:42:23 ◼   ► And there are lots of billboards.

00:42:25 ◼   ► And those billboards are now electronic billboards.

00:42:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:42:29 ◼   ► So they change.

00:42:29 ◼   ► And it's really interesting.

00:42:32 ◼   ► I mean, bad billboard design exists, but you see even more when they're rotating through.

00:42:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:42:38 ◼   ► These people have built these billboard designs thinking that people are going to be able to see the little tiny bits of text that are on them.

00:42:47 ◼   ► And it's completely unreasonable.

00:42:49 ◼   ► The best billboard is like a big image and like two big words.

00:42:53 ◼   ► Anything.

00:42:54 ◼   ► But some of them are like five lines of small text.

00:42:58 ◼   ► It's like no one's reading that.

00:42:59 ◼   ► Even if they're in the passenger seat, there's not enough time to read it until it flips to the next billboard.

00:43:04 ◼   ► So it's the same thing here.

00:43:06 ◼   ► You're trying to make something that's scannable, especially at small.

00:43:11 ◼   ► Like out in the Finder, these icons are very small.

00:43:14 ◼   ► And even in the dock, they're usually pretty small, at least for me.

00:43:17 ◼   ► So you want it to be scannable.

00:43:18 ◼   ► And this is scannable, although I would say arguing against it is by this thing of making it glass and transparent.

00:43:24 ◼   ► It actually makes the profile horse look.

00:43:28 ◼   ► You know, chess piece icon, the knight icon, less scannable because the chessboard squares are showing through it.

00:43:38 ◼   ► So it's actually not enough, I think, contrast in the horse.

00:43:41 ◼   ► And that's why I think it's a bad icon, even though I do think it's better because it's simpler.

00:43:45 ◼   ► So, like, I would probably just put it in D.

00:43:48 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's right.

00:43:50 ◼   ► I think it's D tier.

00:43:52 ◼   ► I kind of like it, but also don't think it should be rated well.

00:43:55 ◼   ► I don't know if I can explain my feelings on that one.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Okay.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Next up is clock.

00:44:03 ◼   ► Now, we gave the clock icon an A in the previous tier.

00:44:09 ◼   ► It may have been the iOS.

00:44:09 ◼   ► We did iOS and Mac last time, but, like, we're sticking to Mac this time.

00:44:13 ◼   ► So the previous icon was a black border in the round rect.

00:44:18 ◼   ► And then inside of it was a round clock with, you know, set to whatever it is, 10, 08, and 30 seconds, basically.

00:44:31 ◼   ► And it was a clock with numbers 1 to 12.

00:44:33 ◼   ► The new one is all white, so the little lines around the clock spread further out to the edges.

00:44:40 ◼   ► It's more like an Apple Watch clock in that it fills the whole round rect instead of being circular within it.

00:44:46 ◼   ► And only 12, 9, 3, and 6 are showing, and the hands are in the same position.

00:44:51 ◼   ► So it's simplified, and those numbers that you probably couldn't see clearly are gone, and so it's just 9, 6, 12, 3.

00:45:01 ◼   ► I kind of like it better.

00:45:07 ◼   ► I agree with you.

00:45:08 ◼   ► Okay, everyone in the Discord is like, why'd they do this?

00:45:10 ◼   ► Why'd they do this?

00:45:11 ◼   ► And the whole time I'm like, oh, okay, this is S tier.

00:45:13 ◼   ► This is an S tier icon.

00:45:15 ◼   ► It looks fantastic, and it's a clock.

00:45:18 ◼   ► It looks like a clock.

00:45:19 ◼   ► It's not a weird circle inside of a square.

00:45:21 ◼   ► It's actually a square, because clocks can be square.

00:45:25 ◼   ► You've just got to work out the, I don't know, math to make that work.

00:45:29 ◼   ► This is a great, great icon.

00:45:32 ◼   ► I love it.

00:45:33 ◼   ► I guess I should say, I did this all in light mode.

00:45:35 ◼   ► Apparently in dark mode, it's a black clock instead, which is fine.

00:45:39 ◼   ► Love it. Amazing.

00:45:39 ◼   ► But like, it's, so first off, talking about simplicity and scannability, you don't need all 12 numbers.

00:45:45 ◼   ► Not all clocks have all 12 numbers.

00:45:46 ◼   ► That's why they got the lines there, is so you can tell what the time is.

00:45:49 ◼   ► You don't need the numbers.

00:45:51 ◼   ► But I don't like the shape of the black frame around the circular clock.

00:45:55 ◼   ► It ends up being, if you removed everything else and you just had that border shape, it's a weird shape.

00:46:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:02 ◼   ► Where it's thick on the edges and thin in the middle.

00:46:03 ◼   ► And this one is just, it's super simple.

00:46:06 ◼   ► The whole icon is a clock face.

00:46:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:08 ◼   ► I think it's better.

00:46:09 ◼   ► It's fantastic.

00:46:10 ◼   ► It is S tier, in my opinion.

00:46:11 ◼   ► I think.

00:46:12 ◼   ► Whoa.

00:46:12 ◼   ► Yes.

00:46:13 ◼   ► It's super clean.

00:46:14 ◼   ► It's super clear.

00:46:15 ◼   ► It works like a clock, which is an extra fun thing that it does on all the platforms.

00:46:20 ◼   ► I guess.

00:46:21 ◼   ► Actually, I don't know what happens on the Mac.

00:46:22 ◼   ► Maybe it, does it tick on the Mac like it does on the iPhone?

00:46:25 ◼   ► No.

00:46:26 ◼   ► Okay.

00:46:27 ◼   ► Boo to that.

00:46:28 ◼   ► But nevertheless, I'm going to say S tier.

00:46:30 ◼   ► I love it.

00:46:31 ◼   ► I love this thing.

00:46:32 ◼   ► In the doc, it does show the current time.

00:46:35 ◼   ► That will do for me.

00:46:35 ◼   ► But it doesn't have a second hand.

00:46:36 ◼   ► That will do for me.

00:46:37 ◼   ► As long as it, okay.

00:46:38 ◼   ► The second hand disappears?

00:46:39 ◼   ► Uh, yes.

00:46:42 ◼   ► Okay.

00:46:42 ◼   ► That's fine.

00:46:43 ◼   ► As long as it works is the correct time.

00:46:45 ◼   ► I think that's great.

00:46:45 ◼   ► I really like it a lot.

00:46:47 ◼   ► I think this is fantastic.

00:46:48 ◼   ► All right.

00:46:50 ◼   ► S tier it is.

00:46:51 ◼   ► S tier.

00:46:51 ◼   ► Let's go.

00:46:52 ◼   ► Let's go.

00:46:53 ◼   ► All right.

00:46:55 ◼   ► Next.

00:46:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:56 ◼   ► I mean, we're surprising ourselves here, but that's okay.

00:46:59 ◼   ► This was a journey.

00:47:00 ◼   ► I didn't pre ordain anything here.

00:47:03 ◼   ► I just put them in there.

00:47:04 ◼   ► It was enough work to make this free form board.

00:47:06 ◼   ► I don't want to, uh, prejudice myself.

00:47:09 ◼   ► Okay.

00:47:09 ◼   ► Contacts is next.

00:47:11 ◼   ► Man.

00:47:13 ◼   ► Why does the contacts app exist?

00:47:14 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:47:15 ◼   ► Previously B tier.

00:47:17 ◼   ► Previously B tier.

00:47:19 ◼   ► Well, here's the thing.

00:47:20 ◼   ► Having a database of your emails and phone numbers and addresses for the

00:47:26 ◼   ► people, you know, in your computer life, sync to all your devices is a great

00:47:30 ◼   ► idea.

00:47:31 ◼   ► Contacts app is so bad.

00:47:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:34 ◼   ► It's so bad.

00:47:35 ◼   ► It is.

00:47:35 ◼   ► It is.

00:47:36 ◼   ► I'm going to, I'm going to say it.

00:47:38 ◼   ► Perhaps Apple's worst system app is contacts.

00:47:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:43 ◼   ► Every way in which the system interacts with contacts is bad.

00:47:47 ◼   ► Like on my iPhone, like I'm texting with someone.

00:47:50 ◼   ► I'm like, Oh, what is the number that I'm texting them with?

00:47:53 ◼   ► It just doesn't tell you anymore.

00:47:54 ◼   ► Like it, it used to indicate it in like, it used to highlight it in a color to be like,

00:47:58 ◼   ► this is the, it just doesn't show it anymore.

00:48:00 ◼   ► Oh, it's terrible, man.

00:48:01 ◼   ► I wish they would make a better version of it.

00:48:04 ◼   ► Um, there are other apps that try this like, uh, like busy contacts and card hop and things

00:48:08 ◼   ► like that.

