I also get this weird sense that besides seemingly just having changed 4 icons, as far as I can tell, it really feels like they’re just dusting off three dimensional icons that existed back in around about the early aughts ?
I’m not convinced either.
It’s so stupid. I get the emperor has no clothes vibe from all of this
Your just noticing?
Most of the stuff on HN isn’t exactly written by super geniuses, especially for blog posts without some kind of analysis.
This post was more about some midwit trying to coin a phrase than a breakdown of future design patterns one could entertain. Clout chasing nonsense.
Which emperor though? Flat design or 3d design?
I do agree with the article that before the iOS 7 flat design rush the barrier to entry for indie app developers was super high because it's damn hard to make the iOS <7 style look good. Flat is easy though. But with AI tools, the old style is suddenly available to lots of people again.
Those 3D icons were always ugly, we just didn't have the maturity to realize it at the time. :)