App Icon Conventions From the Original Macintosh
A look at early Mac app icons shows Apple's convention of tilted rectangles and a hand icon. The author traces how this faded as users adapted, with apps like TeachText and Font/DA Mover breaking the mold, arguing that mandating design rules differs from organic adoption.
Background
- The post is by John Gruber (Daring Fireball), a longtime Apple commentator, riffing on a post by Dr. Drang, an engineer/blogger known for deep-dives on Mac history.
- It examines early Macintosh (1984–85) app icon conventions: Apple initially used a "hand holding a pen over a tilted diamond" as a visual badge for applications (apps that create documents). Document icons were upright rectangles with dog-eared corners.
- The piece argues this was *merely a convention*, not a rule, and third parties freely abandoned it as users got more Mac-literate. This is a pointed contrast to Apple's modern practice of *mandating* uniform rounded-rectangle ("squircle") icons for iOS and macOS apps via strict design guidelines — a policy Gruber wryly calls "squircle jail."
- The core debate: Should platform-level design conventions be enforced (top-down) or arise naturally through competition of ideas? Gruber sides with the latter, comparing enforced uniformity to elections without credible opposition.