00:48:08 ◼   ► And, and like I've used, and I've used different contacts apps over the years and, um, they're

00:48:16 ◼   ► all better than contacts.

00:48:17 ◼   ► And every time I use contacts and this is the people sometimes will ask, like, how do you,

00:48:21 ◼   ► what's your solution for contacts?

00:48:22 ◼   ► And my answer is my contacts database is a disaster and we like for our Christmas card

00:48:31 ◼   ► list, it's in a spreadsheet.

00:48:35 ◼   ► We have ours in an Apple note, shared Apple note.

00:48:37 ◼   ► It's like, I'm not putting it in contacts.

00:48:39 ◼   ► I'm not relying on contacts.

00:48:41 ◼   ► Forget it.

00:48:42 ◼   ► I never even thought about the fact that you could do it in contacts because I've never spent

00:48:45 ◼   ► any time in there.

00:48:46 ◼   ► Don't do it.

00:48:47 ◼   ► Don't do it.

00:48:48 ◼   ► So it's, it's, it's not good, but.

00:48:51 ◼   ► What about the icon?

00:48:52 ◼   ► The old icon was a sort of brown cover of a book that had a little darker brown, uh,

00:48:59 ◼   ► binding on the left side.

00:49:01 ◼   ► And the book was embossed with the classic sort of like person icon.

00:49:06 ◼   ► It's a circle with the little, uh, little semi-circle for the body down at the bottom

00:49:10 ◼   ► and then a round circle for the head, that thing.

00:49:12 ◼   ► Uh, and then little tiny, subtle colored tabs on the, on the right side.

00:49:17 ◼   ► The, and it feels like a physical object and we gave it a beat here.

00:49:20 ◼   ► The new one is just kind of gray background, no binding.

00:49:25 ◼   ► The person circle now is in a dark gray and the person circles themselves are white.

00:49:31 ◼   ► And the, on the right side, uh, the tabs, which are now part of the round rect instead of being sticking out from the round rect are, there are only three of them and they're blue and orange and green.

00:49:42 ◼   ► I don't think you could have made this contact any more worse, this contact icon more worse than they made it.

00:49:48 ◼   ► It is atrociously bad.

00:49:51 ◼   ► All right.

00:49:51 ◼   ► So one is who has a contact book made of glass.

00:49:56 ◼   ► No one has that.

00:49:57 ◼   ► That would be a terrible way to have your address book.

00:49:59 ◼   ► And I know my contacts and they shattered.

00:50:02 ◼   ► So now they're gone.

00:50:03 ◼   ► And I know that all the icons look like glass, but for some reason they decided to keep this one still looking like an address book where they didn't need to do that.

00:50:10 ◼   ► They could have just made this one gray with the little person silhouette and it would have done the job because one, the person silhouette is not in the center anymore.

00:50:17 ◼   ► The icon, which just looks ugly like that looks really bad.

00:50:20 ◼   ► And they actually could have said that if they were made a bit smaller, but they didn't want to do that.

00:50:23 ◼   ► They have the little tabs down the side, but the tabs do not overlap anymore.

00:50:28 ◼   ► So they are therefore useless, right?

00:50:30 ◼   ► As tabs because they don't overlap.

00:50:32 ◼   ► So it doesn't, how would, it just doesn't work.

00:50:36 ◼   ► And also you can see them all through with like, I think the same level of, of, of, uh, clarity, right?

00:50:43 ◼   ► As if they're just like one on top of each other underneath this, terrible.

00:50:46 ◼   ► This is a terrible icon.

00:50:48 ◼   ► So Zoe in the discord said it looks like an ice sculpture of the old icon.

00:50:52 ◼   ► That is a correct.

00:50:52 ◼   ► Yes.

00:50:53 ◼   ► This, this came from a party that the contacts team had at Christmas when they had an ice sculpture made.

00:51:00 ◼   ► This is a terrible icon.

00:51:01 ◼   ► This is terrible.

00:51:02 ◼   ► It's real bad.

00:51:02 ◼   ► I am really not one for skeuomorphism.

00:51:04 ◼   ► Like it just in general, like I just don't really like it anymore.

00:51:07 ◼   ► Like it grew old, but the contacts app is absolutely an app that should have remained looking like that.

00:51:13 ◼   ► That icon was good skeuomorphism.

00:51:16 ◼   ► You get, you got it.

00:51:17 ◼   ► It was subtle.

00:51:17 ◼   ► It was kind of whimsical, but it had the, like the binding on the left side.

00:51:20 ◼   ► It's totally unnecessary, but it's really nice.

00:51:23 ◼   ► And it balances the tabs on the other side, which have depth.

00:51:26 ◼   ► So you can see that they are tabs.

00:51:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:51:28 ◼   ► They absolutely should have automated this icon and they didn't.

00:51:32 ◼   ► They just tried to throw it away.

00:51:33 ◼   ► This is my argument is throw it away.

00:51:36 ◼   ► If you're going to do a new icon like this for contacts, don't ape the old icon because all you're doing is spitting on the grave of the old icon by, by making this zombie version of it.

00:51:46 ◼   ► Do something different and original rather than just destroying the old icon.

00:51:50 ◼   ► Absolutely.

00:51:51 ◼   ► Bad.

00:51:51 ◼   ► Terrible.

00:51:52 ◼   ► F tier.

00:51:53 ◼   ► F.

00:51:53 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:51:54 ◼   ► Okay.

00:51:54 ◼   ► Let's do F tier.

00:51:55 ◼   ► I love it.

00:51:55 ◼   ► Let's put it.

00:51:55 ◼   ► I think so.

00:51:56 ◼   ► I think it's F tier.

00:51:57 ◼   ► I think it's a bad icon.

00:51:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:51:58 ◼   ► I think it's a crime.

00:51:58 ◼   ► We could, we could also rename F tier to auto tier.

00:52:01 ◼   ► I wouldn't mind that actually.

00:52:02 ◼   ► Well, we'll just, we'll keep that under advisement.

00:52:05 ◼   ► Next up is we've talked about this before because this is one of the, and we didn't rate it last time, but it is one of the most bizarre icons on the Mac.

00:52:15 ◼   ► It is digital color meter.

00:52:17 ◼   ► The old icon was a little, it's a red background round wrecked.

00:52:23 ◼   ► And inside it, there's a circular thing that's got a, a bunch of little, little shapes.

00:52:29 ◼   ► They're not quite squares, but little, little, uh, radial strips, uh, like a color wheel.

00:52:33 ◼   ► And there's an eyedropper and the eyedropper is full of, I'm just going to say it blood.

00:52:39 ◼   ► It's full of blood.

00:52:43 ◼   ► So me and you spoke about this together in Memphis when we decided to do this episode.

00:52:48 ◼   ► The conversation we had at the time is, I'm sure it's a conversation we probably had on this, when this icon update shift at some point.

00:52:55 ◼   ► I think so.

00:52:55 ◼   ► Is Apple had the opportunity to have any color inside.

00:53:00 ◼   ► Yeah, to have it not be blood?

00:53:01 ◼   ► Any, any of the colors.

00:53:03 ◼   ► There's lots of them.

00:53:04 ◼   ► Uh, and he could have chosen any of them.

00:53:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:53:07 ◼   ► But they just, just to be clear.

00:53:08 ◼   ► There's an orange one right next to it.

00:53:10 ◼   ► To be clear, the old icon has very strong.

00:53:14 ◼   ► I experiment on human beings energy, right?

00:53:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:53:16 ◼   ► I'm a mad scientist experimenting on other people.

00:53:19 ◼   ► I have the blood.

00:53:21 ◼   ► Um, so, so yes, this is your opportunity to make the color that is being sampled in the digital color meter.

00:53:27 ◼   ► Not blood.

00:53:28 ◼   ► Literally any color but blood.

00:53:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:53:30 ◼   ► And so the new icon is a white background.

00:53:33 ◼   ► Uh, it is a little, a series of circles.

00:53:36 ◼   ► Instead of the skeuomorphic color wheel, it's just a series of circles in a circle.

00:53:41 ◼   ► Um, that go from red up to pink and then from yellow back around through orange to red.

00:53:47 ◼   ► And the sampler, of course, still in the bottom left and still sampling blood red.

00:53:52 ◼   ► But now the, the, the eyedropper is no longer, uh, photorealistic.

00:53:57 ◼   ► It's a cartoon eyedropper with cartoon blood inside.

00:54:02 ◼   ► And now they have even more color distinct color options because the previous one, there's

00:54:08 ◼   ► only like three colors and they're all this kind of like green after that.

00:54:11 ◼   ► So that's, that is to the advantage of this new.

00:54:14 ◼   ► There's a good thing about the new icon.

