Upgrade - 526: Journal and Learnal

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

from relay this is upgrade episode 526 for august 26th 2024 today's show is brought to you by squarespace vitally and ladder my name is mike hurley i'm joined by jason snow hi jason hello mike hurley how are you? Summer of fun, baby. Summer of fun. We're doing it. This might be the last summer of fun of this year. I know. We've got to get it out now because there may be

draft. Maybe draft next week. Marching band warming up at the North Tunnel, ready to march in for next week, maybe. Yep. We'll find out. We'll find out. But for now, I have a snow talk question for you. It comes from Jerry.

Jerry wants to know Jason, what's your meal of choice to make on the grill? Or do you just say, what's your meal of choice to grill? To grill. You could, you could say that, Oh,

I don't meal of choice is weird. Like it's not the most common maybe, but the one that, uh, marinated flank steak and corn look at him you know no burgers and hot dogs in the snail house I mean do are the burgers more common yes but no favorite chicken I mean like chicken we do out there and steak we do out there but uh the my favorite is the marinated flank steak and then uh and then you soak corn for like an hour and then you um just lay it just unshucked and you lay it on the grill for like 25 minutes and cooks itself it steams up and then you just have corn and steak and it's

great you eat it outside and it's wonderful so there's my answer need to have a barbecue at the house one of my favorite phrases um that i've've heard Stephen use in the past is cookout, which I think is a thing. Cookout. That is said in a lot of places in the South, I think, where that's grilling, a.k.a. what we would call barbecuing. I just like that. We're having a cookout. I like that. It's a cookout.

Well, yeah, because I always think about cookouts as being like camping or something. And maybe this is just a Stephen thing. I don't know. Yeah. Well, yeah, because I always think about cookouts as being like camping or something. And maybe this is just a Steven thing. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. I mean, Casey has like that favorite chain restaurant, right? That's called Cookout, isn't it? It's the same idea.

And I expect it's based on that term, right? Which is why. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like his like familial thing. Maybe it's a southern thing. I don't know. I don't know. Grilling.

Barbecuing. I it's a Southern thing. I don't know. I don't know. Grilling, barbecuing. I love it. Cookout. If you'd like to send in a question of your own to help us open a future episode of the show, go to upgradefeedback.com and send in a Snell Talk question. Now, Jason, we have a lot of fun today, but first we have some lawyer up to do

because there's been some really interesting news in the past week or so concerning apple and maybe their approaches uh to the european union first off is a report from mark german uh who is reporting that matt fisher who has been what is referred to in the article as the head of the app store business i think that is like a specific job title that i'm not sure we fully understand what that means but like the business of the app store we'll call it and also apple arcade fisher is departing the company in october due to a reorganization at apple within the app store team so fisher has been in charge of the app store business since 2010 after his departure in October, the App Store is going to be split into two business groups. You have one for the App Store

as we know it, the Apple App Store, and then one group in charge of alternative App Stores, which I find fascinating. My initial read on this is like, oh, they're very aware of how much work is going to be needed for this and how prevalent it's going to become. They're going to have somebody in charge of managing the relationships, if you would call them that, I guess, and the business of alternative app stores.

Yeah. I wonder if it's going to give them a little almost like deniability where they can say, look, we now are keeping the app store business separate from how we deal with alternative app stores. So we're allowing them to be sort of separate it's interesting i mean he's been in charge since 2010 but i mean phil schiller's been in charge of him since 2010 right like he reports to phil schiller and this article makes it clear again that you know phil schiller is an apple fellow and he's ascended and is on the roof and all of that but like he runs the app store yeah mark says this was phil's idea like this is phil's thing to split it up like this and it is to kind of help them navigate

this climate that they found themselves in a really quick quote from german about who's coming in carson oliver a longtime senior director will run the app store group while and ty a director in charge of app store features like search and discovery, will lead the new team responsible for alternative distribution. Both managers will report to Shilla. I remember Anne being in part of a presentation about Apple Arcade once. I know that she was involved in Apple Arcade in its beginning. But yeah, so Anne is going to be running the alternative App Store group. Yeah, it's very interesting, right?

Yeah, I wonder what this says about, is this like a little tiny corner of Apple? Or is it, as you said, the anticipation that this is going to be a larger issue and that they need to essentially have a team for things outside the App Store and a team for things inside the App Store? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know i don't know and and then the big question is is there a level of unhappiness here of feeling like they need to reset relationships phil schiller's still in charge of it all so if there's a top-down approach of policy like the guy in charge is still the guy in charge but maybe from a lower level kind of like how are we dealing with alternative app stores,

having a refresh with new faces, they might find that useful. I mean, you can begrudge it, but still respect it, right? So this could be a scenario where they're like, we don't want to have to do this, but we understand we need to do this. That could be what we're seeing. Apple have also announced some changes to the way that default apps on iOS and iPadOS in the EU will work. So

previously we had the browser choice screen, which was criticized by the European Commission as not being, the design was not good enough in their opinion, not good enough information. So the browser choice screen, so when users are shown okay do you what browser do you want to use i'm actually not clear if this is shown as part of

startup or i guess it's shown as part of maybe startup and also when somebody upgrades to whatever version of ios will include this i guess they'll be shown this as part of the onboarding the browser choice screen will now include more information about the apps that you'll be choosing from, like app store descriptions and information, which is one of those things where you read it and you're like, it's kind of funny to not even have that.

Just like a random set of things. Yeah, just names. And then when you've made that selection, the app that you choose, if you don't choose Safari, will replace Safari's position on your home screen whoa that's interesting right like i mean it kind of makes logical sense too it's like people have safari because it is the web browser if you change the web browser you kind of swap

out for whatever is going to go in its place so So let's find that interesting. As well as browsers, EU users will now be able to choose default apps in the settings of their iPhone or iPad for the following categories. Apps to make phone calls, to filter call spam, messaging, navigation,

password managers, keyboards, and translating text. You'll also be able to delete the app store, messages, camera, photos, and Safari. I would love to know.

These changes are rolling out over the next year or so. I think all this is fine, ultimately. What happens if you delete the app store, though? How do you get it back? I think you... Hmm. That's a good question. You can't go to the app store and download it.

You can't go to the app store. That's what you're going to say. The rest of them, you just go to the app store and download them again. If you delete the app store just go to the app store and download them again. If you delete the app store... I wonder if there's a setting somewhere that will return that.

I feel like it's got to be for that one. The rest of them, fine. You just go to the app store and download the camera app again. I've got to say, this thing, this is good. Everyone should be able to do this, I think.

It's just setting defaults and having control over your device. It's not unreasonable. No. I think this is good. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online.

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Jason, tell us what we're doing today on Upgrade for our Summer of Fun topic. It is a thing that I've thought of for a while now that I thought we would finally do, which is a fun thing. Just a fun thing. We're trying. A Summer of Fun

thing. Summer of Fun things. And it's an icon tier list. That's what it is. It's Apple's app icons as a tier list. All of Apple's app icons. We're going to do it.

Where do they belong? Yep. In case you don't know what a tier list is, it's like a ranking system uh there are six categories it starts at s rank s a b c d f that is kind of the standard system we're going to put a link in the show notes to an image of all of our rankings completed so don't click that image for spoiler reasons i guess uh And we've mentioned that we do video version of the show.

There will be in the video version on YouTube for this show, which you can go and watch after the fact. You could just switch over right now if you want to do that. There will be a live video of us doing the ranking. So Jason's operating a tier list

and we're going to put them in that ranking so you can see exactly where they are and where we put them. But of course, as important around these parts, we were going to do our very best to describe these icons to you if you don't know what they look like because we're going to judge them that's what we're doing is we're judging icons exactly and deciding how we feel about them all right should we get started let's get started what you got for me uh first up is test flight okay it's a propeller that looks kind of like a i guess you know a propeller right yeah it's a propeller because it's you're flying uh this is

also interesting because the original test flight icon was it was an actual propeller because it was a company do you remember that like test flight was its own thing and apple bought it and then apple maintained that branding but they actually made the little uh blades on the propeller app icons that are like a weird angle so i like the i like the symbolism of this one it's also developer tool so it's got the blueprint style that's also present on Xcode, for example. Now, we should state that we need to agree to this. This is not like an individual tier list. No, no, no. We have to agree about where we put them.

But yeah, test flight. So you're taking a test flight with an airplane, therefore. I want to think of some like, you know, this is going to adapt as we go through, but maybe some rules here, like some guidance points, right? So like for me, metaphor,

you get like a bonus for metaphor, right? I like that. But I wonder like single color, like this is just blue, right? Blue and white. That to me, I feel like you could do more, color. Like, this is just blue, right? Blue and white. That, to me, I feel like you could do more. But then the metaphor of the blueprint, though, right? So I think we go back to metaphor again.

Ooh, this is... The first one's hard. The first one's the hardest. Hmm. Are you leaning anywhere right now, category-wise, for Test Flight? Test Flight, I'm going to say... lean in anywhere right now category wise test flight uh test flight i'm gonna say i don't know i mean we got yeah we got to start somewhere i think it's okay i think it's not colorful but that's fitting with their color scheme and i like the concept of the airplane hang you know uh propellers and all that i'd say i don't know uh b i was leaning b is this what it's

like is it s no is it a no and i was like is it c it's also not c like i feel like it's more than a c so let's say b rank for test flight all right awesome congratulations test flight you did it good job for us what's next uh next up, podcasts. Oh, podcasts. Oh, podcasts. It's purple. There's a little person, and the person is radiating waves of sound. This icon has been around since the beginning, right?

