Icon Porn: Feast Your Eyes On Snow Leopard’s Beautiful Icons

Leander Kahney ()

Xsan Admin and Network Utility

XSan Admin

Network Utility

Some of the nicest app icons are hidden away in obscure folders. The stacked ball bearings of the Xsan Admin icon refer to “volume” — the app is used for administering storage volumes.

The Network Admin is found in the Utilities Folder, and although I’ve never used it, I do like detailed radar screen. (Yeah, I know the Utilities folder isn’t obscure, but it’s Friday afternoon. Gimme a break).

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About the author

Leander Kahney

is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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Posted in Apple, News, OS X, Top stories |

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  • MiloÅ¡

    One thing that allways bugged me regarding these, otherwise flawless, icons is the Maill.app icon. How can it be possibly stamped/sealed and with shadow underneath it, with no break of seal lines? It’s absurd.

    If there is a shadow, icon is above its background and the seal marks should be discontinued on the stamp edge. Otherwise, seal mark displayed as in the icon means that the stamp lies right on a surface and there should not be any shadow on that side of the stamp.

    It’s only nitpicking, but we like it.

  • DC

    The Windows or “Other” computer icon is th eheight of Mac douchebaggery (yes, that’s a word). I own a Mac and a PC and have problems with both, but I haven’t had a blue screen in years. Not to mention that the vast majority of blue screens are caused by poor drivers (not Microsoft’s fault) or failing hardware. Last time I checked Apple buys the same memory, CPUs, hard drives, GPUs used in Windows PCs. So, unless they sprinkle magic fairy dust that makes them impervious to failure Apples will have the same issues.

  • Chris

    Fantastic icons, all of them. But to nit-pick the article text, those tick marks on the compass are in 5 degrees apart. A minute is 1/60th of a degree (and a second 1/60th of that).

  • http://ikir.ikirsector.it ikir

    Snow Leopard has stunning icons, you’re right. Nice mini article you linked some of the best.

  • http://www.unjourparis.com Cil

    The dashboard icon, is almost exactly a copy of the dashboard instruments and counters of a newbeetle… Very surprised Volkswagen didn’t sue them yet !…

    see a picture here : http://l.yimg.com/dv/izp/volkswagen_new_beetle_convertible_gls_2.0l_2005_dashboard_instrumentcluster.jpg

  • http://www.fernandolins.com Fernando Lucas Lins

    Welcome to 2006, us icon and UI designers been doing 512×512 pixels icons for over 3 years now, and they’ve been on the system since 10.5

  • Greg

    I agree with others. Trying to make me click through 11 pages, with two icons on each page is ridiculous. I won’t be returning to your site, and will ignore any mention of you on TUAW’s RSS.

  • Wayne

    Is it not hilarious that we complained about only two icons per page (and were told it would have been too long a page if it hadn’t been broken up) yet here we are, a gazillion scrolls down to the comments?

    LOL. Oh the irony :)

  • Daniel

    IMO, the keynote text is about the Designer’s dilemma within himself. Any artist will tell you what incredible amount of hours it takes to really design something and sweat evey detail. Every single time, it can be like pushing a boulder up a hill. And more often than not, most designers will tell you that the design is never really done, instead they they just chose a stopping point and accepted what they had.

  • Tim

    Lorem ipsum is not Latin. *Looks* Latinnish, but is actually completely made up. A fiction. A typographers work tool, because they want people looking at the beauty of their fonts, not quibbling about meaning. Fail.

    11 pages is not unreasonable if it is the ‘price’ we have to ‘pay’ for ‘free’ content.

  • http://twitter.com/iansltx Ian L

    A few things:

    1. As others have said, 512px icons are in Leopard. Even by using Quicksilver I can see all of the nuances of the icons pointed out above. Including the visual effects on Numbers and the detail on Keynote. Also, the “letter” on TextEdit is readily visible under…you guessed it…10.5.

    2. Mac icons are pretty, no doubt about that. However I see folder flecks and think my screen is dirty. I’d much rather have an in-folder preview like Vista/7 have. Having a 512px icon for a mere folder is an egregious waste of space.

    3. Eleven pages is a bit overkill for an article that probably took thirty minutes to write, tops. So you grabbed icons and put captions on them. The last multipage document online I viewed was a complete informational/benchmark piece about the new Core i7/i5 procs (which Apple STILL doesn’t have on the desktop). That took a lot more work…a LOT more. It’s rather fitting that both ads I’m seeing are PSAs. Gotta love using “porn” in your title…FAIL.

  • Anthony

    this is nice, but will have to wait until third party apps also create some 512px icons.
    I ahve to admit, the Windows Vista/7 folder thumbnail previews are quite hot compared to the stagnant Mac OS icons, but it’s the attention to detail that brings Max OS X over the edge of competitors.

  • Guido

    I really like the article and i really appreciate the attention and therefore the respect you (author) have given to the icons and their designers. Maybe its my because of my english knowledge, but did i get it right: there are people complaning about this article seperated on 11 pages, oh my god are you serious. Thats not a reason for complaining unless you have been forced to pay for each page and the single clicks, but wait, no its the internet and a free page.

    Never want to come back, hm, this is my first visit and i will definitely return, because of this article.

    Ciao G who doesn´t care wheter scrolling or clicking for 11 worthy pages ;-)

  • http://techexplorer.in JD

    Nice big, really big icons there. #orgasm

  • http://profiles.google.com/alun.j.carr Alun Carr

    The Keynote icon is extremely interesting, since Spring Awakening is not your average musical, featuring rather ‘adult’ themes. This particular song is about erotic dreams and onanism. See:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Awakening

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