{"id":50002,"date":"2025-11-11T17:00:45","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T22:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=50002"},"modified":"2025-12-11T15:44:58","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T20:44:58","slug":"abstract-app-icons-within-icons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/11\/abstract-app-icons-within-icons\/","title":{"rendered":"Abstract App Icons Within Icons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/mattcassinelli\/status\/1987207278341312943\">Matthew Cassinelli<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/x.com\/mattcassinelli\/status\/1987207278341312943\">\n<p>The App Store icon is made up of three app icons supporting each other (like apps on the App Store do).<\/p>\n<p>Just like the Shortcuts is two app icons, connected in the middle (like shortcuts connecting your apps together).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>All these years, I thought the &ldquo;new&rdquo; App Store icon was just an abstract version of the original, with the A-shaped pencil and paint brush replaced by plain lines. But he says it&rsquo;s actually a side view of 3D squircles representing app icons. This is also the basis for the Shortcuts icon (which I never understood) and <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/enemy_4u\/status\/1987443092862218297\">TestFlight<\/a> (the blades are apps).<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/matthewcassinelli.com\/apple-logos-actually-3d-renderings-app-icons\/\">Matthew Cassinelli<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/matthewcassinelli.com\/apple-logos-actually-3d-renderings-app-icons\/\">\n<p>Christian Selig, creator of <a href=\"https:\/\/apolloapp.io\">Apollo for Reddit<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/pixel-pals-widget-pet-game\/id6443919232\">Pixel Pals<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ChristianSelig\/status\/1987589871049842717\">went a step further<\/a> and apparently spent the evening fully designing, printing, and sharing a <a href=\"https:\/\/makerworld.com\/en\/models\/1977847-app-store-logo-3d-iphone-app-icons#profileId-2127349\">3D model of the App Store logo<\/a> using his 3D printer[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>However, with Liquid Glass, it has in fact been reduced to three popsicle sticks.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/11\/tahoes-terrible-icons\/\">Tahoe&rsquo;s Terrible Icons<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"abstract-app-icons-within-icons-update-2025-12-11\">Update (<a href=\"#abstract-app-icons-within-icons-update-2025-12-11\">2025-12-11<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/avstorm\/status\/1996596620037705795\">Andreas Storm<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/x.com\/avstorm\/status\/1996596620037705795\">\n<p>Apple just proved that the App Store icon is cleverly designed using 3 simple app shapes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/sdw\/status\/1996710928700919966\">Sebastiaan de With<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/x.com\/sdw\/status\/1996710928700919966\">\n<p>Fun fact: this modern App Store glyph was itself based on the old OS X icon from its icon design paradigm: apps were represented by documents and tools, realistically rendered in perspective. <\/p>\n<p>The icon for &lsquo;apps&rsquo; was a collection of tools: a pencil, brush and ruler.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matthew Cassinelli: The App Store icon is made up of three app icons supporting each other (like apps on the App Store do). Just like the Shortcuts is two app icons, connected in the middle (like shortcuts connecting your apps together). All these years, I thought the &ldquo;new&rdquo; App Store icon was just an abstract [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-11-11T22:00:53Z","apple_news_api_id":"eba87bd8-556c-44ab-a03f-608390172786","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-12-11T20:45:01Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A66h72FVsRKugP2CDkBcnhg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[91,77,295,545,31,2741,30,2742,1686,2016],"class_list":["post-50002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-appstore","tag-design","tag-history","tag-icons","tag-ios","tag-ios-26","tag-mac","tag-macos-tahoe-26","tag-shortcuts","tag-testflight"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50002"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50409,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50002\/revisions\/50409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}