00:54:15 ◼   ► It shows different colors as choices instead of it being sort of like there's a red and

00:54:20 ◼   ► then light red and then the rest of them are just gray.

00:54:22 ◼   ► We don't care.

00:54:22 ◼   ► Instead.

00:54:23 ◼   ► It's like, no, no, this one goes all the way from red to pink and it goes from red to

00:54:26 ◼   ► yellow.

00:54:26 ◼   ► Uh, choose your color.

00:54:28 ◼   ► Okay.

00:54:29 ◼   ► The, the, the cartoon eyedropper, like, okay.

00:54:32 ◼   ► Although I will say it is a little weird that the old eyedropper was made of glass and the

00:54:37 ◼   ► new one is, I guess, a flat piece of glass instead.

00:54:41 ◼   ► I thought we were doing glass here.

00:54:42 ◼   ► It's all glass.

00:54:43 ◼   ► We are in the glass realm now.

00:54:46 ◼   ► Glass sampling glass.

00:54:47 ◼   ► Okay.

00:54:47 ◼   ► You're right.

00:54:47 ◼   ► You're right.

00:54:48 ◼   ► You're right.

00:54:48 ◼   ► Um, but like you had one job, which was not to have it be a blood draw and you failed

00:54:55 ◼   ► it.

00:54:55 ◼   ► Uh, here's the thing.

00:54:56 ◼   ► The new icon better.

00:54:57 ◼   ► I actually think the new icon is better.

00:54:59 ◼   ► Than the old icon.

00:55:00 ◼   ► It's better.

00:55:00 ◼   ► They just missed their opportunity to not have it be a blood sample.

00:55:03 ◼   ► Knock it over by one and it could have been orange, you know?

00:55:06 ◼   ► And then it would have been fine.

00:55:07 ◼   ► Just got orange juice in there.

00:55:09 ◼   ► Uh, I much prefer the new icon to the old one.

00:55:12 ◼   ► It is.

00:55:12 ◼   ► It is less bananas than the old one.

00:55:15 ◼   ► I do think it's at least a B tier.

00:55:17 ◼   ► Like, I, I just think it looks like a nice icon.

00:55:20 ◼   ► Like I, I enjoy looking at it.

00:55:22 ◼   ► Um, I kind of want to ding them for staying with red though.

00:55:26 ◼   ► It is a nice icon.

00:55:26 ◼   ► We can put it in C then.

00:55:27 ◼   ► We can put it in C.

00:55:28 ◼   ► Let's put it.

00:55:28 ◼   ► Okay.

00:55:28 ◼   ► I want to put it in C tier because, uh, you had, you had one job, uh, you made a nice

00:55:34 ◼   ► icon and then you made it a blood draw.

00:55:35 ◼   ► What are you doing?

00:55:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:55:37 ◼   ► All right.

00:55:38 ◼   ► We are going now to discuss perhaps the most controversial of our choices last time.

00:55:45 ◼   ► I think, because we, it's disc utility and we chose to make it an S tier icon.

00:55:54 ◼   ► I don't remember why.

00:55:56 ◼   ► I remember why we decided to make it S tier because it is so extremely weird that they just

00:56:07 ◼   ► went all the way with it and we wrapped all the way around from F tier to S tier because

00:56:12 ◼   ► to, to replay what the, uh, disc utility icon was, it's a silver tray in the shape of a round

00:56:19 ◼   ► direct with white on the tray, but the silver edge on the tray is a stethoscope hovering above

00:56:27 ◼   ► the tray is a hard drive icon.

00:56:28 ◼   ► The step, the tube at the end of the stethoscope disappears around the hard drive icon, snakes, snakes

00:56:34 ◼   ► back around over the hard drive icon and the stethoscope itself is on the hard drive as if listening

00:56:41 ◼   ► to the beating heart of the hard drive for disc utility.

00:56:44 ◼   ► The metaphor works.

00:56:46 ◼   ► The choice of imagery is deranged, but I think what we decided was it was so bad.

00:56:52 ◼   ► It was good.

00:56:53 ◼   ► And it communicates.

00:56:54 ◼   ► It's a disc checkup something.

00:56:57 ◼   ► And the, the level of detail on the hard drive is unbelievable.

00:57:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:57:03 ◼   ► It's the classic Mac hard drive icon, right?

00:57:05 ◼   ► So it's got like the things on the back and it's got like a warning label at the top.

00:57:09 ◼   ► And then the stethoscope has detail and I like the medical tray.

00:57:13 ◼   ► It's like your doctor came in with this tray to check on your hard drive with their stethoscope

00:57:18 ◼   ► again, deranged from a metaphor standpoint, but also kind of a classic icon that does communicate

00:57:25 ◼   ► something.

00:57:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:57:26 ◼   ► The new icon is a wrench, is a hex wrench with a little hexagon in it with an Apple logo.

00:57:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:57:33 ◼   ► On a gray background.

00:57:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:57:34 ◼   ► And I, you know, many, many, uh, much virtual ink has been spilled on the utilities because

00:57:40 ◼   ► there are lots of utilities icons that have this hex wrench.

00:57:43 ◼   ► And people have talked about a real wrench like that would break, et cetera, et cetera.

00:57:48 ◼   ► And that they sort of like tried to create a, a format for, uh, utilities where the wrench

00:57:53 ◼   ► has an icon inside it in this hex shape that communicates something about what kind of a

00:57:59 ◼   ► utility it is.

00:58:00 ◼   ► However, okay.

00:58:02 ◼   ► It's like, Oh, but on the Bluetooth utility, it's a blue hexagon and there's a Bluetooth

00:58:06 ◼   ► logo in it.

00:58:07 ◼   ► Huh?

00:58:07 ◼   ► Huh?

00:58:08 ◼   ► I'm like, okay, I'll give you that.

00:58:10 ◼   ► I'll give you that.

00:58:11 ◼   ► Except for one thing.

00:58:12 ◼   ► What's on the hexagon and disc utility.

00:58:15 ◼   ► And the answer is an Apple logo.

00:58:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:19 ◼   ► An Apple logo.

00:58:20 ◼   ► I'm just going to say, in general, I think that these utility icons are totally fine.

00:58:26 ◼   ► Like the overall suite of them, like people are very upset about it.

00:58:29 ◼   ► I think they're totally fine.

00:58:30 ◼   ► A generic, uh, suite of wrench icons with a little hex icon in the center that it says

00:58:37 ◼   ► what kind of utility this is.

00:58:39 ◼   ► Because expansion slot utility, wireless diagnostics utility, and Apple script utility previously,

00:58:45 ◼   ► it was just a crossed screwdriver and wrench.

00:58:48 ◼   ► Like each of them.

00:58:49 ◼   ► So they weren't, they were not inventive before.

00:58:53 ◼   ► Like disc utility is the biggest loser because they also didn't do a good job with the one

00:58:59 ◼   ► that they replaced it with because it doesn't make any sense to put an Apple logo there.

00:59:04 ◼   ► But the problem is, the problem is, the problem is, what do you put graphically in there?

00:59:13 ◼   ► Because there aren't discs anymore.

00:59:15 ◼   ► They're not discs.

00:59:15 ◼   ► They have, we're going to get to it.

00:59:18 ◼   ► They have their hard drive icon.

00:59:19 ◼   ► They could have put that in there on the, on the, uh, on the, on the hexagon.

00:59:23 ◼   ► They could have put a chip in there or something.

00:59:26 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:26 ◼   ► They just put the Apple logo.

00:59:27 ◼   ► It's a give up.

00:59:28 ◼   ► It's like, look, disc utility might be your most important utility.

00:59:31 ◼   ► If you're going to have this unified hexagon utility design, you better make sure you got

00:59:36 ◼   ► a plan for disc utility.

00:59:37 ◼   ► And putting the logo of your company on the hexagon is not a plan.

00:59:41 ◼   ► It's not a plan.

00:59:43 ◼   ► No.

00:59:43 ◼   ► What are you doing?

00:59:44 ◼   ► I would say though, in general, like disc utility's level of importance to the, to

00:59:50 ◼   ► the typical Mac user could not have fallen through the floor harder.

00:59:54 ◼   ► It has diminished greatly.

00:59:56 ◼   ► It's true.

00:59:57 ◼   ► Since this incredible icon was made.

00:59:59 ◼   ► Like it was maybe an F tier importance app and is now an F tier importance app because there

01:00:05 ◼   ► isn't much you can do with it, nor do you really need to anymore.

01:00:08 ◼   ► Yeah, that's true.

01:00:09 ◼   ► There, there are, I, I use it occasionally and when, when you use it, it's kind of important,

01:00:14 ◼   ► but I wouldn't say it's F tier, but it's certainly diminished from the days of the spinning hard

01:00:18 ◼   ► drive for sure.

01:00:19 ◼   ► Yes.

