Some of these are cookie cutter and don’t need much exposition but I will call out some major players and what’s going on there. So pull up a chair, spark your favorite grape vape, grab a pitcher of Hamms and allow me tickle your ear bones.

Hangouts

I was really surprised to see that Hangouts had their icons in even widths with no ghosting. To me this is the best looking Tab Bar nav around. Also /ponystream

Instagram

The Belle of the ball. This Custom Tab Bar lead the revolution to many a designer saying, “See, they did it…”

The thing I really love about Instagram’s Tab Bar is the thought and care that went into those icons. They are so focused and understandable. You can almost hear the meeting where they decided to just go for broke and spend some cycles on making their own Tab Bar. What is odd though is that one heart icon that is either ghosting an extra pixel or they made it that way which, Yolo.

Twitter

I don’t know if this is indicative of the company as a whole or their stock price but man, those icons are all over the place. It’s like their Tab Bar is a gangly teenager unsure of it’s power or range of motion that they just sort fling themselves through a room like Ace Ventura. But hey, at least they used their own version of Blue. At least they are different because of that.

Path

The last ditch effort to get more engagement was met with an acquisition by Kakao. One of the only mobile apps that tried to put their own spin on getting around and I wished they had kept it and died on their sword. Alas at least they had the presence of mind to make a big ass “+” button in the middle, like a red lulling middle finger begging you to press it.

1Password

The Apple design awards came fast and furious for this zen group of engineers and designers. They even updated their app for iOS8! To be fair though I love that they make up amazingly long passwords o++>p8g=3Tku2]maF{w2Gzc=vA4jcuZWDG.Jt28ByV%2(p72tV but that browser icon hovering there like your weird uncle eating all the shrimp cocktail and rubbing grease into his mustache for “Heft” needs to just go home. Also why is there a drop shadow on EVERYTHING?