Designer Louie Mantia has weighed into the Mac app icon fight with a defense of Apple’s squircle-shaped icon rules, while acknowledging the cost for designers who know what they are doing.
Writing on the Parakeet blog, Mantia addressed the long-running complaint that Apple is pushing Mac app icons into what critics call “squircle jail.” The issue is the platform’s use of a rounded-square mask for app icons, paired in some cases with Apple’s Liquid Glass effects. A mask, in practice, clips the artwork into a prescribed silhouette. That gives the Dock a more consistent shape language, and it also flattens some of the weirdness that third-party apps can bring with them.
Mantia’s argument is not that the rule produces better icons across the board. He says the tradeoff is uneven: some of the strongest icons suffer under the forced shape, while some weaker icons improve because the mask does part of the cleanup work for them.
Daring Fireball, which highlighted Mantia’s essay, framed the point more sharply: the squircle requirement raises the floor by lowering the ceiling. In that reading, Apple’s rule makes messy icons look less messy, while also sanding down the expressive work that made the best Mac icons stand out.
Mantia connects Apple’s current approach to the design logic behind iOS 7. According to him, the goal is to make third-party apps sit more comfortably beside Apple’s own icons, especially when the people making those apps do not have the experience to design an icon that holds up next to first-party work. That is the generous version of the policy: Apple is imposing a common container so the platform looks less like a drawer full of mismatched stickers.
He still wants Apple to loosen the box. Mantia says he would prefer a system that lets designers extend beyond the squircle when the work calls for it. He points out that some of his favorite icons used that freedom. He also concedes that some of his least favorite icons ignored the platform shape altogether, creating visual noise in the Dock.
The disagreement, then, is less about whether consistency has value and more about who gets trusted with exceptions. Apple’s mask helps apps that would otherwise look out of place. It also limits the designers capable of making icons that use the Mac’s older, less uniform visual tradition to better effect.
Mantia’s conclusion is measured: the restriction causes a genuine loss, but designers still have room to work inside it. Daring Fireball called the essay a strong defense of Apple’s direction for Mac app icon design, noting that Mantia supports his case with examples rather than vibes. In an icon debate, that already puts the bar higher than usual.
This story draws on original reporting from Daring Fireball.