01:00:19 ◼   ► Cause like, but again, I just not required in the same level.

01:00:22 ◼   ► So I'm, I'm happy.

01:00:24 ◼   ► I think you and I are both happy to defend the idea that, okay, you're going to create a different

01:00:28 ◼   ► icon language for utilities to unify them as utilities.

01:00:32 ◼   ► And the wrench is a way you could do that.

01:00:35 ◼   ► You know, if you care that the wrench isn't designed right, I mean, whatever, I like the

01:00:40 ◼   ► idea that they're going to do a little hexagon inside it and that there's going to be a symbol

01:00:44 ◼   ► in there that changes by utility and it signifies, well, they're all utilities, but they're all

01:00:48 ◼   ► different.

01:00:48 ◼   ► But if you're going to do that, you, you cannot punt on perhaps your most important utility.

01:00:53 ◼   ► You need to do something.

01:00:55 ◼   ► You need to come up with a plan to represent disc and your company logo is not it.

01:00:59 ◼   ► So this is a, in my mind, Mike, this is a complete abject failure of an icon because it doesn't

01:01:04 ◼   ► impart anything about it.

01:01:05 ◼   ► I don't mind the look of it.

01:01:06 ◼   ► It looks fine, but it's a flop.

01:01:09 ◼   ► So is it an F?

01:01:09 ◼   ► Yeah, it is an F.

01:01:10 ◼   ► I think it is.

01:01:12 ◼   ► Like the overall system that they came up with, I am totally fine with, but this one is just

01:01:17 ◼   ► a really, really bad interpretation of that new system.

01:01:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:23 ◼   ► This, this is, that's not why we don't like it.

01:01:25 ◼   ► We don't like it, not because of the wrench, but because of the apple in the center.

01:01:29 ◼   ► That is a give up.

01:01:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:30 ◼   ► It's just a give up.

01:01:31 ◼   ► Absolutely.

01:01:32 ◼   ► Next up is everybody's most important.

01:01:35 ◼   ► Talk about an F tier app.

01:01:36 ◼   ► It's DVD player, which still exists.

01:01:39 ◼   ► And so I thought, I thought I'd throw it in there.

01:01:42 ◼   ► What is a DVD player icon look like in the year 2025?

01:01:44 ◼   ► What, what is it?

01:01:46 ◼   ► So the old one, and this is great.

01:01:48 ◼   ► The old one seems at first glance to be a gray around direct, but if you look closer, you

01:01:52 ◼   ► realize it's a super drive.

01:01:55 ◼   ► It's Apple's external super drive that, that when they stopped doing internal optical

01:02:00 ◼   ► drives with the MacBook air, they made the super drive, which was a round rect optical

01:02:05 ◼   ► drive that was external USB.

01:02:07 ◼   ► That's what it is.

01:02:09 ◼   ► It is.

01:02:09 ◼   ► You can see the little slot.

01:02:10 ◼   ► It's a super drive.

01:02:11 ◼   ► And then as with a lot of these old icons in the bottom right corner, sticking out of the

01:02:16 ◼   ► round rect is a disc.

01:02:18 ◼   ► Okay.

01:02:18 ◼   ► The new one is a gray round rect with a disc on it.

01:02:23 ◼   ► And then over the disc is a play bar.

01:02:26 ◼   ► It's like a little floating play window with a, the play icon and a little progress bar or

01:02:32 ◼   ► volume bar, whatever, whichever one you want that to be.

01:02:36 ◼   ► Um, I mean, I'm not very enthusiastic about this icon and it doesn't really matter because

01:02:43 ◼   ► it's the DVD player, but I do think it imparts what it is.

01:02:47 ◼   ► I, I think the, the new DVD player icon does a better job than the old DVD player icon

01:02:53 ◼   ► of suggesting it is a DVD player.

01:02:55 ◼   ► Like the old icon is not released.

01:02:57 ◼   ► All it is telling you is there is something to do with discs here.

01:03:00 ◼   ► Is it CDs?

01:03:01 ◼   ► Is it DVDs?

01:03:02 ◼   ► Do I, do I play them?

01:03:04 ◼   ► Do I rip them?

01:03:05 ◼   ► What do I do?

01:03:05 ◼   ► Do I burn them?

01:03:06 ◼   ► Okay.

01:03:06 ◼   ► Better job, but, um, but also not interesting at all.

01:03:11 ◼   ► I mean, I don't think they should have put a lot of effort into it.

01:03:14 ◼   ► I do think they put quite a lot of effort into it.

01:03:17 ◼   ► Actually, here's another thing I'll say.

01:03:19 ◼   ► I think it does a better job of imparting what it is, but it's not as, it's not as nice.

01:03:22 ◼   ► That old icon is awesome.

01:03:25 ◼   ► Once you realize it's a super drive, it's like, oh, that's actually pretty good.

01:03:29 ◼   ► They're literally showing the product.

01:03:31 ◼   ► You have to really make it big to show that it's a super drive.

01:03:34 ◼   ► And also, didn't a super drive have an Apple logo on the top?

01:03:37 ◼   ► So they didn't actually replicate the super drive clearly.

01:03:40 ◼   ► I'm going to say that it does, whether it does or it doesn't.

01:03:42 ◼   ► Okay.

01:03:43 ◼   ► What, uh, what is this DVD player?

01:03:45 ◼   ► C tier, C tier, D tier?

01:03:50 ◼   ► One of the two.

01:03:51 ◼   ► Like, it's not incredible.

01:03:52 ◼   ► Apparently the super drive does not have an Apple logo on the top, but still.

01:03:55 ◼   ► It has a cable coming out the back.

01:03:56 ◼   ► Where's the cable?

01:03:57 ◼   ► That's what I want to know.

01:03:58 ◼   ► Okay.

01:03:58 ◼   ► I think D tier.

01:04:01 ◼   ► Okay.

01:04:01 ◼   ► I think so.

01:04:03 ◼   ► And, uh, one more before we take a break.

01:04:06 ◼   ► It's the big one.

01:04:07 ◼   ► Stephen Hackett, pay attention.

01:04:10 ◼   ► Finder, Finder.

01:04:12 ◼   ► Now there was a controversy over the summer.

01:04:14 ◼   ► They did a different Finder logo.

01:04:15 ◼   ► We're not going to talk about that.

01:04:16 ◼   ► That was a beta.

01:04:16 ◼   ► Here we are with the new Finder logo.

01:04:19 ◼   ► So the old Finder logo, round wrecked, all the way out to the edge with the, with the

01:04:25 ◼   ► traditional Apple Mac face.

01:04:28 ◼   ► So it's blue on one side, kind of gray on the other side.

01:04:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:33 ◼   ► It goes all the way to the edges with the face and the little person's, uh, silhouette.

01:04:37 ◼   ► So it looks like a face and then also another face.

01:04:40 ◼   ► The new one, everything's in set a little bit.

01:04:44 ◼   ► And the, the white face, uh, has, uh, is made of glass now.

01:04:48 ◼   ► And, and the little face parts are made of glass.

01:04:50 ◼   ► So it's more textured and it doesn't go all the way to the edge.

01:04:54 ◼   ► Something I learned this year is that I don't like the Finder icon just in general that I

01:05:03 ◼   ► don't like it.

01:05:04 ◼   ► I didn't really have much of an opinion about it, but because I was forced to look at it

01:05:09 ◼   ► a lot week after week, after week, it angered you, I decided I didn't like it.

01:05:14 ◼   ► And I decided I especially didn't like it when everyone was adamant that you must have

01:05:20 ◼   ► it, that there's two faces.

01:05:21 ◼   ► It's like, I don't like that there's two faces.

01:05:23 ◼   ► What is the other person doing?

01:05:25 ◼   ► Why are they so close to the other person from a side way?

01:05:29 ◼   ► Why do they share a mouth?

01:05:30 ◼   ► What are they?

01:05:30 ◼   ► I guess if you share a mouth to someone, you've got to be close to them.

01:05:34 ◼   ► You can't go, you can't go far.

01:05:36 ◼   ► I don't like it.

01:05:36 ◼   ► Why, why is there a person like peeking in, in front of, why are they getting in the

01:05:41 ◼   ► way of the other person?

01:05:42 ◼   ► I don't like it.

01:05:43 ◼   ► And also, also, what does this got to do with anything that Finder does?

01:05:48 ◼   ► It has nothing to do with it.

01:05:49 ◼   ► Nothing, nothing.

01:05:51 ◼   ► The truth is, first off, I'm not sure what we have as a Finder icon if it's not this.

01:05:55 ◼   ► And the truth is, there is enormous, I could say nostalgia, I could say brand equity in

01:06:00 ◼   ► this symbol of the Mac that has existed since the System 7 era.

