Seriously, they look like pictures you could find in a child's book, and it's a form of occupational deformation when you think of those icons as "gorgeous".
Admittedly, the term is unavoidably subjective. But what I like about them is that they are distinct, and that each one has character. Honestly, the fact that they looked like pictures I could find in a child's book is the main part of what I like about them: they have simple ideas ("a bird") and forms so distinctive a child could tell them apart.
A conputer interface does not have those. You need to track the cursor and then decide how you want to move it. There’s no muscle memory. And no tactile perception. What’s left is visual differentiation and it should be slightly exaggerated.
The problem is that you can go too far here, and it is in fact reminding me of:
"In iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, icons are square, and the system applies masking to produce rounded corners that precisely match the curvature of other rounded interface elements throughout the system and the bezel of the physical device itself."
Source: Apple https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...
lol
That being said, should I skip Tahoe and wait for whatever comes next? MacOS keeps nagging me to upgrade to Tahoe, but I've been holding off because HN hates it so much.
That would be a marvelous way to make icons unified and a differentiating move for Apple.
Alas, I'm no designer.