It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons
I was reading Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines from 1992 and found this nice illustration:
accompanied by explanation:
Fast forward to 2025. Apple releases macOS Tahoe. Main attraction? Adding unpleasant, distracting, illegible, messy, cluttered, confusing, frustrating icons (their words, not mine!) to every menu item:
Sequoia → Tahoe
It’s bad. But why exactly is it bad? Let’s delve into it!
Disclaimer: screenshots are a mix from macOS 26.1 and 26.2, taken from stock Apple apps only that come pre-installed with the system. No system settings were modified.
Icons should differentiate
The main function of an icon is to help you find what you are looking for faster.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, adding an icon to everything is exactly the wrong thing to do. To stand out, things need to be different. But if everything has an icon, nothing stands out.
... continue reading