01:06:05 ◼   ► It was the macOS logo originally.

01:06:06 ◼   ► And then they applied it to the Finder.

01:06:09 ◼   ► Where are we going to put that thing?

01:06:11 ◼   ► We'll put it here.

01:06:12 ◼   ► Here's what I'll say.

01:06:14 ◼   ► I'm a fan of the Finder for all those reasons, because I was around then.

01:06:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:06:20 ◼   ► And like Stephen Hackett, what I'll say is, I think the new one is fine.

01:06:24 ◼   ► There are other mock-ups that people have done all over the summer that look a little bit

01:06:30 ◼   ► better, but I'm also not going to get too upset about the fact that this icon, instead

01:06:37 ◼   ► of it going to the edges, the person shape is smaller, made of glass, and comes in a little

01:06:44 ◼   ► bit from the edges.

01:06:44 ◼   ► I feel like it still expresses a thing that is what I think of as the Finder icon.

01:06:50 ◼   ► And at this point, it's been the icon so long that let's just make it recognizable.

01:06:54 ◼   ► I'm going to share Zoe.

01:06:56 ◼   ► You said, what would they do, right?

01:06:58 ◼   ► So I'm going to share Zoe's take, because I agree with it.

01:07:00 ◼   ► It should be called Files.

01:07:01 ◼   ► Because Finder, that's actually what Spotlight does.

01:07:05 ◼   ► Spotlight finds.

01:07:07 ◼   ► Yeah, remember, we did this thing, Chooser, Finder, you know, all the different er names

01:07:12 ◼   ► that they had, and this is a relic of that.

01:07:14 ◼   ► You're right.

01:07:14 ◼   ► Actually, I would say there's probably a bunch of people within Apple who, when they suggested

01:07:20 ◼   ► that we rename the Finder Files, they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:07:23 ◼   ► We can't do that.

01:07:24 ◼   ► It's Finder.

01:07:24 ◼   ► It goes back to 1984.

01:07:26 ◼   ► We can't do it.

01:07:27 ◼   ► And I think you're right.

01:07:28 ◼   ► There is a strong argument to be made that this should just be called the Files app.

01:07:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:31 ◼   ► And what I like is that that argument was like, you know, I can imagine this thing.

01:07:35 ◼   ► No, you can't do that.

01:07:36 ◼   ► It's like, okay, but can we destroy the icon?

01:07:38 ◼   ► And they said, yeah, sure, you can do that.

01:07:40 ◼   ► To be clear, the Files icon is a white round racked with a folder on it.

01:07:44 ◼   ► Yeah, I know.

01:07:45 ◼   ► I mean, the folder isn't great, right?

01:07:47 ◼   ► Like, what is that doing?

01:07:48 ◼   ► But at least the folder icon exists within the Finder, right?

01:07:56 ◼   ► Like, folders look like where you put your files.

01:07:59 ◼   ► There's no smiley face hiding in the Finder somewhere.

01:08:02 ◼   ► There's like, ah, we got the smiley face.

01:08:04 ◼   ► It's not there.

01:08:04 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:08:05 ◼   ► I haven't looked everywhere.

01:08:06 ◼   ► Maybe it pokes out like, and I just haven't found it.

01:08:08 ◼   ► Surprise!

01:08:09 ◼   ► Finder Man is here!

01:08:10 ◼   ► This icon, just as a graphic, I actually quite like.

01:08:14 ◼   ► I find the new one more graphically pleasing than the old one.

01:08:18 ◼   ► Sorry, everybody, but I do.

01:08:20 ◼   ► It's new and uses the styles and it's been a little bit of a rethink and I don't have a

01:08:24 ◼   ► problem with it at all.

01:08:26 ◼   ► And it also looks less like the creepy second faces poking in on the new one, which I appreciate

01:08:31 ◼   ► than on the old one.

01:08:32 ◼   ► Great.

01:08:34 ◼   ► So, like, I think it's like, I think it's probably like a B tier icon, but in general, I wish that

01:08:41 ◼   ► it looked like something completely different because I don't like it and also finder shouldn't

01:08:45 ◼   ► be called finder.

01:08:46 ◼   ► All right.

01:08:47 ◼   ► I'm going to give you B tier.

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01:10:49 ◼   ► All right.

01:10:49 ◼   ► What's next?

01:10:50 ◼   ► All right.

01:10:51 ◼   ► It is off to font book.

01:10:54 ◼   ► Font book used to use the same style as contacts where it had a little binding and then it had

01:11:02 ◼   ► a gray background and on the gray background were the letter A in four different fonts in

01:11:07 ◼   ► a square and then there were little tabs on the right.

01:11:10 ◼   ► Like it's a little font book, right?

01:11:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:13 ◼   ► And the new one like contacts has been turned into a thing that doesn't have a binding has

01:11:18 ◼   ► three tabs that don't overlap on the right that are kind of like vestigial tabs in shades

01:11:25 ◼   ► of gray.

01:11:26 ◼   ► It's all gray.

01:11:26 ◼   ► And then on the icon is a lowercase a in the bottom left corner and that's it.

01:11:32 ◼   ► This one is better than contacts, but still really bad for all the reasons that contacts is

01:11:39 ◼   ► bad.

01:11:39 ◼   ► And I think it's better because the A is like in a decent spot, you know, like it's

01:11:45 ◼   ► like looks visually okay rather than where the person is on the contacts where it just doesn't

01:11:50 ◼   ► look right.

01:11:51 ◼   ► So I would still put this in F because I just think that it has all of the same problems that

01:11:56 ◼   ► the contacts logo has.

01:11:58 ◼   ► I can't.

01:11:59 ◼   ► I, I, it strikes me that one of the problems Apple has is that they have a lot of apps that

01:12:06 ◼   ► are named for metaphors that their icon style refuses to participate in.

01:12:11 ◼   ► Right.

01:12:11 ◼   ► This is literally font book.

01:12:14 ◼   ► Yes.

01:12:15 ◼   ► And they're like, can't really, it's a glass book, right?

01:12:19 ◼   ► We can't really do a book.

01:12:20 ◼   ► Cause that would be the ideal, right?

01:12:22 ◼   ► Is that probably back, I would have to look back, but I'm pretty sure that font books icon

01:12:27 ◼   ► used to be a literal book with font like A's on it.

01:12:30 ◼   ► Right.

01:12:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:12:31 ◼   ► And, and then it got turned into a round wreck book and now it's not even a book.

01:12:35 ◼   ► Now it is a, a great blog.

01:12:37 ◼   ► Why is it not just called fonts?

01:12:38 ◼   ► Well, this is, this is what I'm saying is you could break the metaphor and just call it fonts

01:12:42 ◼   ► or font utility.

01:12:43 ◼   ► In which case you could use a wrench with a hex that had an A in it, which might be fine.

01:12:49 ◼   ► That would be fine.

01:12:51 ◼   ► Um, but like, I don't know, man, this is, the old one isn't great, right?

01:12:58 ◼   ► Like it isn't great, but at least it shows that there are multiple fonts and it's got

01:13:01 ◼   ► the book metaphor.

01:13:02 ◼   ► Like I'm not going to defend it.

01:13:03 ◼   ► I mean, we gave it an A, we gave it an A last time.

01:13:06 ◼   ► Probably because there's A's all over it.

01:13:08 ◼   ► I mean, it is, it is, it's, it's telling us what it wants.

01:13:11 ◼   ► It's great to be, Mike.

01:13:12 ◼   ► A.

01:13:13 ◼   ► Um, like I think, I think that the font book icon, the old one did its job, even though

01:13:20 ◼   ► it was, I think, hammered down from probably a much more skeuomorphic version in the past.

01:13:24 ◼   ► The new one, I don't know.

01:13:26 ◼   ► It, it, I don't know.

01:13:28 ◼   ► It, it's like, it feels to me like the icon equivalent of like an apartment that you go

01:13:36 ◼   ► in and it's all white furniture and white carpet and stuff.

01:13:38 ◼   ► And it's very modern.

01:13:39 ◼   ► And you're like, Oh, this is so modern.

01:13:42 ◼   ► And then you think no one could ever live in here because all the white stuff would get

01:13:47 ◼   ► stained and dirt would come in and all that.

01:13:49 ◼   ► So it's completely impractical, but very stylish.

01:13:52 ◼   ► That's what this icon feels like to me.

01:13:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:13:55 ◼   ► What do you think?

01:13:57 ◼   ► I think.

01:13:58 ◼   ► I think it's.

01:14:02 ◼   ► You said it was better than contacts.

01:14:03 ◼   ► I do think it's better than contacts.

01:14:05 ◼   ► I don't.

01:14:05 ◼   ► I like the A.

01:14:06 ◼   ► I'll say if that's a San Francisco A or whatever it is, that A is a great A.