Like, this has been what podcasts have looked like kind of since the beginning? Mm-hmm. The reel-to-reel tape days well i mean since the beginning of podcasting oh yeah which was the real i thought you're making it no but that was when the podcast app had a reel-to-reel tape in it but i mean like from the original itunes on the mac i think it looked like. I think this was kind of the iconography that Apple gave. A little person shape. Oh, somebody's saying, is it a person or a microphone? No, it's a person.

It's definitely a person. Who would tell you where to go to the bathroom? It's a person. I've got to tell you, I've never liked this. I've never liked the icon. Just like the general iconography that Apple's created for podcasting. I agree.

I don't like it. It literally could be this person smells. Yeah, but it's also just like... Because it's just waves emanating from a person. This isn't how podcasts work, right? They don't transmit from a person. It's not like how they work. That's how how podcasts work, right? They don't transmit from a person. It's not like how they work. That's how my podcasts work.

I don't know what you're talking about. Virus? D? Wow, D. Well, I've labeled our tiers in the apple rainbow colors. So D is the purple tier so does that mean test flight needs to be an f now because you labeled the f no we're not color coding them i'm just saying it feels like an appropriate place for podcasts oh this is so

good tony tony and discord social distancing the app it kind of is it kind of is it kind of stay away from me here's my bubble don't come near me it kind of is okay next up is stocks this is a uh it's one of my favorite apps you know i love that everybody gets a stocks app to watch their stocks all right so here's my next question can my feelings of the application influence my feelings of the icon i think they will but you know but maybe they shouldn't as much as you can help them but yes i i have i have no i don't like i don't like this app i don't like that it's that apple thinks it's a standard thing i don't like that apple encourages people to think short term about stock prices, which is not a healthy way to do investing. And this app is not colorful.

The icon. It shows a chart. I mean, I guess I like charts. I will point out that it's very similar to Activity Monitor, which is a totally different use case with a totally different metaphor. And yet they look shockingly similar okay i'm looking at our because you know the way that the tier list works you have like all of the app icons at the bottom right and so like i can see everything we're going to talk about and like there are a bunch where it's like wow those are shockingly similar but yeah unrelated looking applications looking at applications. Yeah. It's not an F.

No. Because it's not ugly. I feel like... No. And like... And to their credit, as been pointed out in our Discord, they don't show it like a stock going up

or a stock going down. It's just kind of like kicking around. I mean, I think I would probably go with C. I like it more than podcasts because at least it's just kind of like kicking around i mean i think i would probably go with c i like it more than podcast because at least it's doing something yeah you know it feels real generic to me so i think c is pretty good yeah oh that's a good that's actually a pretty good uh way to think about it right like it's just like it is average the cut i like the blue that they chose i like that there's a little bit detail going on and it also kind of shows what the application is,

where a lot of these icons don't do that at all. It does. Like podcasts. I ain't going back to podcasts. It doesn't. Next up is Watch, which shows a profile of an Apple Watch with a band. I love this icon.

A. Yes. Interesting. I love this icon. It does what it says on the tin absolutely and icons are iconic this is the iconic view of an apple watch my negative about the apple watch app icon is it's a lot of empty space right because it's the apple watch scene profile with a band on it and so there's a big hole in the middle however they're trying to get across the app shape a circular app inside the round rect that so many icons have that's what they're also going for there um so i'll go along with you i'll go along with A I might have put it B but I'll go with A

I feel like too like what more could you like how else could you show the Apple Watch right like if you show it front on

I don't think that would it would look like a little phone you know what I mean like this is like the perfect way to show the Apple Watch screen within a screen

yeah it's kind of weird it's like what's on the screen like I tell you what, the only way they can make this an S-rank is if the app icon was my actual watch face. Oh, man. They changed it?

Now that would be something else. Yeah. Well, and they changed the icon based on what model watch you have. Oh, that would also be good. Yeah, because like, look. That would be nice. That's not the Ultra, you know?

No, exactly. Like, that thing is not the Ultra. It's not. It's not. But I like it. I like that thing is exactly it's not it's not but i like it i like that one a lot let's move on to weather little cloud little blue sky going in the gradient there's a little little cloud little translucent cloud with the sun i don't know if i've ever noticed before until looking at it here that the cloud is translucent with the sun poking in i don't know if i'd noticed that before.

I mean, I don't use the weather app, right? I use Kara. It's like I don't get to see this icon a lot. I mean, it's cute, right? I think it's really good. I think that this says weather. I think it's cute, and I think that it's pretty. And I think it gets across exactly what the app is which is is it

cloudy partly cloudy sunny i think it's really nice it sounds like we're going somewhere weather it sounds like we're going somewhere i don't know i mean i i feel more positive about it i mean i also use third-party weather apps but like as a as an icon to say this app shows you the weather, I think it's really good. Is it an S, though? I don't know. What do you think? I think it's the best one of the five we've seen so far.

I would be... Here's what I'll say. Let's give ourselves the opportunity at the very end if we want to reshuffle any. Okay, that's fair. And then I would say this is an S. This is an S. Okay. For these reasons, like,

it is not dramatic, right? But, like, it is as good a job, I think, as you could do to show a weather app. And they also take it a step further. Like, that cloud does not need to be translucent

and it would get the job done. But like, they've done, they've gone a little bit extra on it and I like that. And also the gradient of the blue is real good. It's real pretty.

It's a great icon. Good icon. Okay, voice memos. Everybody's favorite voice memos next. It's a waveform with like a playhead

in it and it's colored on one side and white on the other side on black background like so many utilities are. Is this actually how the app works? Is it red and white on either side of the playhead?

I think the color scheme is I think the color scheme is... I think the color scheme matches, but, you know, it's not how the app works. I need to go to voice memos and see. Okay, yeah, you check it out. This is going to be important to my ranking. You refer back. All right, all right.

Voice memos. There's no waveform in the app at all. Now, when you record, does it show you a little waveform? Oh, that's a good point. Let me record something. Yeah, it does. And it's red.

Okay. I can see that. But, like, there's no white part. Yeah. That's affected my ranking. Okay. What are you thinking? C.

Here's where I started. This is very similar to stocks for me yeah right but i thought if it was like a little indication of like what the app looked like in use then i would want to bump it up one but it's only partly that because you know that there was like oh that i thought that would be cute, right? But instead, they've kind of, they've pushed it a little bit too far for me. So I think it bumps it down. I agree with you. I also don't like how generic some of Apple's app icons feel. And this one feels very generic to me.

And I think it's almost too cute because regular people don't know about audio waveforms. Yes. You know, honestly, a. Honestly, a little microphone might do a better job for this, to be honest. Yep. Okay. Calculator. Hmm.

Hmm. Calculator. So Zach in the Discord has provided an important piece of follow-up which you can actually i don't know how they did this but got a waveform view uh in the voicemail is that but it's still not read so it doesn't count for me yeah i just don't think i think i think waveform in general is a thing that people don't care about they just want to record their audio and yeah i think c is good i think c is good for especially for that reason to calculate a calculator it's a cute little calculator with not very many not enough buttons to do all the

numbers not a good calculator yep we can start start with that and not a good calculator like calculator i think is important in in its design because there are quite a few apps that are like this which are like here's gray with a simplified thing on top you can tell it's a calculator you can tell it's a calculator and i don't know why it has a space bar i guess i guess it's got like a that's a double wide one just zero right like that is the zero um yeah the zero iswired in the actual app itself. Okay, and then it's got the colored buttons down the side, and then the other buttons are generic.

Yeah, so it's following the Braun calculator that the calculator design emulates. I wanted to knock it down for not having enough numbers, but really that's kind of silly, because what are they going to do? Then you wouldn't be able to see them anymore. I think this is like a, I would B grade this maybe. What do you think?

I think it's an A. Ooh, okay. And the reason is because I think it pops a little bit, right? Which is hard to do because it's just sort of like black on the gray background, but it pops a little bit

and it's 100% clear what this this is this is not a metaphor it's not like numbers flying through space or something it's a calculator and it's pretty here's what i'll say the orange the orange puts it to a right like because i think that's a little flair. So yeah, I'm good with that. Calculator, head to the A tier. Congrats, Calculator. Hey, Mike, remember when you got an envelope in the mail? Well, it's time for the mail icon.

F. We need to make a statement here. F. I'm sorry, Apple. You didn't make this happen. But the fact that email is an envelope, it's just ridiculous that we do that. Everyone does this. Every email app is some piece of paper,

which just doesn't make any sense. It's like the save icon being a floppy disk at this point. Yes, exactly. Honestly, I think worse even. Because the floppy disk thing, that's just save, right? Envelopes still exist in the world, right? Yes, it's true.

And I just also as well, this is like the worst version of this icon that could be made. Okay, yeah. This is what I was going to say is, and Zach points out in the Discord that on the Mac, it used to be a postage stamp.

With an eagle on it. I know that's also literal. Yeah, I know that's also literal yeah i know that's also literal but it's got personality and it's about a detail and it's about the metaphor here this is the laziest male icon you could possibly come up with it's the back of a folded envelope the color of the seams or the stroke on the shape of the envelope is the blue color. Which just doesn't make any logical sense. The background gradient that's here, it's bad philosophically and execution-wise. So I agree. You know what i look at this list we're setting the president we are setting a president here just looking at some of these

things around no no but it's fine i i actually think the precedent might be mostly okay for like some of these especially ios icons like some of the ios system apps. We'll see where we end up. But I think what really pushes this is that envelopes and email, like they should not be together. Like it's not Apple's fault. I agree. Maybe, or maybe it is Apple's fault.

