icons - page 2

It’s our own fault. We all asked Apple to dramatically change the look and feel of the iOS operating system, which, until yesterday, remained largely unchanged since the introduction of the original iPhone back in 2007. And we all complained when it didn’t do that with iOS 6 this time last year.

But I can’t help but feel the Cupertino company is now punishing us for all those requests, and all that complaining we did before about its skeuomorphic designs.

When it comes to design, iOS 7 is vastly different to its predecessors. It still functions in much the same way — though there are some new features you’ll need to get used to — but it looks completely different. As soon as you power it up for the first time the minimalistic feel is staring back at you, but it isn’t until you’ve completed the setup process and arrived at your home screen that you want to vomit in your own lap.

After I wrote a tip on removing icons from the new Mountain Lion Dock a while back, I got a few questions from readers who weren’t quite able to make it work.

Cult of Mac reader, Diane, emailed and said, “well, it sounds good…..But none of your suggestions work on my computer. when I let go, it still zooms back. when I trash it, it still zooms back. when I right click there is no option to remove it from the dock.”

Without knowing the specifics,of course, I cant diagnose the problem perfectly. I do think, however, that I might have an answer to this.

This post is a little “inside baseball,” as it’s about a new tool for grabbing high-res app icons direct from the command line (or using an app), and this is the kind of thing that is most useful to writers like me. Then again, it’s by Brett ‘I just built this’ Terpstra, the Hardest Working Man on the Internet™, and is plain ingenious, so lets take a look.

Personal social networking app, Path, just released a new icon set into its sticker shop today, called “Iconic Bites.” While the stickers are adorable little bite-sized, pixel-chic representations of food and such, what really makes them cool is that they were created by none other than Susan Kare, the designer of the original Macintosh system icons.

The Path blog posted an interesting interview with her, as well, in which she talks about how her long experience in the design industry has influenced her current designs.

iOS and water usually don’t play nicely with each other, but if you freeze it, then it’s a heck of a good time. Gamago’s got a new ice tray that will turn your H2O into little iOS icon ice cubes, so your next beverage can be cooled by iOS.

These utterly gorgeous minimalist icons for the Mac are about to get installed on my iMac, and you should do the same. Featuring icons for all of OS X’s core apps as well as popular third-party apps like Spotify, Sparrow, VLC, Firefox and more, this custom icon set can easily be installed using Panic Software’s CandyBar, which is completely free.

Stunning, don’t you think?

Source: Appicns.com

Apple has published a Knowledge Base article that shows how to arrange the Apple TV app icons on the main screen. The update, 5.1, also added Shared Photo Streams, AirPlay Send audio, iTunes account switching, Trailer searching, new Screen Savers, support for Subtitles, more advanced Networking options, and the standard stability and performance enhancements.

Arranging the app icons is really very simple, and Apple’s post shows us how it’s done.

Panic’s terrific CandyBar tool has just been updated to support OS X Mountain Lion, and if you don’t already own it, you can now pick it up for free. Panic will no longer be charging for the app because of the new restrictions Apple has introduced to Mac OS X, which means CandyBar’s future is now unclear.

Let me paint a scenario for you. You’re a creative type. Maybe professionally or as a hobby or maybe you’re just the go-to person in the office. You need to pull a rabbit out of your hat—again— and you’ve got nuthin‘. Like less than nuthin’. What you need are some creative resources to browse through and use for your project.

Most of us have a few things stashed away to use, but those get old and stale fast. Which is why from time to time you need to pick up some new fonts, textures, graphics, icons, and such. Something like The Creative Design Bundle 2.0.

Or not. In an exhaustive (and for him, probably exhausting) 2,700-word article, Chris Suave has compared the icons of many apps that have moved from OS X to iOS (and sometimes back again). The results show that Apple is one of the worst and laziest offenders in the game.

You know what it takes to step up your game on your Mac? Apps. Great apps. This isn’t really news to you, is it? And one of the reasons that Cult of Mac brings you deals is so you can get a great deal on a great app. Recently we’ve had great-app-one-offs, you know one great app at one great price. Today we’re bringing you a slew of great apps at a fantastic price.

The Mac Productivity Bundle comes with 7 apps, two sets of icons & graphics, 6 ebooks on web development, and 4 WordPress themes for $50. I’ll understand if you don’t finish reading and go buy it.

Last chance! Deal ending soon!

In an email sent out to iOS developers today, Apple has announced a new rule that requires all apps to be submitted for approval with high resolution 1024 x 1024 icons and artwork. That’s a higher resolution than the display built into the iPad 2 — for an icon.

Convergence. It’s all the rage, lately, and what better two items to converge than your Mac, running OS X, and your iPad (or iPhone, or iPod touch), running iOS? IT’s two great tastes that taste great together, to quote an old commercial that mostly no one has heard of any more.

With these five tips, you’ll amaze your friends with a Mac that looks more like your iPad than it does your Mac. So, read on, intrepid souls, and follow our steps to make that sweet Apple computer into something resembling the post-PC magical device we all love.

