On Apple's Icons for Their Creator Studio Bundle

It’s been said before, but the “icons” of Apple’s Creator Studio apps are not doing their job as icons. By Apple’s own definition, an app icon is meant to express the purpose or personality of an app, and help people “recognize it at a glance.” But I’ve been starting at these new icons for several minutes now and I’m struggling to work out what each one is.

I’ll be referring to the icons via their coordinates as if they were placed on a spreadsheet. So rows are numbered 1 (top) and 2 (bottom), and the columns go from A (left) to D (right).

Some I can infer pretty easily, such as the ones for Keynote (2D), Final Cut (1B), and Pages (2A). But what about the others? What is 1A? Based on what look like the handles that appear when you’re drawing splines, it may have something to do with graphics. But the rest of icon alludes to something involving an SDK, since it shares the same shape that Apple uses for its various “kits.” So is it a graphics program or an app development program? Is this Shortcuts? Pixelmator Pro? Or is Pixelmator Pro 2C? Or is 2C Freeform?

Okay, forget graphics: let’s consider audio. I think Logic Pro is 1C, but 1D looks an awful lot like a fader on a mixing board. If 1D has nothing to do with music, does it have something else to do with audio that I’m not aware of? Or is 1D actually Numbers? I don’t see a better one for that app, and it does share the same greenish hue as the old Numbers logo. As for 2B? Well… err, um. Okay, I give up. I have no idea.

Anyway, I hope my point is clear: you pretty much need to have experience with every app that’s included in this bundle to know what these icons mean. For everything else, you’re left having to read Apple’s copy about the bundle, and no-one reads copy (I certainly didn’t). And to be fair, it’s not like Google does any better: I’m always struggling to find the app I want from the sea of quad-colour abstract shapes that is Google’s icon design motif. But my expectations were higher with Apple’s iconography here. They were the leaders in this space. It’s just so striking to see how far they’ve fallen.