I don't know who did this first. I feel like there's an envelope metaphor icon that would be better than this. And also, again, the example of the Mac mail is a good one, which is a good one which is a stamp with an eagle on it and stuff it's like i know that's kind of wild but at the same time it's also like so far removed that at least you're making an effort to sort of like create

some sort of abstract idea whereas this is just oh yeah what if it's just a super generic envelope yay that's closed i would say like mime stream mime stream did it does a good job like there's an it's an interesting looking thing at least well mime stream so for people who don't know mime stream on the mac it has the round rect that apps are supposed to have the round rect is an envelope and come and it's got the envelope is open so the top of it is the top of the round rack. And the bottom of it, it's got the little V-fold, but it's open. And inside is a message, is a letter. And, like, it's so much better. It's so much better.

Come on. Like, I don't like Spock's icon, but it's a paper plane. Like, that's still better. Like, a paper plane is better than an envelope. I know. I know. All right. Calendar. like that's still better like a paper plane is better than an envelope i know i know all right calendar it's the date calendar is like a round wrecked with the date calendar is a bad icon like visually but super useful super functional i know well i think i think this is one of the shames of uh apple and how it does icons is that i believe other apps when they're closed can't update their icon but calendar can

which really i think that's true i think that's still true but i like it i like it i like the idea of it as being information that's helpful to you if that makes sense now tell me this the first iphone uh the calendar yeah the calendar didn't do this right like this got added and like what's so incredible well you know what it may have done it actually because like i'm looking at some images now and they've got different numbers on them. So I don't know when this may have been added. Maybe the first icon, or first calendar, or first app did that on the iPhone. On the Mac, I should say, on the Mac it's got a red portion at the top that has the month on it.

Yeah. And on the iPhone it's white white and it's got the date the day on it but they're similar they're in the ballpark i like honestly like maybe the only ones i actually like the original looking at it the original iphone one was nicer than this one where it was that it was a big red it was red portion it had the day yeah and then the number like the new one it's a little bit bland. A little bit washed out. It's just like not very, you know, it's just not for me now. It's like a little bit, compared to some of Apple's other icons,

I think it's lacking detail, but. But I like the functionality of it. The utility is really, really good. Like really good. So B, C? Let's do B. Let's do b let's do b this could so easily have been an a if it just it just like had a visual flare a little bit of a kind like of any kind yeah like i i really am not an ios six icon person like i know that these people exist they want that style back and and i don't because everything looks dark green gross and muddy but this is one room like oh i think they lost

something but by losing the color and she's saying something i don't need to see the ripped top of the page no and i don't need to see the stitching on the leather binding no but having it just be a white background at least on the mac it's not it's just too plain you're totally right the mac one the mac one i would i would give that an a but we're we're judging we can i i sort of picked haphazardly from ios and mac so um i think it's a or b i think it's one of those no let's do b because like they should it should be the same everywhere. Yeah. B stands for be better on iOS.

Yeah. Okay. Contacts. This is an icon that exists. It is gray with a person circle in it, a circle with their head and the top of their weird oval body. Floating. And then on the side, there are little tabs because it's like an address book kind of thing where the tabs are references and the tabs are colorful.

Why don't people have necks? Because their heads float magically above their bodies in the generic... It's just like in the symbols for bathrooms and stuff. Whenever Apple depicts a human, of which there are multiple, they never have a neck. Why is that? Because they don't own bathroom signs and stuff. The generic kind of human body that you see on crosswalks and bathroom

signs and all that. They all are kind of like the neck is hard to draw and makes it a little less clean so they don't. Interesting. They don't but it's an interesting idea. Good question. Good question Mike. Why don't people have neck signs? I just got a question. I'm just asking questions here. what do you think about contacts i like the color in the little like thumb tabs on the side i like that they did that that's the best thing about it that's a nice touch to it and i would say for representing it's like what this is representing is like your address book right and i and i do the boring app of the the kind of representations kind of thing i think

this does a good job of it like it's not going too far but also the idea of having contacts is such an old thing anyway like it's like such a weird thing that I'm actually ever making the choice to save my contacts. But I think that the imagery of this is good enough, especially because the app itself, while it doesn't have like the colored tabs, it is still kind of organized

in the alphabetized way on the right-hand side, right? Like you're still kind of, so it is evoking that. At the moment I'm leaning towards b because i i really like the colors that they chose i agree with you this is a boring icon for a boring app which is fine and then they put a little flare in the colors and that for me is enough to elevate it above c to. Because they could have just made this just a gray round wreck with the person in the middle. They could have and they added a little flare. They did something.

We should be clear we're also just doing the light mode and mostly iOS with some Mac apps at the end so there are variations we're not going to talk about them. If you want to see the exact ones we are that will be in the screenshot that we put in the notes and also the video versions. Okay. FaceTime. ones we are like that will be in the screenshot that we put in the notes and also in the show yeah um okay facetime so this is the precedent i was talking about oh yeah facetime is just what an old school film camera it's like an old movie camera or camcorder with a big old lens and then a rectangle and it's sitting inside a big green gradient bound rect and that's face time so let's think about this for a second right okay all right

how else would you do this what else could you do um it depends i mean it depends on the era but you could show a face with another face in the corner right like you could you could you could maybe smiling but like you could just have like a a body and then another smaller body in a box right like it could just look like a facetime call right like and then that makes it sound like it's quite some small detail but there's lots of small details look at the count look at the calculator right it's a ton of little buttons uh-huh yeah this is silly really like uh-huh this one might be worse than mail in its own ways so i think we're um in the interest of expediency i'm going to move us along and just say um i agree i think this is a failure i think it's one of apple's older icons and they've done a bad

job uh letting it sit there the way it is and i think they probably think well it's one of Apple's older icons and they've done a bad job letting it sit there the way it is. And I think they probably think, well, it's for continuity reasons. We got to keep it that way. And I say, I say, no, I think the, I do think just like the envelope, the movie camera representing video as a thing is a mistake. I think you need to not do it that way. And so, fail. See me me after class can i make a suggestion at this point yes shall we lightning round the similar ones uh we can if you uh yeah let's do let's do we're gonna go on a little green binge here everybody i think that's what you mean and if you don't mean it well well that's what we're doing anyway. Messages. F. Because, like, iMessage is blue. Oh, that's 100%. Yeah, but, I mean,

will they get in trouble with a regulator for having RCS green not be represented properly in the icon? Should it be the color of the message you received most recently? It's also not even the shape of the bubbles. Mm-hmm. I don't like this one.

I think it's an F. Okay. I'll go with you. I might be persuaded to D. Okay. But I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. Okay, so next up,

should we say phone? Yeah. I was already pasting it in. I would put phone in D. I agree. It's... you yeah right i would i was only pasting it in i would put phone in d i agree it's okay i have a few thoughts here and i know that it's hard i know that it's hard and i know a lot of people don't use their phone as a phone and maybe the people who use their phone as a phone and use the phone app think of phones and think of a phone that looks like a uh a phone from the 80s without the cord or a cordless phone but the cordless phones often had like a little antenna at the

top and it's not that either and i think a lot of people would look at this and go i don't know what this is is this a c is it like a little man laying back on a i what is it it's a it's a telephone handset from the before times and i don't know i get why they're doing it and and i'm not sure what's better here but it also feels really wrong here's what i like about this icon and why i actually think that it works better than some of the other ones and i may even be i may even be talking myself up from d they use that icon to mean answer this call it's the same icon and it's that's true right so like that's true you don't need to know what a phone is but you're like oh that's the answer the call icon right where like mail and facetime and messages don't look like in the applications the things that they put on the icons yeah what i

would say is they they may need to uncouple this metaphor because it is rapidly becoming floppy disk, right? People understand what floppy disk is, but they don't know what it means, but not what it is. And I look at this and I think, I get why it's the way it is, which is why I don't think it's an F. But I think to myself, one, it gets dragged down by being part of Apple's generic green icon group. And two, it is when you start to think about it, it's like it doesn't express anything about how that app is used today in terms of being a communication app over the phone system to make a voice call. call and you know maybe that i'm willing to hear that the best they can do is this and that's fine but i don't think that that makes it any better than a d or maybe a c just because this is the best it can be i don't think that makes it good enough also some several people in the discord

have mentioned there could be some whimsy here you can make it more like a toy phone or something and instead it's this super simplified, streamlined. I don't know. I think that the problem is nobody under a certain age knows what a telephone is anymore. You can make it a phone booth. That's why I like that at least this icon is represented inside of the phone app. I know the calculator might cause some confusion here, but even having it be like a dial pad with kind of that kind of thing might be a better metaphor here than the phone right that you're dialing a phone number kind of thing yeah that could that's old school but if it looked like the ui of making a phone

call i would say d i think i think it's better than the other ones of which it is in the group with which is mail facetime and messages are there others you want to clean up here or were those the ones you were thinking of those those were the ones like they're the like the cis and also but they were like it goes with mail it's like the system yeah basic things where they just have the most basic greenies yeah it's those greenies they like that all right music i've read music remember when they changed the music app icon a few times? Made it white. You know, they've done this. The music app has gone some places.

The one that was white with the colored music note, that was better looking than the pink with the white music note. So Apple has done, Apple suffers here from a decision that they made, which is every app should really basically just sit on a round rect and have a thing inside of it. And so here it is. It's a musical note.

And I know it's iTunes and Apple Music branding and all of that. And I think it does the job in terms of being recognition. But can I just say, as somebody who took piano lessons for many years, I don't really like the musical note

as a way to play your popular music. I don't love it as a metaphor, honestly. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, they could have given, why did they not try and give this a visual brand of its own? Yeah, right. Yeah, this is really low. I mean, they had to steal it from GarageBand,

but what if it was like an Apple logo and like a guitar or something? Be like, we're playing your music here, man. Instead, it's like, no, it's a, you know, it's a couple of eighth notes. Yay. Yeah, I mean, D? D?

