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Armchair designers on the socials are losing their collective minds over Apple’s new icons for the Creator Studio bundle. Here’s a handy breakdown of the situation:
As you can see, the various app icons have morphed from distinctly skeuomorphic to semi-skeuomorphic to purely iconic.
Trouble is, what do the new icons mean?
Most of the skeuomorphic versions were definitely easier to interpret. For instance, the video clapperboard in the original icon for Final Cut Pro screams “video.” But the new FCP icon looks more like a box with its lid slightly open.
All the new icons are too abstract to easily discern their meanings, and perhaps not “iconic” enough to be easily recognized icons.
Most of the comments I’ve seen are very negative — and some bash Apple’s new UI lead, Stephen Lemay, who just took over from Alan Dye. Not the best start to his tenure!
If you agree that the new icons are rubbish, now’s your chance to show Apple how to do it right.
As we detail in our guide to fully customizing your iPhone or iPad Home Screen, you can install your own icons (as well as other tweaks to make your device fully your own).
Take that, Stephen Lemay!
Also in today’s newsletter:
Here’s your breakdown of what to expect from the smarter Siri, which will likely debut this spring in iOS 26.4. I’m very much looking forward to seeing what it can do. One thing occurs to me, though. There’s been lots of talk recently about AI companies having no moat: Modern LLMs are largely interchangeable. There’s little to stop customers jumping from one company to another. But this isn’t true for models trained on your own personal data — the personalization provides a lot of lock-in. If Apple is using Google’s Gemini to power the smarter Siri, how easy (or hard) will it be for Apple to swap in its own foundation models in the future? Seems like a thorny problem to me.
New supply-chain rumors confirm older supply-chain rumors: The iPhone 18 Pro is going to get a radically new front-facing screen.
Apple Arcade subscribers just got a big new franchise to play around in: Sid Meier's Civilization VII.
There’s new firmware out for AirPods Pro 3, which may or may not fix the irritating screaming ANC sounds experienced by some people during flights. It’s impossible to tell from Apple’s cryptic release notes, which mention only various bug fixes. No harm in updating, though.
Oh no: Tax season is upon us.
We updated an earlier review of Soundcore’s interesting AI note-taking gadget, which just got a new name to reflect its primary job: AI note-taking! It sounds like a very handy device for people who need accurate transcripts and/or intelligent meeting/phone call summaries. Check it out.
— Leander Kahney, EIC.
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One more thing ...
What drove me? I think most creative people want to express appreciation for being able to take advantage of the work that’s been done by others before us. I didn’t invent the language or mathematics I use. I make little of my own food, none of my own clothes. Everything I do depends on other members of our species and the shoulders that we stand on. And a lot of us want to contribute something back to our species and to add something to the flow. It’s about trying to express something in the only way that most of us know how — because we can’t write Bob Dylan songs or Tom Stoppard plays. We try to use the talents we do have to express our deep feelings, to show our appreciation of all the contributions that came before us, and to add something to that flow. That’s what has driven me.
Today’s poll
Are the new Creator Studio icons a complete disaster?
Results from yesterday’s poll: Does the Apple Creator Studio bundle seriously threaten Adobe?
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