Iris, a Mac app for managing photo and video libraries, has added custom Dock icons in its latest direct-download release, including an option that puts a person’s face from the user’s library in the Dock. The catch is the useful part: the feature is only in the version distributed outside Apple’s Mac App Store.
Iris developer Tyler Hall said the change came after a user asked for an alternative icon that removed the app’s flower artwork from Apple’s rounded-square shape. The user cited macOS Tahoe’s icon rules and pointed to apps such as Nova and Sketch, which offer older-style icon choices.
Hall’s answer is a small AppKit detour. He said Iris uses Apple’s NSDockTilePlugIn API to change what appears in the Dock. That API is meant for Dock tile behavior, not as a general escape hatch from Apple’s icon styling. Hall also said it is not permitted for Mac App Store apps.
The practical effect is that Iris can present a Dock image that does not follow the standard squircle treatment, and that image can persist after the app quits. That detail matters because a normal in-app icon swap is less useful if macOS reverts the Dock tile as soon as the process exits. Hall says the plugin approach keeps the custom icon visible.
What changed in Iris
The new Iris release adds three extra app icons in the app’s Special settings pane. Those alternates are available only in the version downloaded directly from the Iris website, according to Hall. The Mac App Store version remains available, but without these extras.
Hall also added a setting called “Show Faces in Dock.” When enabled, users can choose a person’s face from their Iris library and place it in the Dock. In other words, Iris is using the same Dock tile mechanism for a novelty feature as well as for conventional alternative icons.
That sounds unserious because it is, by design. Hall points to Iris’s stated guiding principle of “Fun,” which says people should enjoy maintaining family photo and home video libraries. The face-in-Dock option is a small example of software doing something personal rather than optimizing another account funnel or compliance dialog.
The distribution split is the more technical story. Apple’s own platform rules create two versions of the same Mac app with different capabilities: one shipped through the Mac App Store, and one shipped directly by the developer. According to Hall, the direct version can use NSDockTilePlugIn for custom Dock presentation, while the App Store build cannot.
That leaves users with a familiar Mac trade-off. The App Store version offers Apple’s distribution channel. The direct version gets the odd little features Apple’s store process does not allow. For Iris users irritated by macOS Tahoe’s icon shape, the direct build is the one with the door out of squircle jail.
This story draws on original reporting from tyler.io.