Because I at least like the color. Yeah, sure. But it's not the best. Yeah, it's not the best. All right. Apple TV. It's a round rect, but you see the Apple TV is itself a round rect.

And then on the top of it, there is an Apple logo and the letters TV saying Apple TV. Saying this is literally, you don't even need to look below me to see what my icon is. You know who I am because my icon just says what I am. Jason, this was going to be an F, but you just bumped it up for me. Well, this is the thing. I think on one level, it's entirely uninspiring. On another level, though, it up for me. Well, this is the thing. I think on one level, it's entirely uninspiring.

On another level, though, it matches the hardware. And I kind of like it for that. It's unnecessary, and that it's very clear what it is because they literally put the label in the icon, which is cheating and yet also clear. C?

C or D. I think C. I think for functionality, I'm going to put it at C and I know people are going to be mad. I think as a work of art, it's terrible.

But as a functional piece of information design, I think it's actually very good. I like that it's fun because it looks like how the Apple TV used to look.

And it is like a little back Apple TV. I like it. It's like a little Apple TV. It still looks like that, right? From the top, that's what it looks like. It's that shape. It's literally the shape of the Apple TV hardware. look. And it is like a little back Apple TV. Like, I like it. It's like a little Apple TV. It still looks like that, right? From the top, that's what it looks like. It's that shape. It's literally the shape of the Apple TV hardware.

And I know the TV app isn't necessarily tied to the TV hardware, but it's like a little thing, a little gift. I don't know if it still has TV on it. Oh, no, no. No, that's just a label for icon users. Yeah. It used to.

It used to look just like this. The third generation Apple TV, it wasn't white, but it had this exact logo on it. And I like it more for that reason. All right. Here's a, this is going to be controversial, I predict. News. I don't know what you're going to say about this icon, Mike. We haven't practiced.

We haven't done anything in advance. Here's what I'm going to say about the Apple News icon. It's a piece of garbage. It is like a couple of wavy lines. It's diagonal lines. I know they're trying to get the shape of an N, but it's just like lines in a box inside a box. And then you look at it and you're like, are you getting it yet?

It's like an N, but it's lines in a box inside another box. First off, why is it not the whole box? Why is it on a box itself? And then second, this doesn't mean news. The most important thing about Apple News is that it starts with the letter N. Is that what you're saying here? Is that what this is? Diagonal lines going from top to bottom.

What says keep up with what the events that are happening in the mass of humanity that lives on planet Earth? The diagonal lines going from top to bottom, left to right. Yay, it's Apple News. It doesn't help that I don't really like the Apple News app or the News Plus service, but I think this is as F-tier as an icon gets. What do you think? I love your passion. Yeah.

I'm bringing the passion today like so here's what i like about the news icon that like compared to music is they actually tried to brand it right like yes they tried to come up with this is the logo for this service and like they did something original where like that's what i don't like about music is like yes like you look at spotify they made an icon right they made something this is their brand like they made a thing and like apple music it's just a music note which for for me is not enough where like podcasts even though i don't like what they did they at least tried and same here with news they this is a liability that apple has with all of its products which is all of its products now are Apple followed by a generic term, which means they can't really brand them as something. Like if Apple Music was called, you know, DJ Beatmeister, they'd be like, oh, I got

a vibe for DJ Beatmeister. We can make an icon for that. But it's just music, right? Whereas Spotify is, I don't know, spots. In fi? In high fidelity? Hi-fi spots. Yeah, that's what it is so what i think they need to do is what they've done with some of the other ones like stocks where it's like well if it's just

called the thing then like do a fun version of the thing right so they didn't do that with apple news which they could have done there was maybe like a version of this icon honestly which was just a newspaper this should be a newspaper like this should look like what newsstands look like right like this icon should be a newspaper or something just so it looks like a street sign it looks like hey you can cross the street here yeah right because it's like there's the street and then there's the arrows that say you can cross either way here. When I look at it, I'm like, there must be a metaphor that I'm missing. Like, that's what I look at when I look at this. But I don't think there is.

I'm happy with F tier for this. F tier. In it goes. In the bin. Barbershop is what it looks like more than anything else. Yeah, that's true too. Yeah, it's a candy cane yeah something like that home it's a house with a bunch of like little house gradients inside it i

i love this one this is exactly what i'm talking about right what can you do for home well really there's not you kind of have to it has to look a certain way right? What can you do for home? Well, really, you kind of have to look a certain way, right? You can't do a ton with it. It's a home. Right. But they branded it, I feel like. They created an icon which shows you what it is, but it has flair and also has a look to it, which is like that kind of looks like the home is radiating,

it's doing something. Like maybe there are waves of Wi-Fi inside of the house. I don't know. But I really like the home icon. I think it's okay. I feel like this is one of those examples where when we talked about MimeStream earlier, where Apple's insistence on everything just being a slab laid down on a round rect hurts them.

Because I wonder if there's a better version of the home icon where the round rect is integrated into the home somehow, right? Like the home is itself a round rect, but the way they built it, you can't make like a full round rect with like a little chimney poking out the top of it because you're going to run out of space. I'm not quite sure how they would do it, but like, I feel like there is a little more whimsical, a little less generic version of this icon that could exist and it doesn't. And I do wonder if there are other metaphors that might have worked here for especially smart home stuff, like, I don't know, like a light switch or something, but it gets it across clearly and it's not without style. Again, I just feel like they're probably leaving something on the table by having it just be sitting generically inside the round rect. I'm not a fan of that. I wish there was something that, even if it was like the round wrecked was the driveway and the lawn and the sky or something, which would hurt its contrast. But I don't know,

just on the white background, it really is not that exciting, but it's okay. Um, a B B. I think B is a better fit between the two of us. Okay. We'll put it in B.

That seems fair. Give me one more for now. Oh, boy. Well, we're going to go with what I think is a good one to take us into the break. Maps. S. Oh, Mike, I love to disagree with you here, but I can't. This is an S tier app icon.

Yeah. It's been an S tier app icon for a while, especially the fact that when you looked at it, you realized they were showing you infinite loop and the 280 freeway. And now they've simplified it. But if you look at it, it is Apple Park up in the upper right-hand corner. And it's got the blue, the dot with the arrow showing you navigation and you're on a road. And the blue on the road shows that you're navigating up there. And then you're going over what is the freeway underneath of it and coming back from the backside there. Like, it is colorful.

It is informational it says maps and it's got an easter egg inside it i think it's the best yeah pink and yellow why is it there don't know but i love it right like yes like if you're gonna do it do it right and yes the fact that it perfectly shows what the app is and includes an unnecessary piece of whimsy can't beat that. Right? Like that's it for me. This is top tier.

I think that's what we're going for here. I think that's, yes, I think that this is kind of a paragon of app design for me. I think the more you think about it, the better it gets. Yep. This episode is brought to you by Vitally.

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when you schedule a qualified meeting. Our thanks to Vitally for their support of this show and Relay. What you got for me next? Okay. Let's do shortcuts. Okay um it's two squares round wrecks on their side kind of um vibing with each other melding with each other

it's two yeah and and then the so it's like a stack of little things that are kind of connected i think the opacity suggests that and it's making a stylized s for shortcuts on a dark background this is high up there for me this one i think it's good i think it's trying to do an abstract concept in a in a uh clever way i think is what and it's to be. And it's an S, right? And it's an S. That's right. This is S. This is S. S for S. Oh, S for S. The more I'm looking at it, I'm like, man, someone really had a good cup of coffee that

day. Because it is two app icons. They're transferring between each other, which is what Shortpress does. Yes. And it's in the style of a letter s i mean come on it's pretty good it's pretty good it's pretty i i i think i agree with you i would put an ars i think that was just here in a row are you gonna follow up of a third s tier jason um no but i'm gonna go related to shortcuts, which is Automator. F. F.

This thing is so gross. Look at it. Why is he holding a tube? Why has he got a blue eye? One blue eye? Like, no, I hate it. F tier. The Automator, I don't care.

This thing is scary. It's a little robot. Think of it in today. Like today. We are grading this today, right? You want to think about this little humanoid robot all up inside your computer connecting pipes together? I kind of do.

With his little claw hands? Connecting pipes together. That's what Automator does. Connects pipes together. I don't like it. I also like that they put him, they were forced to put him on a round rect and they didn't put him on a generic round rect I don't like it. that it didn't need any kind of update, but somebody made them put him on a round rack. And this is what they've got.

And he's busting out of his pipe. Otto the Automator is, I think, adorable. I think whimsical. I think is of a time. I will grant you. But I like the effort they've made to make it more modern. I can't give this an F tier. Okay.

I'm going to be honest. I can't do it. I don't really think it's an f tier i just thought it would be funny uh but it's low though i don't like it like well what i like about it again is that they apple made a mascot for one of its features of its os which is a robot that helps you and how did i love that you know well he's still kicking. He's still out there. Yeah, and that's scary. I used a thing in Automator today, but I didn't see the icon. It's disconcerting that he's still running, you know? Yeah.

I mean, he's so of another time. When I put him in our little lineup here, he's going to look completely different from everything else because he's so scuromorphic. But I still kind of love him. Well, we're going to make him a D. His time has passed. Yeah. Little guy. Does that work for you?

I mean, he's even got like an aqua eyeball, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's even got the shine on it. Yeah, he does. It's like, oh, God. Yeah, he does. Come on. I know I just upset a bunch of Stevens in the world, but.

