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The camera icon is not just a picture of the physical world object. It is pretty universal symbol for taking pictures. When the same symbol is used in so many p

The camera icon is not just a picture of the physical world object. It is pretty universal symbol for taking pictures. When the same symbol is used in so many places, even people who have never used the physical object resembling the icon, will recognize its meaning. In my view the reason behind many of these user interface changes is not really improved usability. The simple reason is that no matter how good interface you design, after some years it just starts to feel old and boring. Old and boring is hard to sell. Fresh and exciting is better. Therefore we keep on changing stuff, even though from pure usability perspective it would be better to stick to the old and boring but familiar. Easy to use systems make happy customers, but they don't necessarily win the customer's heart at that point when the purchase decision is made. Maybe this is one issue for Apple? Maybe the "old Apple" was happy giving out xx% of their sales for a bit of ideological reasons, but the one needs to find growth where it can? One could see this kind of hints in the product lineup. I would say back in the days it was pretty opinionated, now there's 4 different iPad models (and countless variations).

josefdlange 10y ago
This response is probably the most rational one I've seen here. It doesn't dive into a holy war of UI opinions -- it sticks to observations of reality and conclusions drawn from them. Thank you for trying to introduce thoughtful conversation to the embers of a flame war.
moridinamael 10y ago
Yup. This reminds me of the novel The Diamond Age in which the poor tend not to be able to read, but instead navigate the technological world exclusively using pictograms which descended from modern "icon" design. In such a world, if you didn't choose to use an icon of a camera to denote "photo", what the hell else could you possibly use that would make any natural sense?
audleman 10y ago
> Maybe the "old Apple" was happy giving out xx% of their sales for a bit of ideological reasons, but the one needs to find growth where it can? When Apple first put forth their ideology it -was- new and shiny. It worked in their favor. I agree with you that now it's "boring" and "old."
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notatoad 10y ago
>The camera icon is not just a picture of the physical world object. It is pretty universal symbol for taking pictures. Which is why it makes no sense as the icon for a photo management application. The iOS Camera icon still looks like a camera, but having a camera as the icon for a gallery application that isn't actually capable of taking pictures is a confusing concept to many users.

josefdlange 10y ago

This response is probably the most rational one I've seen here. It doesn't dive into a holy war of UI opinions -- it sticks to observations of reality and conclusions drawn from them. Thank you for trying to introduce thoughtful conversation to the embers of a flame war.

moridinamael 10y ago

Yup. This reminds me of the novel The Diamond Age in which the poor tend not to be able to read, but instead navigate the technological world exclusively using pictograms which descended from modern "icon" design. In such a world, if you didn't choose to use an icon of a camera to denote "photo", what the hell else could you possibly use that would make any natural sense?

audleman 10y ago

> Maybe the "old Apple" was happy giving out xx% of their sales for a bit of ideological reasons, but the one needs to find growth where it can? When Apple first put forth their ideology it -was- new and shiny. It worked in their favor. I agree with you that now it's "boring" and "old."

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notatoad 10y ago

>The camera icon is not just a picture of the physical world object. It is pretty universal symbol for taking pictures. Which is why it makes no sense as the icon for a photo management application. The iOS Camera icon still looks like a camera, but having a camera as the icon for a gallery application that isn't actually capable of taking pictures is a confusing concept to many users.