John Gruber of Daring Fireball has renewed his case against forcing macOS app icons into the same rounded-square mold used on iOS, arguing that Apple is flattening a more expressive desktop interface into a phone-style launcher grid.
The dispute started with a question from Tobias Steinke on Mastodon, who asked why the rounded-square shape used for iPhone and iPad app icons had been acceptable while the same treatment on macOS was objectionable. Gruber called the question fair, then drew a bright line between the role of icons on a touchscreen home screen and the role of icons on the Mac.
His argument is mechanical as much as aesthetic. On iOS, app icons function as one-tap launch controls. On macOS, Gruber wrote, icons are richer interface objects: users can select them, drag them, move them, double-click them to launch, and drop files onto them. That difference matters if the visual system is supposed to communicate what objects are and how people can use them.
Apple’s old guidance cuts against Apple’s newer direction
Gruber pointed to Apple’s own macOS Human Interface Guidelines from 2018, preserved by the Internet Archive, as evidence that Apple previously treated icon shape as a usability feature rather than decoration. The archived guidance told developers to consider giving macOS app icons “a realistic, unique shape” because a distinct outline helped people recognize an app quickly. It also advised developers to avoid the rounded rectangle shape associated with iOS app icons.
That guidance is awkward for Apple if the company is now pushing macOS icons toward a shared iOS-like container. Gruber’s complaint is that Apple is discarding principles it once taught developers, including the idea that platform conventions should reflect different input methods, screen sizes and user expectations.
He also cited Apple’s 2002 Aqua Human Interface Guidelines and a history of macOS icon design as examples of the older Mac approach: icons with distinctive silhouettes, material cues and object-like forms. Gruber’s position is that stylistic changes are fine, while removing a design capability that macOS has had for decades is a different kind of choice.
The broader complaint is iOS ideas leaking onto the Mac
Gruber framed the icon rule as one instance of a larger pattern: ideas that may make sense on iOS being applied to macOS without enough regard for the desktop. He gave always-hidden scroll bars as another example, saying limited phone screen space can justify that design on iOS, while the same logic does not apply cleanly to the Mac.
He also listed changes he believes would be far more damaging if Apple applied iOS assumptions to macOS, including eliminating AppKit, removing the Unix terminal layer, or requiring all Mac apps to come through the App Store. Those remain examples in his argument, not announced Apple plans in the post.
Gruber further criticized Apple’s consolidation of its design documentation. He noted that Apple previously published platform-specific Human Interface Guidelines, while its current public guidance is unified under one Apple Human Interface Guidelines site with platform callouts. In his view, that shift reflects a company paying less attention to the reasons its platforms developed separate conventions.
The practical issue is small enough to sound cosmetic and large enough to annoy people who live on the Mac: icons are part of how users identify tools at speed. Gruber’s case is that macOS loses information when every app is pushed into the same soft-cornered tile.
This story draws on original reporting from Daring Fireball.