I know. It's true. Okay. Wall know. It's true. Okay. Wallet. A. Okay. So this is a little wallet with a bunch of cards, more cards than fit in Apple's iPhone wallet, by the way, sitting on a black background.

And the colors are different colors, which is nice. Yeah. Yeah. They've got it. They're not in the Apple rainbow sequence, but they're still really nice. Let me tell you what would take this from an A to an S. You're going to love this.

The whole icon is a wallet. Yeah, see, that's it. Yes. Right? Instead of it being just on a plinth. I think that's what POSBOOK used to look like. I think that's what POSBOOK used to look like. Yeah, I think in general, I mean,

this is just me getting my grievances out about apple forcing everything on to a round wrecked platter without using it properly a lot of the time so i agree with you i think it's an a i just found uh an icon like a passbook icon i don't know if it ended up being the one that Apple shipped, but it's like a little leather wallet. The whole thing is a square and it's got like three little tickets inside of it. And it's like, yeah,

that's what I want this thing to look like something. But like what I want is this whole thing to be a wallet and like, just expand this out. Like you just expand it. The round ref is the wallet. Yeah. But I like the cards are slid into it again. Like I'm realizing,

I really like when they put a bunch of color into icons that like it's not necessarily you would need to go this vibrant or whatever with them. And I think that tends to look really good. If you like color, I got an icon for you, Mike. Photos. Let me tell you what I like about photos. Okay.

They did the thing where this they just created a brand yeah and it's a flower yeah people take photos of flowers it's also i think it's reminiscent of something in photography but i don't know what like like a kind of color chart yeah you're summing summing up different colors. And it's also got all eight colors of the rainbow. Yeah. I guess they decided to go with that. Shh. Don't.

So what I like about it is that it's a brand. Yeah. And what I like about it is that it shows all those colors, which is fun. What I don't like about it is it doesn't say photography to me at all but that's a problem this is where my photos and videos are is in this app which is just a rainbow flower okay so let me ask you this is this is the issue that they have right how do you show photography how about a movie camera yeah right this is right? And they already have a camera, right? And so like...

I know. I like it. I would A rank this. I think that this is... For icons that are abstract, this is a good looking one. And the fact that it looks so good means it just becomes the thing

and you're like good with it. So I really like this one a lot. I'm torn because although I think it's actually a nice icon, I don't like the fact that it doesn't say photography to me. I mean, oh, it's like light. And so it's saying like light, right? That's what it's saying.

Yeah, but who thinks of that? Like who thinks of that really? But that's that. Well, this is my point. What takes this away from being a better icon for me is that the metaphor is a bit of a stretch, even if it's a nice icon. This could have been an icon for a scanner that finds the right color of an object. It would still be this icon. It doesn't say photography to me at all. And I don't know how you would do that without going and having it be like a lens or the camera bump on the back of an iPhone or something, which would be the camera.

It should be a camera app, right? It shouldn't be this app. Can I say B? Yeah, let's say B. I think these are all fair things that you're saying. These are all fair. All right. Well, since we're doing that, let's do the camera app.

It's a point and shoot camera from the before time. I like that they put the yellow on it, right? Like, that maybe gives it a point. A little sensor or indicator light. It's just got something. It's just got something going on. Yeah, it's on a gray gradient, the least interesting of all gradients yeah

maybe a d like it's better than the male one right like it's better than like mail facetime and messages at this point i'm gonna say it they have a round direct camera bump i actually kind of like the idea of having the camera icon be the camera bump it 100 should be that yes right definitely definitely it should be that yeah because it's not even unlike photos which could come from anywhere the camera app is for taking pictures on your device that has a a camera bumper of some sort yeah like this yeah the issue with phone is there the phone is a phone and there is no phone on the phone but there is a camera on the phone you just look at the back of it.

Everyone would know what that meant. Why don't they do that? They should totally do that, right? I know. Huh. We're really solving a lot of problems here. Okay, here's a difficult one. Safari.

Also, I'll point out in a continuing case here, this is an example of an icon that was designed before the round rect phenomenon where everything had to be on a shape and so it's a circle on a on a round rect in a box circle in a box it's a it's a compass and And historically, Safari has been a compass. It was originally skeuomorphic, and now it's not. So it was originally literally a compass, and now it's sort of the face of a compass, a little more abstract. What I like about that, and the name Safari, right, is they're trying to get across exploring the web, getting things from out in the world without, you know, how do you do that? Without just calling it like web browser. And so, although a compass and safari, the connection, the word safari, is kind of

tenuous. They've been doing it for a long time. When people go on safaris, do they need compasses? I don't know. yes okay i mean it's particularly funny that they have a compass icon when they also have an app called compass well yeah there is that too it's a challenge i don't like the safari, which doesn't help me. Yeah. Safari is a great name for a search engine. Like, you know, I feel like it's a better name for a search engine.

Because the metaphor is getting a bit broken, right? Because, like, people aren't, like, going to the web to explore when the web is everything now. Right. It's in everything. But I feel like it's's in everything but i feel like it's just a like imac it's just a name an iphone it's a name that can't go away it is just the brand regardless but i think if that's the case like this isn't a particularly good looking compass i agree right like this i mean it looks like a clock yeah yeah or like a temperature gauge or something it just isn't it's yeah it's just a circle with with marks on it and then a needle

basically yeah i'm not a fan of it i'm not a fan of it i don't like the color i don't like that it's on that background again i feel like i feel like again what you could do to to to plus this up if you're living in a world where everything's got to be on a round rect is make the round rect the frame of the compass and have the arrows stick out or something or point to like little

have the marks be on the outside there's a way you could do this that embraces the fact that everything is a round rect and instead it's just lazily plopped down on the white background i think that that is a d it's also actually a bad compass because it doesn't tell you where you're looking it doesn't have the cardinal directions or it doesn't have anything it's a d is it. D is good for this. It's a D. All right.

A compass. See, now, a compass is a better compass. It's a pretty good compass, right? It's a pretty good compass. And they're doing what you wanted. It's a round rect of the compass. It's popping out. The compass is the round rect.

Right? Like, they have the circle, and then the little icon is popping out. The little red triangle pointing north coming out of the circle. Yeah. It's a real out of the circle. Yeah. It's a real solid C for me. Yeah. I think that's about right. I think it lives with Apple TV.

Yeah. In the C category. You know what's also kind of funny about this is like it also kind of says news, which is funny. You know? Like it kind of. It's maybe a better news icon. It's got an N on it, so. Why wouldn't it?

Well, no. N-E-W-S. It does say news why wouldn't it? Well, no, N-E-W-S. N-E-W-S, Northeast, West, South, you're right. Depending on how you read. We cracked the code. We cracked the code. I read top to bottom, right to left, yeah. N-E-W-S, news. It's the secret code.

Okay, workout. This is a running person on a green circle because this is the Apple Watch version of it. I like this. I like this. You don't have any comments about the neck? Well, I mean, we've already established this. I can't talk about that.

There's no neck. It's a floating head. I like this one. I like this one. I agree. I like that the person's in action, and I really like the green that they've chosen. Like it's a

very vibrant green. I'd say it's a... Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. I was going to say B, but I'd go for A. I'd go for A. I think it's A. It does what it says on the tin. I like that about it. Yeah.

Health. Okay. Health. Okay. It's a white round wrap with a heart in the upper right corner. Because it loves you. I like this a lot. Okay. I like it a lot because

they put the heart where the heart goes. Uh-huh. That's what I like about this. The easy thing to do here, we should put because they put the heart where the heart goes. That's what I like about this. The easy thing to do here, we should put heart in the middle. That's the easy thing to do. But I like that they put the heart where the heart on a human would be. That's kind of where they're aiming for. And I think that's a real nice touch.

I would B grade this. Yeah. I have an instinct to say I wish it was more. Yeah. But I also appreciate the minimalist nature of it. By being offset in the round rect, it's actually using the, even though it's a white round rect, which I've just complained about, it's using it because it's using it positionally it's actually using it to do something meaningful there are a lot of ways that you could do a health app and they become negative right like you could

show scales or graphs and like and then it's like not very friendly it's not very welcoming and this is a very welcoming app icon so i like it for that okay next up is clock it's a clock on a round rect all i need to do here is work out how high like this is this is up there for me it's a good clock i mean this is one of those areas where it's a category where you can put what it is in the icon and have it look good you know why this works jason i have on my desk a version of this clock it's it's based on the braun clock right and it looks just like it um i will say kind of missed the swiss railway clock that is beautiful but the braun clock is also excellent uh and it and it functions like you can't get

any better than that really i think this is s2 true i go i will go with you this is what calendar wished like this this is right like calendar wished it was clock you know hey it's a new app it's sports it's apple sports one of the new apps why did they why do why do you think they chose a soccer field for this mls right yeah okay all right there you go because they get you know it's they didn't go with the any of the national pastimes right for you're right it's not a basketball court it's not a football field it's not a baseball diamond yeah it's a soccer pitch but they do have the mls deal also i think that in some ways i mean a basketball court would also have worked but it would have i think it's

easier to simplify the soccer pitch and and it's so it's a white outline of a soccer pitch on a green round rack and the green is great right because that's like the grass it's great yeah i don't know how much how good i feel about the white outline like i think it's clever i think this is very clever and it does say sports the white outline works because it's painted right it's like yeah that's the chalk outline yeah exactly yeah yeah i mean there's a lot to say. I could argue for more stuff in here, but again, I feel like I'm arguing for complication where complication isn't necessary. This could be cuter, but it would be messier, and maybe it doesn't need to be any more complex

than it is because it gets across what it is. I'm going to push for C because I think it perfectly shows what it is, but I actually think it is ugly. Like I don't, I don't appreciate the way that it looks, but it's doing the job perfectly to describe what it is. So I think it is very middle of the road for me. I'll go with that i was tempted to rate it a little higher but i think you're right that i think i appreciate it but i don't like it because

i know what they're doing and they've done a good thing but like putting a like what looks like a squished app icon inside of an app icon you know it's just like yeah i don't find that very appealing yeah i agree well i think this is one of those cases where the round rec mandate it makes it worse and if this was just a soccer field icon in green yeah it would be nicer be wonderful yeah if it could just be that shape well that's what i was thinking is you could you could take it out to the edges and then have like a bracket at the top and bottom that were kind of like stands, even if they were just gradients and make it like a little stadium.