01:14:09 ◼   ► If we're grading like the letter A, that's a great lowercase A.

01:14:13 ◼   ► I like it.

01:14:13 ◼   ► Okay.

01:14:13 ◼   ► Here's the thing.

01:14:14 ◼   ► I find it actually, this, this icon quite visually pleasing.

01:14:17 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:14:19 ◼   ► I think I might want to put it in D.

01:14:20 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

01:14:22 ◼   ► I have no problem with D.

01:14:23 ◼   ► I, I, I'd, I'd go C.

01:14:25 ◼   ► I, it's not, I don't like, when you think about it, it's very frustrating, but it's

01:14:30 ◼   ► not ugly.

01:14:31 ◼   ► I can't allow myself to put it higher than, I can't allow myself to put it in C because

01:14:35 ◼   ► it's got the tabs and the tabs just, just fundamentally annoy me that they're there.

01:14:40 ◼   ► We'll put it in D.

01:14:41 ◼   ► I will say, yes, I think they should change the name of this app to Font Utility and it

01:14:45 ◼   ► should be a wrench with a hex in it with a lowercase A.

01:14:47 ◼   ► I just think that's fantastic.

01:14:49 ◼   ► And also the, the, the A should be off.

01:14:51 ◼   ► It should be off because the wrench is like trying to get it, you know, trying to, trying

01:14:56 ◼   ► to get it.

01:14:56 ◼   ► Yeah, that's right.

01:14:57 ◼   ► The A is, needs to be tightened.

01:14:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:14:59 ◼   ► Okay.

01:15:00 ◼   ► Uh, we're going to put that in D.

01:15:02 ◼   ► Uh, here's, it's not quite an app icon, but it's, it's controversial enough that I think

01:15:06 ◼   ► we need to talk about it and rate it.

01:15:08 ◼   ► The world is waiting for us.

01:15:10 ◼   ► It is the hard drive icon.

01:15:14 ◼   ► Now the old one was the aforementioned hard drive that was in disk utility.

01:15:21 ◼   ► So it's very detailed.

01:15:23 ◼   ► Yes.

01:15:24 ◼   ► Without a stethoscope.

01:15:25 ◼   ► It is, it is a SATA internal hard drive that you would install in a, uh, a desktop Mac that

01:15:34 ◼   ► you could open up.

01:15:35 ◼   ► It's a big old hard drive, spinning hard drive.

01:15:38 ◼   ► That actually has readable text on a warning label.

01:15:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:44 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:45 ◼   ► It says, make sure you're properly grounded.

01:15:47 ◼   ► It's a, it's a, it's a hard drive.

01:15:48 ◼   ► You could buy a Western, Western digital and you plug it in and you got another, you know,

01:15:53 ◼   ► another 500 gigabytes of storage in your, whatever it is in your, in your NAS or whatever.

01:16:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:16:00 ◼   ► Um, however, I will say for regular everyday Mac users, the most common use of a drive is

01:16:07 ◼   ► either your internal SSD or it's an external drive that you plug into it.

01:16:11 ◼   ► So what Apple has done is created a, um, idealized, basically USB hard drive, uh, with an, with

01:16:21 ◼   ► an Apple logo on it.

01:16:22 ◼   ► They don't sell a hard drive by the way.

01:16:24 ◼   ► So why?

01:16:24 ◼   ► Um, it, it feels like unnecessary Apple branding to me.

01:16:29 ◼   ► Um, and then it's got like a slot and some dots.

01:16:33 ◼   ► And as people have pointed out, um, the perspective doesn't actually work right.

01:16:37 ◼   ► If that bothers you, it's not, it's not photorealistic, but it's also not quite right geometrically,

01:16:43 ◼   ► but be it as it may, it's just a little icon that shows up on your desktop with an Apple logo

01:16:48 ◼   ► in the shape of something that's drive.

01:16:49 ◼   ► Now, the problem with this, Mike is, is our internal storage is a chip.

01:16:55 ◼   ► It has no vision.

01:16:56 ◼   ► There's no visual of it.

01:16:57 ◼   ► Um, although I would argue that a lot of people didn't know what their hard drive looked like

01:17:01 ◼   ► inside their computer either.

01:17:02 ◼   ► So how do you represent storage and then external storage?

01:17:06 ◼   ► How do you do that?

01:17:07 ◼   ► It is a challenge.

01:17:09 ◼   ► I would say.

01:17:10 ◼   ► This would have been a perfectly fine way to show the hard drive if it did not have the

01:17:17 ◼   ► Apple logo on it, because what they didn't want to do, because I'm sure I have no doubt

01:17:23 ◼   ► that a version of this icon had the Apple logo with the correct like perspective, but

01:17:31 ◼   ► then somebody in branding said, well, you can't do that.

01:17:33 ◼   ► No, no, no.

01:17:34 ◼   ► Can't do that to the logo.

01:17:35 ◼   ► And so then they flattened the logo, but kept the perspective.

01:17:40 ◼   ► Yes.

01:17:41 ◼   ► I just take it off.

01:17:41 ◼   ► If you took the Apple logo off this, it would be a perfectly fine way to show a hard drive.

01:17:47 ◼   ► External hard drive.

01:17:48 ◼   ► Because this is what hard drives look like now to people.

01:17:51 ◼   ► This is an SSD drive.

01:17:53 ◼   ► Like this is one of those Samsung little SSD things.

01:17:55 ◼   ► That's what this is.

01:17:56 ◼   ► That's what this should be.

01:17:57 ◼   ► And so they were so close.

01:18:00 ◼   ► They were like red.

01:18:00 ◼   ► They were so close to like perfection.

01:18:03 ◼   ► Getting it right.

01:18:03 ◼   ► And they just fell down.

01:18:04 ◼   ► And then they got it wrong.

01:18:04 ◼   ► So where does it go?

01:18:08 ◼   ► Like I don't mind, I don't mind them getting rid of the spinning hard drive the day as it

01:18:11 ◼   ► passed.

01:18:11 ◼   ► And it wasn't that great to begin with because a lot of people don't know what the spinning

01:18:14 ◼   ► hard drive looks like even.

01:18:15 ◼   ► So having it be an idealized like external drive is fine.

01:18:18 ◼   ► I will say in our free form document here, I'm looking at it and it's pretty small and

01:18:23 ◼   ► it actually looks much better small.

01:18:25 ◼   ► Like the perspective thing is less of an issue for me.

01:18:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:28 ◼   ► I think I would be happy with like a C for this.

01:18:32 ◼   ► I agree.

01:18:34 ◼   ► Because I do think it is a better way of showing this thing than a hard drive.

01:18:40 ◼   ► Oh yeah, for sure.

01:18:40 ◼   ► I just wish it was better.

01:18:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:42 ◼   ► It could be better.

01:18:43 ◼   ► They were so close to something much better.

01:18:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:46 ◼   ► Okay.

01:18:47 ◼   ► Next up is image capture.

01:18:50 ◼   ► The original image capture or the, not the original, the previous image capture is a

01:18:55 ◼   ► round rect, black round rect with a bunch of pictures in it.

01:18:59 ◼   ► Like black and white pictures as if being shown in photos or something like that.

01:19:03 ◼   ► It's a collection of photos in a grid.

01:19:05 ◼   ► And then again, bottom right corner, because this was the style at the time is a little digital

01:19:10 ◼   ► camera.

01:19:10 ◼   ► Now this comes from an era where, I mean, digital cameras are one of the, we don't use digital

01:19:19 ◼   ► cameras like we used to, but image capture is kind of for digital cameras, right?

01:19:22 ◼   ► The idea there is that you're, you're attaching a camera or a card or something and then image

01:19:27 ◼   ► capture lets you see everything that's on there and you can import it onto your Mac.

01:19:30 ◼   ► That's why it's there.

01:19:31 ◼   ► The new one has, is a black round direct, but with gray clamps, bars.

01:19:41 ◼   ► I don't even know what it is at the top and bottom, maybe just, I don't know.

01:19:46 ◼   ► And then inside is a round direct photo of the rainbow stage at Apple park.

01:19:52 ◼   ► And then on top of it is a glass circle with a down icon to indicate you're going to download

01:20:00 ◼   ► pictures like this picture using image capture.

01:20:04 ◼   ► I think the, uh, the ones on top and bottom are just meant to indicate there are more photos

01:20:08 ◼   ► like those are like other photos that are available, but they're gray.

01:20:12 ◼   ► And so they don't distract you.

01:20:13 ◼   ► Okay.

01:20:13 ◼   ► I, I had trouble reading that.

01:20:16 ◼   ► I think so here's, here's my thought about this one, which is I like that it's colorful.

01:20:20 ◼   ► I think that the fact that it is showing the download icon is actually a good idea.

