September 6th 2009 by Peter · 1 comment
8 OS X Apps With Beautiful Icons
There are a lot of cool Mac applications out there, but unfortunately only some of them has beautiful icons. I’ve tried to collect some apps that I believe have pretty icons. Just like the interface means a lot to the user experience, I actually think the icon does as well. Some software developers understands this, and some unfortunately don’t.
I’m sure there’s many other apps with cool icons out there, and if you like one in particular, please let me know in the comments.
Espresso ($78)
Now, this icon really makes me wanna lick the screen… The steam from the cup is so delicious! Espresso is MacRabbit’s web development software, and it’s not only the icon that’s nice.
Bodega (free)
Bodega is created by IDFusion Software and Centrix.ca. It is the iPhone App Store for Mac apps. It comes with a stunning interface, and it seems to be growing incredibly fast. And, oh yeah–the icon is great!
ForkLift ($19.95)
Are you as tired of Cyberduck as I am? Then you should try ForkLift. It is an advanced FTP client that is fast, and has all the features you’ll ever need from a FTP client. The interface is beautiful and so is the icon.
MindNode (free)
MindNode is a really cool piece of software. It helps you organize and structure your ideas in really neat mind maps. The icon is nothing I’ve seen before–I love the way the plant comes out of the frame.
QuickTime Player X (free)
With Snow Leopard Apple released QuickTime Player X with an entirely new interface and some cool new features (and unfortunately without some of the very useful features from QuickTime Player 7). Nevertheless, the icon got a complete redesign, and I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks they got pretty well away with it.
Times ($30)
Acrylic has tried to reinvent the RSS reader with their app Times, and I think they succeeded, although for me $30 is a bit too much to spend on a RSS reader. However, the app does feature a beautiful icon.
Coda ($99)
Coda is Panic’s web development client, and has for a long time been the by far most popular web development client as well. Now that Espresso’s out, let’s see what happens. Even though I actually never really understood why the icon is a leaf, I still think it’s a very beautiful icon.
Billings ($56)
Billings is really popular these days. It is a feature packed invoicing app with time billing and it’s very easy to use.
I agree with Espresso, Coda, Billings, Times, Forklift (which is a file manager first, FTP client second – even if it is a fantastic FTP client). QuickTime X looks kind of forced to me, and I feel it looks rather awkward in the dock. I guess that makes sense since QTX itself looks nothing like anything else on the Mac… Mindnode looks awesome in gigantic-mode, but loses a lot of its flavor on the dock, in my opinion. It’s not enough for an icon to look good, it has to keep looking good at scale and it has to fit in with the rest of the crowd… Bodega I think looks decent, but I hate its ridiculous UI so much that I loathe seeing any mention of it anywhere…