But instead it's just trapped in the green round rect. And of course the green round rect is all the same color. And so you've lost the uniqueness of the color of the field. Even if you just, as you say, if you just took all of the outside border and made it gray, it would elevate this. Yeah, I agree.

Because you would look like you were looking down at a stadium. Yeah, exactly. I feel like it's just a little short of it. Yeah. Journal. Journal is a butterfly. Yeah. That's two pages that are different colors, and they make the form of a butterfly,

and you could also argue that it's a J and a backward J, if you want to do that. Journal and learn-al, as they call it. Mm-hmm. Journaling and learning. That's what we do. All right. So I really appreciate what they're going for with this one.

The metaphor is good. There's paper. It's also kind of a book at the same time because they're opening up. A butterfly is nice because your journal is supposed to be soft and the colors are good. It doesn't particularly excite me as an icon, but I could put it in A,

and I think I would be okay with that because I do think they're doing a decent job. I also think the navy color that they chose for the background is also like, I think that's doing something with the round rack, right? Like it's not just, you know, basically this feels like they got the shortcuts app icon designer to make another one yes and they absolutely feels like

that because they're similar and also you could tell like i can see a lot of thought in this even though it doesn't like rev my engines like i i do still i do still like it i don't think it's a tier mostly because it doesn't say journal to me it's a nice icon and it's a butterfly and it's colorful and i like everything about it visually and it has never said journal to me so b but what would though what would say journal i don't know i don't know a pen uh uh ink on a page but then we're bringing in the issue we have with like the old school yeah yeah i know well it's skeuomorphism for things that aren't what people do anymore yeah um yeah no i i get it i just it doesn't it doesn't necessarily it's it's it's really nice but it i feel like it's missing something to give

me to make me latch on to it that just isn't there i can do b i'm good to be i would say b okay we'll say b all right uh what is next let's do well this will be a quickie because i just want to get it in here apple music classical whichical, which is the music app, but with a treble clef instead of a note. So here's what I say. If we were ranking, what we're not doing is ranking these against each other with inside of the tiers. But if we were, I would put this higher than the Apple Music icon. I agree. But i agree yeah i agree

100 i would feel better if this was the icon for apple music honestly like if this is just apple music i would feel better but it might be a bit too much but i think that they they did a decent job of like it's got to be close it's got to match music and i think for classical it's got to be close. It's got to match music. And I think for classical, it's kind of, the treble clef is kind of perfect, right? Yeah. No,

I think, I think that's good. I think that's good. Next up is free form. Or as we knew it back when I was a kid, the jazz paper cup design. Yeah, I love it for that, by the way. So it's a circle with a square on top

with a little squiggly line across it, and it looks like jazz. Mm-hmm. I really like this icon. I think it does a very good job of showing what the app is. Mm-hmm. It is not blowing my mind, but I really like it.

Yeah, I agree. It does show what the app is. I love that it's referencing the Jazz Paper Cup design from the 80s, which none of us knew what it was called, but that's what it was called. I think I can appreciate that Apple's current icon style is never going to allow something more detailed than this, even though it would be funnier if it was even more jazzy.

I'm going to put a link in the show notes, by the way, to episode 188 of Me and Steven talk about jazz design. About jazz. Where it comes from, from what it is that kind of thing so i feel about the freeform icon like again do i do i look at it and say aha that's freeform like no i gotta think about it a little bit but i think it's fundamentally and i don't think it's a beautiful icon but i think it does the job i guess that's what i'd say i feel like it's the flip side of the journal icon where i think the journal icon is beautiful and doesn't do the job as well as i wish it did i think the free form form icon is less beautiful but absolutely does the job i think it's still b though

yeah if i look at the other stuff we have in b like that kind of fits the bill of health and home and photos and contacts right like these are good looking and they do the job but they're not like this big high concept thing or just like something that is just very iconic in its design right like in a at the moment we have watch calculator wallet and fitness and they are all very iconic designs i think like they're just like these are perfectly showing the thing okay find my which is a gray round rect with a green circle like a radar ping yeah from like a submarine or something greens concentric circles and then a blue dot in the center and then like a line ping from a submarine or something. Green concentric circles and then a blue dot in the center and then like a line extending from it,

like it's looking in that direction, like the radar is going to swoop around kind of thing. I really like this one. I'm sounding like a broken record, which is a thing people don't know either. It's an old metaphor, skeuomorphism in speech. But I like it too. I think that it is not helped at all by being on a gray round direct again i just think it's not helped but for what it is um and the metaphor that it's trying to get across in a way that how else would you describe find my which is itself unlike an apple watch isn't it like four different apps

i mean yeah it is as a unified app how do you explain it i think this is uh cute and does a good job where would you want it to go a i was leaning a but i wasn't sure if you was but yes i think that what i just said about like it is iconically the thing I think this is iconically what it is like it is it's even like showing the UI of the app in the icon I think it's great

I think it's really really great yeah A tier settings gears metallic gears and a metallic background. F. Really? Yeah.

Why? Don't like the metaphor? Don't like the look? What are the gears for? I don't like the metaphor and I don't like the look. It's the internal workings of your device that get affected by the gears. Okay. Why isn't it like actually what did why is this not like a computer chip then because it's a metaphor

well that would also be a metaphor right because you're not actually changing like the silicon yeah i don't like the gears and what i here's what I say. There are lots of examples of this in history for Apple. They've had the gears for a long time. I've seen the gears done significantly better than this. I don't... Because, okay, the thing about gears, the thing that is fun about gears is seeing them interact with each other.

These gears are just overlapping with each other. Right. They're not doing anything. Yeah. Like, what are these gears operating at all? How are these gears moving? I don't like it. Okay.

I think it's functional, so I would give it a D. I'm totally happy with D. But I think it's functional, but that's about all. This episode is brought to you by Ladder. Let's be real. We all have a tendency

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Reminders. Okay. Little colored buttons, little radio buttons with lines next to them. I like it yeah i think it's colorful and it gets across what it's trying to do right it's simple i think it's clear it's got the different color like that like the app looks like that the app looks like that yeah okay where would you want to put it uh a if not s Yeah, it looks like that, yeah. Okay, where would you want to put it?

A. If not S. Ooh, I couldn't go to S. A, I think A. A. Yeah. Okay, I think that's fitting. We're just lightning around here.

Notes. S tier. Oh, notes is an S tier for you so it's skeuomorphic but it uses the round rect as the not just as the note but as the it's got the top of the note and the yellow at the top and then it's got the line and it's got the little dots it's like an iconic representation

of a skeuomorphic object in the red rect in the round rect yep I think this is an S tier it's perfect it's perfect I'll go with of a skeuomorphic object in the round rect. Yep. I think this is an S tier. It's perfect. It's perfect. I'll go with you.

I think that's what icons should aspire to be. Yep. And with that, I need to follow up with stickies. Yeah, I mean, it's also S, right? Like, it is. I was wondering if I would be like be like oh is it better or worse than the notes icon this actually might in some ways be better because it's got the little folding you know like the peeling off off of the top the top sticky note is coming off and again they're using the round rect as the physical stack of sticky notes yeah stickies stickies is where i i know it's weird right stickies look like this now

stickies stickies got some good love on the on the new app icon stickies has gotten a glow up that's for sure yeah all right um let's see next up is files a white round rect with a blue folder on it. Now, the blue folder does have a piece of paper in it because you can see a little bit of the white coming out of the folder on Files. It's a file folder, you see, a file folder. Okay, I'm not going to bring as much passion this time I'm gonna say I think this app's a failure I think it's a failure I think it's a metaphor that doesn't work really that well files we put we gave you hey the app is called files we gave you a file

we put it on a white background because we had to do that so it's a blue file on a white background and you can use it. I just, I don't know what else they would do here. It just feels so uninspired and generic and boring. Yeah. I mean, Finder, which is the max equivalent of this, is a smiley face. But here it's just, look, you want, it's almost as if the the ipad team especially is like look you want a file system here it is fine take it here's your folder take it i don't like it i think it's bad it's how bad f tier okay yeah i'm not gonna argue i'm angry

about it now i can tell so i'm not gonna argue that folder has wronged me somehow we'll just quickly move on to books books it's an orange gradient it's got a white representation of an open book inside just so much wasted potential so much wasted potential. So much wasted potential. The icon should look like a book.

It should. It should. It should. Be more like Stickies. Yes. Be more like notes. Just in general. I don't think this is F tier.

No. But I think it's D tier as well. Orange is pleasing. And also, I think that the visual representation of the book is better than mail and camera and messages. Yeah. App Store. I don't understand this anymore.

Yeah. App Store is three breadsticks in a triangle that spells out the letter a for app store because it's one of those it's from the era where you need to spell out the name which you know we've got shortcuts with an s in s tier and we've got news with an N in F tier. So it's not fundamentally good or bad. My problem with App Store branding is this feels like we are stuck with it because that's how we started.