01:20:25 ◼   ► Cause that is what you use this for.

01:20:27 ◼   ► Um, it might be a little too busy, especially at small sizes.

01:20:32 ◼   ► I don't think that the little shapes in the top and the bottom really work for me.

01:20:36 ◼   ► Um, but I think it's, I think it's better than the old one.

01:20:43 ◼   ► And I think it's especially for today.

01:20:45 ◼   ► Like it's better because you can use image capture to grab things off of an iPhone stuff.

01:20:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:20:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:20:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:20:50 ◼   ► For sure.

01:20:50 ◼   ► If you're not using iCloud, you pull your iPhone camera photos off there too.

01:20:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:20:55 ◼   ► I think not having the camera is good.

01:20:56 ◼   ► I think having the, the SF symbol down arrow is good.

01:20:59 ◼   ► Um, I love, you know, again, color and the rainbow stage.

01:21:03 ◼   ► It's kind of, kind of nice.

01:21:05 ◼   ► Um, it looks nothing like the old icon, which if you're used to the old icon, it's very disturbing

01:21:10 ◼   ► when you launch this thing for the first time and you're like, what the heck is that?

01:21:13 ◼   ► It's like, oh, that's image capture.

01:21:14 ◼   ► But I think this is B2 because I just think they chose a great image.

01:21:19 ◼   ► Like, they're like, if you're going to do image capture, it should be a good image.

01:21:23 ◼   ► And they chose a great image.

01:21:24 ◼   ► And I think other than that, it does a decent job of indicating like, oh, you see this image?

01:21:28 ◼   ► Would you like to download it?

01:21:30 ◼   ► Like you've got it.

01:21:31 ◼   ► Like it makes perfect sense.

01:21:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:21:34 ◼   ► Uh, I think it's okay.

01:21:36 ◼   ► We'll put it, we'll put it in B for now.

01:21:38 ◼   ► I think that's okay.

01:21:39 ◼   ► I'd put B or C, so I'll take it.

01:21:41 ◼   ► Next, also not previously rated, iPhone mirroring.

01:21:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:21:46 ◼   ► So a new icon, relatively new, doesn't have the baggage of 25 years.

01:21:50 ◼   ► The old iPhone mirroring icon when that feature was introduced last year, gray background with

01:21:57 ◼   ► an iPhone on it with like a wallpaper on it.

01:22:00 ◼   ► I would have given this icon an F because it is just completely unimaginative, unimaginative, the old icon.

01:22:05 ◼   ► Yes.

01:22:06 ◼   ► New icon, round rec, blue background.

01:22:10 ◼   ► And then on it, there's a black iPhone shape like the iPhone.

01:22:15 ◼   ► And then in front of it, there's a white iPhone shape with a bunch of gray icon round recs on it, implying something like an iPhone home screen.

01:22:26 ◼   ► I think what they're getting for here is like, the iPhone is back there, but the ghost of the iPhone is on the back in the front.

01:22:35 ◼   ► Well, the other one is in the shadows, you know, like he's, he's, he's gone now.

01:22:40 ◼   ► We don't talk about him.

01:22:41 ◼   ► Forget about that hardware iPhone because now we got the ghost iPhone.

01:22:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:22:46 ◼   ► I like this one.

01:22:48 ◼   ► I think this is doing a good job of showing what it's doing.

01:22:51 ◼   ► I mean, maybe I would have had iPhones in a mirror, you know, but, you know.

01:22:56 ◼   ► Like that could have been fun.

01:22:57 ◼   ► The ultimate skeuomorph.

01:22:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:22:58 ◼   ► Just like a little, I don't know, you put like a mirror in the middle of them and they're looking at each other waving or something.

01:23:04 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:23:04 ◼   ► Who's the fairest iPhone of all?

01:23:06 ◼   ► I think this is a good icon.

01:23:07 ◼   ► Like, I think this is like.

01:23:08 ◼   ► I think it, I think it is trying in a way that the previous icon was not.

01:23:14 ◼   ► How about that?

01:23:15 ◼   ► Yes, exactly.

01:23:16 ◼   ► The old one was just like, it almost feels like a placeholder icon.

01:23:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:23:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:23:21 ◼   ► I think it was.

01:23:22 ◼   ► Yeah, it probably was.

01:23:23 ◼   ► I think it was.

01:23:24 ◼   ► I think they just slapped it together because they needed something.

01:23:26 ◼   ► And it's fine, but like, it's super generic.

01:23:28 ◼   ► And also just not, not a great idea to do a system icon that is so clearly the current iPhone, right?

01:23:35 ◼   ► Like that you would have to be updating it, right?

01:23:37 ◼   ► Because it's the dynamic island that it's got an action button.

01:23:39 ◼   ► So this is an idealized iPhone with a ghost in front of it.

01:23:44 ◼   ► I think it's kind of funny.

01:23:45 ◼   ► That's like the spirit of the iPhone has been lifted away from the iPhone.

01:23:49 ◼   ► I think it's okay.

01:23:50 ◼   ► I feel like, I'm not sure this metaphor is the right one for this icon, but I think it does impart judgment.

01:23:55 ◼   ► I would sort of put it at like B or C.

01:23:57 ◼   ► Let's put it at B.

01:23:58 ◼   ► Put it at B.

01:24:00 ◼   ► Okay.

01:24:01 ◼   ► Next up is migration assistant.

01:24:04 ◼   ► Oh boy, Mike.

01:24:06 ◼   ► The old migration assistant, which got an F tier from us.

01:24:12 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

01:24:13 ◼   ► Is the, is the finder icon in color lurking behind it is another finder icon in black and white.

01:24:20 ◼   ► And then there's an arrow that's pointing from the old one to the new one.

01:24:24 ◼   ► It's the arrow.

01:24:25 ◼   ► It's like, what are we doing?

01:24:26 ◼   ► Yep.

01:24:28 ◼   ► We're going from that to this, from black and white to color.

01:24:31 ◼   ► Also, if you start to think about the fact that it's a face with a, with a face behind it, and then behind that there's a face with a face behind it.

01:24:39 ◼   ► There's four people here.

01:24:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:43 ◼   ► So F tier, the arrow, it's bad.

01:24:45 ◼   ► The new one is a round rect that's mostly white.

01:24:49 ◼   ► And then in the center of it, there's a circle with a gray outline.

01:24:52 ◼   ► And then inside that is a dark gray circle.

01:24:55 ◼   ► And on top of that is an arrow pointing to the right.

01:24:59 ◼   ► That's got a white part and then a little gray part and then a little darker gray part at the end of the point of the, of the, of the shaft of the arrow.

01:25:07 ◼   ► Not good.

01:25:08 ◼   ► So, so my, my thought here is, I appreciate that you're doing a new icon here, but what are you doing?

01:25:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:25:14 ◼   ► Because why, why, why the unnecessary detail?

01:25:17 ◼   ► Why are there two, why does the circle have a, a, a rim?

01:25:21 ◼   ► Why does the arrow have, I guess they're trying to suggest movement.

01:25:25 ◼   ► Um, they can't do a curved arrow.

01:25:28 ◼   ► So they just do this arrow with the little bits of darker.

01:25:30 ◼   ► It's not a gradient.

01:25:32 ◼   ► It's just little more glass bits behind it.

01:25:34 ◼   ► I don't understand it.

01:25:36 ◼   ► Also something I find really funny, right?

01:25:38 ◼   ► So like, they're trying to show the arrows in motion, but what they would not allow for themselves to do is to make the kind of point of the arrow smaller.

01:25:50 ◼   ► Because if you look at it as a solid arrow, they want it to be balanced visually.

01:25:53 ◼   ► But then if you look at what the arrow actually is, which is the top layer, the, the shape of that arrow is all wrong.

01:26:02 ◼   ► Like, yes, it's, it's really bad.

01:26:05 ◼   ► Like, it's like all points of the arrow are the same length, which you would not do.

01:26:09 ◼   ► Um, and so it, that, this is very funny to me.

01:26:13 ◼   ► This does not say migration assistant.

01:26:14 ◼   ► Neither did the old one.

01:26:16 ◼   ► Uh, well, I mean, I would argue the old one says it better than the new one.

01:26:21 ◼   ► This is, this is a case where they've taken an ugly logo that does actually sort of communicate what's happening and replace it with a, an ugly logo that doesn't communicate what's happening.

01:26:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:26:34 ◼   ► I think it's bad.

01:26:35 ◼   ► I mean, they took a bad logo and they, they made it still bad.

01:26:38 ◼   ► It's an F tier logo.

01:26:39 ◼   ► This is an F tier logo.

01:26:40 ◼   ► I think they have completely thrown away their old F tier logo and icon and replaced it with a new F tier icon.

01:26:47 ◼   ► Congratulations, everybody.