Yesterday, we reported that Apple’s new Messages app icon looked pretty shamelessly similar to that of HipChat‘s. Now HipChat has spoken out about the maybe-theft-probably-concidence, and while they don’t have any hard feelings, they still think it sucks they’re about to get steamrolled by Apple.

Here at Cult of Mac, we’re a big fan of HipChat, a phenomenal team calibration tool based around group chat and IM, which works on any platform with dedicated apps for Mac and iOS. In fact, it’s how we keep in touch with each other throughout each work day. The app is a mainstay in our docks.

So when we woke up this morning and found out Apple was announcing a new version of OS X including a brand new Messages IM app, the first thing we thought was: “Hey! That icon looks familiar!” Very familiar.

iOS devices receive a lot of criticism for their static app icons, which, although often pretty, are a little boring to look at. Other than the Newsstand icon, which changes depending on which publications you have installed within, iOS icons do nothing.

If you’ve got a jailbroken iPhone, however, you can make them a little more exciting. Motion is a nifty tweak available from within Cydia, which will animate the app icons on your home screen with all sorts of fancy effects.

If you’re using your Mac to give a presentation, you might not want everybody to see your messy desktop! If so, you can run a quick command that will hide your desktop icons.

While we all eagerly await an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S, many of us are using custom settings shortcuts on our iOS homescreens to duplicate the functionality of a more robust Cydia hack like SBSettings.

The only problem? While the shortcuts work really well, some of the icons can be ugly and distinctly un-Apple-like.

Why settle for some puked-up icons, though, when you can have icons sexy enough to lick? Just go over to https://brdrck.me/settings/ on your iDevice and get downloading. Follow our previous how-to if you need guidance on setting these up.

[via iDB]

We’ve mentioned before that TextEdit’s icon under OS X has Apple’s entire “Think Different” essay written on it, if you blow it up big enough.But this one’s new to us: it also appears in its majority on Lion’s new All My Files icon.

Here’s to the crazy ones indeed… crazy to write an entire essay on an icon meant to be rendered in less than 80 pixels squared. Very cool.

[via Finer Things In Mac]

OS X Lion’s Finder is noticeably more drab than its predecessor. The once-colorful sidebar icons have now turned a rather flat shade of gray. In this video, I’ll show you how to restore color to your Finder sidebar icons.

Have you ever had the desire to change how your applications look your Mac? Perhaps you want them to look like the icons found in iOS, as seen in the picture above? Although fairly unknown, it is possible in Mac OS X. All you’ll need to get started is img2icns. While there is no plain and obvious way to go about it, it’s actually fairly simple once you know what to do, as demonstrated in this video.

High resolution artwork discovered in the latest build of Mac OS X Lion has generated rumors that Apple could be planning to bring a Retina display to the Mac. Preview 2 of Lion, which was released in late March, features icons in sizes up to 1024×1024, and a desktop background at a resolution of 3200×3200.

The new Lion wallpaper was discovered at the beginning of April by OSXDaily, and was noted for its ultra-high resolution which no Apple display has ever supported. The new icons – which are double the size of the current 512×512 Mac OS X icons – were discovered over the weekend by MacMagazine.com.br.

Considering there is currently no need for icons or wallpapers of this size, these discoveries would suggest Apple is working on bringing a better display to the Mac. MacRumors notes that Apple has built-in Support for HiDPI display modes in Lion:

Taking cues from iOS, Apple has reportedly built in support for what it calls “HiDPI display modes”. These HiDPI modes allow developers to supply 2x-enlarged images to support double-high resolution displays. Like the iPhone 4’s Retina Display, this means that user interface elements will remain the same size, but everything will be twice the resolution and therefore twice as detailed.

While a Retina display Mac would be pretty neat, I would much prefer one in my iPad first.

When Apple updated the iTunes 10 icon earlier this year, it sparked huge controversy among Mac users everywhere — many branded the new icon ugly, lifeless, and unconventional. The debate showed that lots of Mac users like to see beautiful apps with beautiful icons.

Here are 15 of our favorite Mac OS X icons from 2010 that stand out for being beautifully designed, brilliantly colorful, and wonderfully unique. We’ve selected icons that make you want to find out more about an application, and that you’d proudly place in your dock for all to see.

We hope you like them. Check them out after the break. If you know better icons, please tell us about them in the comments. Free apps for the best ideas.

As part of our review of all the great things we’ve come across in 2010, we’ve picked 15 of our favorite iOS icons that stand out from the rest for being beautifully designed, brilliantly colorful, and wonderfully unique.

We’ve selected icons that make you want to find out more about an application, icons that you’d proudly place on your home screen for all to see, and icons that represent the awesome apps behind them.

There are, of course, hundred of thousands of iOS apps in the App Store, and we’ve selected just 15 of our favorites – we hope you like them. Check them out after the break.

Of course, we probably missed a bunch. Please nominate your favorite icons in the comments. We’ll give out free app codes for the best ideas.