And I never thought the metaphor for the App Store logo was any good anyway. Yeah, it was a pencil, a paintbrush, paintbrush and a ruler yeah it's like three items yeah across from each other making a um you know this symbol for application which is what can't you do with it you can ruler or brush or pencil with it and now they're just breadsticks now they're just things the the shapes of it which on on one level, like, okay, we removed the skeuomorphism, but like, it wasn't that good a metaphor to begin with.

Test flight's doing it right, you know? Like, it's doing something fun with app icons, you know? Right, what if this was a round wreck and it was a stack of apps? Like, it's just, look at all the

apps that are in here what if it just said 30 on the just a dollar sign money mouth uh emoji uh i mean all right i'm historically opposed to the app store as a concept i think it is at least it is at least benefiting from it being a brand, right? Yes, I agree. They at least made a brand out of it. They did. They did. Honestly, I would say this is a C.

I think it is better than the stuff that's in D. I think it's a C. Yeah. I agree. I just don't like it. No, I don't like it either. It would be like the bottom of C. It's better than the stuff that's in D, that's for sure. Apple Store. It's a round-wrecked

shopping bag with an Apple logo on it with a little handle in a white round-wrecked generic. I like this icon, and I hate the fact that it's in the empty Johnny Ive. It's been banished to the Johnny Ive white room, because I feel like there's another version of this that is a little more baggy and is not surrounded by the white round rack. But I do like the image of it. It's very clear to me what this is. Interesting. I was going to say, I really don't like this.

It kind of just felt like they weren't trying i'd rather this be the app store icon honestly i would be on board with that i would be on the apple store icon slightly very slightly different i'm okay with giving it like a c i think it's functional i think it could be way better than it is but i don't think it's ugly and i think it does get across what it's trying to do which is it's your shopping apple i think c's too i think c's too high it's just so basic it is but so is sports i think i think sports is better than this though okay oh well we'll plow it into d let's do it d is getting packed d is there's a lot of

mediocrity going on here uh xcode it's uh it's a it's a round rect of the breadsticks but they're like a blueprint yeah and they're in a like a little circle like it's a uh like galileo was drawing the idealized three breadsticks in a triangle. And then there's a round rect around that that I think symbolizes your app. And then there's a blue round rect around that that symbolizes the paper of the blueprint, I guess. And then on top of that whole round rect sticking out is a hammer. Now, I will say I have a hammer that looks a lot like this. That hammer is awesome and super skeuomorphic in a way that's no longer allowed in most applications. So there's a lot going on in Xcode, I guess, is what I would say.

And while it's a complex idea that it's a development tool, I think that's too many things to be on an icon. Interesting. I love this one because it's, I like the blueprint because then there is a consistent family theme, right,

which we've established with TestFly. And I love that the hammer is all black like it's a pro hammer. This is Apple's pro hammer. It's a great hammer. I almost want the Xcode icon

to be a hammer, honestly. It has always had a hammer in it, right? I think there's always been a hammer in it. Which I think is why the hammer is there. Because it is so weird to have a hammer, right? Like, couldn't be further away from app development, a hammer. Yeah, I know.

Also, it's just hammers. Yeah, I mean, it's constructive, but also destructive. I will put this in B. I think this is a solid B. All right. I think it's kind of a mess, and I'd put it at the bottom of B below Test Flight,

but I think it's... I'll go with you on that. Yeah. Oh, boy. We're getting into some really good ones now here at the end. Some sort of strange stuff. Quick Time Player.

Quick Time. It's on a black background, round-wrecked. It is a Q, metallic, brush brush metal cue the cue is also like a minute hand sticking out which is not how that works but it's interesting and it makes a cue there's aqua blue on the inside it's quick time player all right i have so much nostalgia for quick time right like i love this icon because in looking at it, I can see the other versions of QuickTime.

Yes. So I love it. I would... This is... A B for me, QuickTime. I'm a big fan of the way this looks. I think that's fine. I think it's... It is simultaneously very weird and out of the way this looks I think that's fine I think it is simultaneously very weird

and out of style with Apple like they forgot that it existed but also because they want to kill this app but also fun I also use it all the time me too that's our go to when somebody has a Mac and doesn't know how to record their podcast you go to QuickTemplate

what I use it for, I use it to check that a podcast that I've uploaded to our audio host is good. You can open a file, like you can open an audio file via a URL and it will load in QuickTime. Amazing.

Also really great for pulling the audio track out of a video file so you can work on the audio track. QuickTime is such a good app. Even though they've removed so much of it, it's still very, very useful. Text edit. So this is a round direct that is a sheet of lined paper, and then there is what looks like a mechanical pencil on it. And I need your read as a pen addict expert,

a mechanical pencil. How do you feel about this one? It's like, for some reason, I'm trying to be snobby about it, right? But I actually think it looks really good. Like the mechanical pencil is pretty well rendered. Like the fact that they took the time to know the grip and put like a couple of rings around it.

There we go. They're doing a good job of it. I think, I think it's a B. I think it's a B. Like looking at our other Bs, I'll put it there. Like it feels X-Cody to me.

Yeah. What elevates it for me is that is probably because it's old, but it's using the mandatory round rect, and yet also for meaning, because it's lined paper, and then it's breaking out of it slightly with the pencil. Yeah. Now, the breaking out of it slightly

with a beautifully rendered detailed pencil is very old Aval Icon style. It might as well be a robot holding a pipe at this point. I like it more than that. But it's good. I like that they did a good rule on the paper. They put the red margin line. There's good details in here. Plus it's not white. It's like

off-white. Right, right, right, yeah. There's a lot of good in here. There's a lot of good detail. I think a more modern version of this icon, if they cared enough to do one, would remove the skeuomorphic pencil and have a more idealized pencil. I think it would still be okay, but it is a beautiful skeuomorphic pencil. Well,

I mean, it's kind of would be like pages. Yeah, that's true. Which I haven't even gotten there yet. Time machine. It's a gray round rect, and inside it is basically the Time Machine logo.

It's a clock with the arrow running backward. My issue here with the Time Machine logo is what Time Machine used to be, where you would enter a star field, basically, and that used to be in the logo, makes me kind of long for that. Like, I long for that. You are.

The current one is just like, whatever. You know, that's kind of how I feel about it. I just don't really have any feeling towards it. C? D? i would say this because it's very c is middle of the road it's mediocre this is like yeah it is you can see what it is the color that they chose the green that they chose is nice but like i just i miss the old one okay i'm gonna bring a little passion to the next one okay it's font book this is a good icon it is a book the round direct is a book

it's got the little tabs on the side and on the cover it's got a in four different fonts um i think it's i think i like what else do you want for font book what do you want you're selling me on this good i i did not think very much a font book but the fact you want? You're selling me on this. It's good. I did not think very much of font book, but the fact that it looks like a book that has fonts in it, like it looks like that.

Right. It's got binding on the left and the tabs on the right. I think it's better than Contax is what I would say. It's better than Contax,

yes, but what I'll say is it's unfair to Contax and this is a Mac app, so it can do this. Right? Sure.

Like they're able to break out of the round break but that's its advantage a i think it's an a yeah i think so i agree i agree well we're going to get the smiley face in here because we have to this is migration assistant in which a gray mac smiley face hides behind the blue mac smiley why is it gonna be so creepy and an arrow points from the one to the other why is the why it looks like a little friendly guy is about to be murdered by another i'm stealing your identity i hate it i hate. Why is Finder this way anyway? Right, like I felt like we could take a slight aside.

Why is this? Why is the Finder icon like that? The answer really is that this is the Mac OS icon and they wanted to use it because people have sort of a fondness for it and it's reminiscent of the original Mac smiley face. And so they repurposed it as the Finder icon, replacing, I forget even what the finder icon was a classic

mac maybe um so they used the mac smiley face they felt like that was a good representation of this app that only runs on the mac and it feels very mackey but like it doesn't really fit two people well this migration is oh no it's well it is so the mac icon yeah that's the idea is that it's it's one person in profile and then another person kind of behind them forming this face but why though so but now but with migration assistant there's another it was a i mean it was the style at the time it was like a flourish to make a they needed a mac os icon for the first time when they did the clones and so they built that face and so yeah if you stare at it you're like oh it's a guy looking to the left. Oh, but there's also a whole face there. Right? Like, it's both.

I'm not sure how I feel about it. Like, in general, I don't think I like, I don't think, like, when being faced to consider it, I don't like this icon for Finder. I don't like it. It's weird. It's weird and it doesn't make any sense. Like, it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. Why is it even called Finder? That's just its own thing.

Sorry all the Stevens out there. That doesn't make any sense anymore. So they call it Files and put a file folder on it? I mean, yeah, probably. If we're being honest. It should be called Files. And just like the little little person and another person like how close is this person to the other person it's very strange and migration assistant is even weirder but

if for some reason okay why isn't this two computers yeah why isn't that i think it's a i think it's a d yeah sure because it's yeah it's fine but like why why is it migration assistant two computers yeah right with an arrow actually you're right i'm gonna put an f i'm gonna put an f because it's just it it fails the logical test yeah Yeah. Like, why is this even here? Why does this exist? Yeah. And it's like, well, I just take the Mac OS icon and paste that in a couple of times. Desaturate. Arrow. Done.

Terminal. It's round-rect with a little outline, which is nice. And then inside it, there is a little prompt and an underscore cursor for you to enter your Unix commands. Yeah, it's like, I don't love this, but I cannot fault it in any possible way. Like, this is probably an A tier.