01:26:48 ◼   ► We did it.

01:26:50 ◼   ► Okay.

01:26:51 ◼   ► Moving on.

01:26:51 ◼   ► We've got, still got a lot to go through here.

01:26:53 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

01:26:54 ◼   ► We're going to mission.

01:26:54 ◼   ► We're going to an app that nobody uses because you just use keyboard shortcuts or whatever, but it's mission control.

01:26:59 ◼   ► Uh, mission control used to be a black round rect with a bunch of little windows that had little icons on the bottom attached to them.

01:27:06 ◼   ► A green one, a purple one, and a blue one.

01:27:08 ◼   ► The new one has a black round rect with a bunch of, uh, windows, but now the windows have very faint, uh, Mac stoplight things in the upper left corner.

01:27:20 ◼   ► And that's it.

01:27:22 ◼   ► And there are three of them.

01:27:23 ◼   ► So they took the colored squares off and they put little stoplights on them.

01:27:27 ◼   ► So this new icon does a better job of showing what mission control actually looks like because mission control on the Mac doesn't have the little squares.

01:27:38 ◼   ► Mission control on the iPad does.

01:27:41 ◼   ► It shows the little app icons underneath the windows, but mission control on the Mac does not do that.

01:27:47 ◼   ► So technically mission, the current mission control icon on Tahoe is a better visual representation of what is happening.

01:27:57 ◼   ► Right.

01:27:58 ◼   ► Like accurately, but I mean, you lose the, you lose the fun color.

01:28:04 ◼   ► You do.

01:28:05 ◼   ► It's boring.

01:28:05 ◼   ► I mean, technically there is color, but you just can't see it.

01:28:08 ◼   ► You can't see it because it's so small.

01:28:10 ◼   ► This is F2.

01:28:11 ◼   ► Like there's no need to argue, but it's just not really.

01:28:14 ◼   ► It's like, it's got the same problem as migration assistant.

01:28:17 ◼   ► It's like, you're trying to show something, but in that you're just kind of not really showing anything.

01:28:22 ◼   ► To be fair, Daphne in our chat room says she's got it in her doc, so.

01:28:28 ◼   ► Amazing.

01:28:30 ◼   ► That's fair.

01:28:31 ◼   ► I guess some people do use it that way.

01:28:32 ◼   ► I use a trackpad gesture.

01:28:35 ◼   ► I just use a trackpad gesture.

01:28:37 ◼   ► Me too.

01:28:38 ◼   ► I mean, everybody takes, it takes different folks.

01:28:41 ◼   ► It sure does.

01:28:42 ◼   ► It's fine.

01:28:42 ◼   ► Photo booth.

01:28:43 ◼   ► Yes.

01:28:44 ◼   ► Now I actually use photo booth.

01:28:45 ◼   ► I heard somebody say, oh, whoever uses photo booth.

01:28:47 ◼   ► I use photo booth all the time to test what my camera looks like before I get on a zoom or something.

01:28:52 ◼   ► To make sure that it looks okay.

01:28:53 ◼   ► That's the reason to use it.

01:28:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:28:54 ◼   ► Old photo booth icon, red round rect, and then in it was a set, two symbols, a photo, kind

01:29:02 ◼   ► of a bordered photo shape, turned on its, you know, rotated a little bit to the left.

01:29:06 ◼   ► And then in front of it, another photo with a red border with a white background with that

01:29:11 ◼   ► person shape inside it.

01:29:13 ◼   ► So it's like two photos.

01:29:14 ◼   ► And then in the bottom right corner, the photorealistic camera lens is there.

01:29:20 ◼   ► The new one, it's a red round rect with a little slot at the top and a strip of, uh, that's

01:29:29 ◼   ► coming out.

01:29:30 ◼   ► It's a white strip that comes down to the bottom, right?

01:29:32 ◼   ► You know, to the border above the border.

01:29:34 ◼   ► Because they leave space around all of these with two, what are basically photos on a photo

01:29:38 ◼   ► strip of the little person shape.

01:29:40 ◼   ► Mike, this is a great icon.

01:29:44 ◼   ► Yes.

01:29:44 ◼   ► And it's, and it's a vast improvement because it's what you get in a photo booth.

01:29:49 ◼   ► Yes.

01:29:50 ◼   ► This is the dispenser of the photos from the photo booth.

01:29:53 ◼   ► What you don't get in a photo booth is just a random disembodied lens.

01:29:57 ◼   ► This is one of the weird examples.

01:29:59 ◼   ► And a stack of, and a stack of pictures, a stack.

01:30:02 ◼   ► Of where a current icon for an old app is actually the new icon is better than the old one.

01:30:09 ◼   ► Like significant.

01:30:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:30:10 ◼   ► It's like, this is mirrored based on some of the conversations we've been having, right?

01:30:14 ◼   ► It's like you took a thing that used to mean a thing and then you updated it and now it doesn't

01:30:19 ◼   ► mean anything.

01:30:20 ◼   ► It has no meaning at all.

01:30:21 ◼   ► It's in the exact reverse where the current one means the thing that it's supposed to.

01:30:25 ◼   ► And the old one doesn't mean anything at all.

01:30:29 ◼   ► Doesn't mean anything at all.

01:30:29 ◼   ► Where, where the old icon, if I look at it, this old icon could have been the preview icon.

01:30:36 ◼   ► And that actually is the photo booth icon.

01:30:38 ◼   ► So I will say, and somebody who knows the history and remembers it better than me, but

01:30:43 ◼   ► I'll say photo booth used to have a different icon, right?

01:30:45 ◼   ► A skeuomorphic icon.

01:30:46 ◼   ► And I think the reason that the round rect is red is because it used to be a red curtain.

01:30:51 ◼   ► Like the idea that you're going into the photo booth behind the red curtains.

01:30:54 ◼   ► That's why the red comes from.

01:30:55 ◼   ► But if we're talking about today and liquid glass icons and where they came from last time,

01:31:01 ◼   ► this is a huge upgrade.

01:31:03 ◼   ► It fits the metaphor of the app perfectly.

01:31:06 ◼   ► It imparts photo booth.

01:31:07 ◼   ► It's cute.

01:31:08 ◼   ► It's whimsical.

01:31:09 ◼   ► I think it's S tier.

01:31:10 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's S tier.

01:31:14 ◼   ► I actually am looking now.

01:31:15 ◼   ► I think this is the best photo booth icon there has been.

01:31:18 ◼   ► So the original was a curtain with a stool underneath it kind of poking out.

01:31:26 ◼   ► And then like a strip of photos of a person who's sometimes wearing glasses and sometimes not.

01:31:31 ◼   ► I find it odd.

01:31:33 ◼   ► And then another one is like the image, a set of four images of another person with this little lens on it,

01:31:42 ◼   ► which doesn't make any sense.

01:31:45 ◼   ► And then it became what it is now where they took the person away but kept the lens.

01:31:49 ◼   ► And now I think they finally landed on the best icon for a photo booth,

01:31:54 ◼   ► which is the pictures coming out of the photo booth.

01:31:57 ◼   ► From D tier, elevated to S tier.

01:32:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:32:00 ◼   ► Bravo photo booth icon.

01:32:02 ◼   ► Next, by your demand, we didn't have this in there and you're like, you got to put it in there.

01:32:06 ◼   ► Photos.

01:32:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:32:08 ◼   ► So the Photos app, I always think about like it didn't really change that much.

01:32:12 ◼   ► It's interesting.

01:32:13 ◼   ► So the old Photos app is what?

01:32:15 ◼   ► One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, eight.

01:32:19 ◼   ► It's like a little overlapping glass shapes all arrayed.

01:32:24 ◼   ► It makes it look like a flower, but they're like translucent colored chips.

01:32:30 ◼   ► The new one is eight glass chips.

01:32:38 ◼   ► But they're different.

01:32:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:32:41 ◼   ► There's a bigger space in the center.

01:32:43 ◼   ► And so instead of overlapping each other and then overlapping in the middle to create this flower,

01:32:50 ◼   ► instead it's a little more literally just the colored chips going around.

01:32:56 ◼   ► What I admire about this is that it is still recognizably the Photos app

01:33:00 ◼   ► and that if you didn't pay attention, you wouldn't notice that it changed.

01:33:03 ◼   ► But it does fit liquid glass better, even though weirdly the Photos app already kind of fit liquid glass.

01:33:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:33:10 ◼   ► But I think that why I wanted to include this is I think the Photos app.

01:33:13 ◼   ► Previous B tier, by the way.

01:33:14 ◼   ► Previous B tier.

01:33:15 ◼   ► Yes, for previous B.

01:33:15 ◼   ► I think the Photos app to me is like a prime example of how you can make a really good liquid glass version of an icon