I’ve never given much thought to Apple’s FaceTime icon, but it really doesn’t make any sense. Like seriously, what is the trapezoid on the right? It can’t be the lens because there’s a lens in the box. Is that the back facing camera and the triangle trapezoid is the front camera?
It’s supposed to be an old video camera glyph with the lens superimposed, but it’s so redundant that it still doesn’t make any sense for FaceTiming purposes.
The FaceTime icon should probably look something like this instead:
Sorry. It’s Friday, and I’m bored with nothing to praise or complain about. Let’s just blame Forstall and call it a week?
Source: Reddit
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
22 responses to “Apple’s FaceTime Icon Makes No Sense”
slow. news. day.
Never did pay attention to that. Interesting thought. Maybe it is like a mounted webcam. It is Apple, they for some reason got away with it without questioning.
Its a camera and an *audio speaker*
@BFC it’s not a speaker. it a video camera glyph with a lens super imposed on it. An audio speaker still doesn’t make any sense.
@Buster – take a look at the toolbar on the top of your mac screen. See the speaker icon? Camera + speaker. Look and listen.
Perhaps it represents one lens looking at you and another lens looking at the other person. I dunno?
Photo & Video… I guess…
Their map icon directs you to drive off an overpass if you were to take it literally…
You’re right, doesn’t match the Mac menu dock speaker icon either.
Crap, now I’m analyzing ALL my Mac icons…thanks a lot, Buster!
This topic came up on Reddit almost 6 hours ago and you did a fantastic job of copying it almost word for word! Good work. That hard to be original?
http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/18lbj5/facetime_icon_what_is_the_triangle_on_the_right/
This topic came up on Reddit almost 6 hours ago and you did a fantastic job of copying it almost word for word! Good work. That hard to be original?
http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/18lbj5/facetime_icon_what_is_the_triangle_on_the_right/
@Gmoore34 check the source link at the bottom of the page my friend. see it? click it.
are you satisfied?
I always did like the iOS 4.1 FaceTime icon better…
FaceTime should have an icon like this (not identical, just the concept): https://www.photospin.com/content/photos/full/1380005.jpg
You are after all going to see some punter’s face and spend time doing so.
My only minor quibble with Mac OS is the overly fussy, busy icons. They should be calmer and more distinct. Instead looking for something in the Dock is like trying to pick out Coco at a clown’s convention. Plus the iWork icons are just awful. In total contrast to the sleek elegance of the hardware and the operation of the system.
. H
Buster does this all the time. Apparently, in the CoM world, all it takes to be a “Social Media Editor” is to browse reddit all day and then pretend to have arrived at other peoples’ ideas independently.
He could have at least linked directly to the discussion rather than the image that spurred it.
Trapezoid is for the speaker. The lens is for the camera. Audio and Video.
Also, the icon is roughly the side-view of a pro movie camera.
My best guess is that it is a projector lens .. you take a video of yourself, project it out the right. Thats the way I’ve always seen it …
No. Because the link leads to the photo of the icon. And the word Reddit only appears after your entire article is displayed. Why don’t you link to the original Reddit article in the opening sentence instead of burying it?
^THIS!
WTF kind of moron purposely camouflages links like that.
It looks like a tab-row with the “Source”-tab selected,
nothing about that page-element makes any part of it look like a lin
The authors blogging-rights are hereby revoked by the lords of the Internets.
Not as interesting as say FaceTime patent infringement suit.
Must be a very slow day at Cult of Mac.
Yes, this is Buster’s MOA. Look back through his posts and count the ones that he didn’t copy from another source, with little or no attribution. Where he does give any form of attribution, it’s via an occluded link somewhere on the page, rather than simply saying something like, “Here’s something interesting I spotted on Reddit/Mashable/Engadget”, then adding some insights or commentary of his own.
Finally, when somebody calls him on this, he responds with the kind of surly, snappish response you see here. He’s a classy guy.