I think my only complaint here is that I think it used to have color and now it doesn't. That is what I'm missing. I want the text to be green, but I know it isn't. This is my thing of like everything where I'm like, I wish it was this would be like, wait, but that would defeat the purpose of the icon. It is meant to look like terminal. My terminal is green. I'm sure it is.

Right. Because that's what it is. It's like a little crt they've yeah i feel like they've deflated it from being like an actual crt or something which is fine but uh i wish that there were some color in the text but i do think it's very good i think it's an a tier yeah it's really good i my favorite thing about this is that they put a bezel like a black bezel like it's yeah it is what a screen looks like i i think that design wise that is really clever yeah yeah like it's a screen and then the outside of the round direct is the outside of the best yeah okay in the family

activity monitor i hate this one i hate this one it's it's like uh the patient is dying on the table i hate it why does it need to be this why is it like a heart what are these called these heart like a heart monitor right it's like an ekg yeah why is it that monitor why is it that oh your mac's about to die that's why you opened activity monitors to see if your mac is dead honestly the settings app would be better for me here as an activity monitor. Like I'm peeking inside of the machine, you know? It's got its gears. I really don't like this one.

Okay, what would you say? I mean, it's D. It's not an F. It's not an F because it's not incompetent. We just don't like it. Okay, here's a fun one that's related. We're going through some system ones now. Console.

This is a bezel. It's like the same bezel as the other two. But inside it, in orange text, it says, warnin', and then off the edge, and then it says A736. Warnin', A736. I don't like this. Why is that this way? What is going on here?

What is warnin', A736? What is that? I mean mean you use console to look at logs so it's this sort of thing like that there would be a warning and then it would be like on a certain day at a certain time this happened and so it's like showing you kind of what would be in a console but why is the text cut off though i know because they they just want to represent it partially like i like the color. I like the idea. Jason, I can tell you why that text is cut off, right? I know the reason why, and that makes me more mad.

Somebody did it. Because people would be afraid that it's telling them something bad about their system. But you can say, how many letters can I say? You can have five and a half letters. Five and a half letters, yeah. See, that takes it down from me. Because I can see the committee that designed the console right i see them in the room having this discussion so but it's i can't put it in f it doesn't belong in f the color alone elevates it

to d yeah we'll just put it you see here's what here's the thing right like the the design of this is as is like as visually good as the a tier activity monitor right yeah that actually is the same as no the a tier uh terminal terminal and it's so like if you look at for me it's like console activity monitor and terminal they should all be a tier i know and and the color actually in a in console make i wish that was in the terminal that would make that would make it S tier. But what they put inside of them, it just doesn't work. It doesn't work for me.

Well, get ready for something. Disk utility. Disk utility is an offset round rect that looks like a surgical tray with a white background and it's silver around the corners. with a white background and it's silver around the corners. It's got the top part of a stethoscope laying on the surgical tray and then emerging. Okay, I had to explain this in a certain way. There is a classic spinning hard drive that is sort of floating above the front of the tray and snaking out from the back of the tray as if it was hiding behind the bottom of the hard drive is the end of the stethoscope, which is being placed on the middle

of the front spinny part of the spinning hard drive. Jason, I don't know if you're going to like this or not. This is an S tier icon. This is as insane as it can get. It is bad. This is as insane as it can get. It is bad. It is so bad. I love it. I love how bad it is.

It's like, it's everything. It's everything. How much effort has been put into this? Let's just do it. It's going to be the CGB Cray thing with a Maryland flag where it falls all the way off the bottom and back around to the top. That's how I feel into this. Let's just do it. It's going to be the CGB gray thing where like with the Maryland flag where it falls all the way off the bottom and back around to the top. That's how I feel about this.

Because it's bananas. Nothing is good about this. But it's all great because it's together. Like it's so mad. I love it. It doesn't make any sense. This thing is perfect. Okay. Screen sharing in which a necklace top of a person looks at a blue gradient screen in the same kind of bezel thing that we saw with those previous ones.

You know what's so weird about this? the light of the screen is illuminating the person yeah they're glowing with a with a with a screen sharing light of the blue they're scared they're sharing a screen that's blank but they're getting ready something good's gonna happen i don't know how i feel about this one uh yeah i think it used to be something else too but this is what it is now we've got this kind of person that we're looking at from behind and they're observing a screen i don't know d yeah it's not doing anything for me at all yeah i agree okay we gotta we gotta we gotta move quickly through a bunch of these to get them done. Get them all done. Numbers.

It's graphs. It's charts in green background with white little bar chart thing. I was going to say D, but I think I'd say C. I think it's fine. It's doing the job. Yeah, I agree. I might even say B? I'm fine with that. I wish it was colorful, right?

I wish the bars were colorful instead of the background being colorful. But they've decided to do that Microsoft thing where every app has to be a color. And this is also Excel's color, green, so I feel like they're doing that. But I don't know. I think'm gonna say b for numbers okay here we got a we got a pen and or pencil mike it's pages it's orange and there's a white pen i guess leaving a mark on the orange round

rect what do you think i would say C for this. Okay. I think Pages is missing what Numbers has and what maybe Keynote has. I don't think it's doing as good a job of showing you what the app is for. You don't write with a pen.

Yeah, it's true. Also, it's an app called Pages, and there are no pages visible like it doesn't there are also no numbers in the numbers icon i should say yes okay very that's a very good catch on yourself i just don't think it's showing the output in the way that the other two do okay i think that's probably fine keynote i think keynote is b i like that it has color. I like the lectern. Like, I think, you know, it's a presentation. It's got a lectern with a chart on it?

Yeah. I think so. I think that's the strongest of the three, in fact. Yeah. Okay. Preview. It's a white round rect, and inside it is a picture of a seascape. And then in front of it is a white round rect and inside it is a picture of a seascape and then in front

of it is a that little the carrot or I think it's called a loop yes that is a magnifier so you can look through it I don't even know what to say about preview honest like honestly like I don't even know

it's old school it's very automator um it's got skeuomorphic element that has managed to escape for a while um i feel like they could do better with something modern with a modern take on this um but i like that it has put a photo in the in the round rect instead of having the round rect be generic because like there's a generic version of this sure it's got like a loop on a white background it's better than that but I think I will agree

yeah I'll agree that the photo does save it from being just like what is even happening here you know okay let's go to Hollywood for iMovie which is a star with a movie camera in it like you're on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood.

I like the star, honestly. I do. I mean, it's not a professional tool. It's for fun. I would see this. I would say see. There are a lot of things I don't like about this, including the movie camera. I think that the star is like a metaphor too far for iMovie. But then again, what are you going to do?

How are you going to impart this? I'll give it to you at C. I would say C or D. I would say. I don't love it. I think it's C think it's c i think we're winding up we got we got a final three here and man they are a a story photo booth red round wrecked picture of a photo uh like a generic photo of that necklace person and then another one that's just sort of like the back of it or something that's blank with a outline and then hovering above it is a lens why did they go so hard on the

skeuomorphism of the lens and then just have the photos be just white on red like this used to look like photos in a photo booth in a photo booth i know well and it's this weird thing where it's like we'll allow you to have a skeuomorphic element floating above the generic round rect. And so that's why you have this and preview and disk utility. We're like, we'll give you the one. But although disk utility, it's entirely not. Anyway, we're not going to talk anymore about disk utility. D. D. Yeah. It used to be so good. It used to be so good. It used to be so good. I think it's just, it's in the D category now.

All right, there's two more left. I want to know what you think about Script Editor, which is, again, a pencil and a white background with a script that is the S script of apple script okay so i wanted to put this one in c like below uh text edit because they're like you know they're a similar ilk but then when i saw a larger version of this i just looked at a larger version the the script that is drawn that is like on the icon, is drawn in pencil.

That elevates it for me. This is B. This should go along with text edit. I think that these are of an elk. Okay. Just because it's old doesn't mean it can't be good, people. Okay, that brings us to our last item.

I can't believe we got here. Here it is. It's the big one. Get out, crank your amp to is. It's the big one. Get out. Crank your amp to 11. It's GarageBand, where the round rect is an amp, and floating above it is a big

guitar. F. No. Okay. No, this is S tier. This is S tier. This thing is bananas. I think it is. I think it is i love it they just went so hard on this one i agree i mean the the guitar is great and then the fact that the round wreck is an amp is great like that's all really good so i think well done well done

well we did it. We sure did. That was a lot of icons. It was a lot of icons. But it's the summer of fun. It was, and that was fun. I feel like we learned a lot about ourselves and how we feel about icons along the way. I hope the listeners learned,

even if they didn't agree with us, they learned something about what they feel about icons along the way too. So there is an image in the show notes. If you've waited for this long, you want to see them all together. So I've actually, I decided during the show

that I'm going to put a before and after i hope that people work that out um so you could look at them if you want to look at them uh but if you want to see how we did this you can also go to watch this the show on youtube as well and you can see the video um in upgrade plus today what i want to do is draft a top five each of these. Let's do it. That's going to be fun. So if you want to go to getupgradeplus.com you can sign up. You'll get ad free longer episodes

each and every week and this week you'll hear our draft. If you would like to send us any feedback, follow up or questions about the show go to upgradefeedback.com You can check out Jason's work at sixcolors.com and hear his shows on The Incomparable and here on Relay. You can hear me too and check out my work at cortexbrand.com. You can find us online. Jason is at jsnell, J-S-N-E-L-L. I am at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E.

You can watch clips of the show on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. We're at Upgrade Relay. Thank you to our members who support us on Upgrade Plus, and thank you to our sponsors of this week's episode, Ladder, Vitally, and Squarespace. We'll be back next time, maybe for a draft. We'll find out. Thank you so much for listening. Say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, Mike Hurley. you