The Shape of Apps

5 hours ago

Mac app icons historically had varied silhouettes, but macOS Big Sur encouraged rounded-square (squircle) icons to harmonize with iOS, allowing some creative boundary-breaking.
macOS Tahoe introduced mandatory squircles and 'Squircle Jail' for icons that don't fit, with three types: masked to squircle, scaled-down pre-Tahoe icons on gray backgrounds, or voluntary custom-colored squircles.
The shift to flat design (iOS 7) and squircle uniformity was partly to make icon creation easier for third-party developers and big companies, at the cost of losing arbitrary shapes.
Treating the squircle as a canvas rather than a container allows icons to fill the shape completely, avoiding 'Squircle Jail'.
Uniform squircle icons improve visual harmony in the Dock and communicate that the shape represents an app, similar to standardized media packaging.

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