Sweet Jeebus, MacOS 27 Golden Gate Removes the Dumb Icons From Menu Items
Daring Fireball • • general
Key Points:
- MacOS 26 Tahoe introduced confusing and inconsistent icons next to every menu bar item, a move widely criticized by users and UI experts for being distracting and poorly implemented.
- Top third-party developers rejected this design, using open-source solutions to disable the default icons in menu items, highlighting the community's disapproval.
- MacOS 27 Golden Gate removes these icons entirely, with Apple updating its Human Interface Guidelines to recommend using menu item icons sparingly and only when they clearly represent the action.
- The updated guidelines emphasize clarity and purpose for icons, advising against displaying icons that do not clearly represent menu items, directly addressing the mistakes seen in Tahoe.
- This change is seen as a positive sign of improvement within Apple's software design team, reflecting a renewed focus on user-friendly design after criticism of previous decisions.