I think this has a lot more to do with GNOME previously encouraging complicated hyper-realistic 3D renders than with pixel hinting to specific sizes. These 3D renders were beautiful, expertly-crafted pieces of art. But they were extremely difficult for newcomers, and they didn’t scale well. Consequently, community and third-party app developers were expected to be experts in 3D rendering plus include a variety of pixel-hinted icons on top — or more likely to convince a GNOME designer to do the work for them (addressed in the next problem).

However, every single first party app in elementary OS has great hinted vector icons across all sizes. At the same time, all apps submitted to AppCenter must have the required icon sizes, and the majority of third-party apps have icons that follow the guidelines. We lead by example here but also enforce it at the app ecosystem level.

First-Party Bandwidth

“We (GNOME Designers) don’t have the bandwidth to keep up with icon requests from developers, let alone update or evolve the style overall.”

This doesn’t apply to elementary OS. We don’t design icons for third parties, and all of our apps are designed and developed in-house. If a new first-party elementary app is coming, it gets an icon from our default set or a bespoke one designed, depending on the type of app. But we also don’t develop a million different community apps under one umbrella; everything we do is shipped as part of a cohesive OS.

I do know some folks (hi, Micah Ilbery!) do help out third-party app developers with icons on their own time, but it’s not something elementary has ever formally done or been expected to do.

Dated Look

“The wider industry has moved on from the detailed icon styles of the 2000s, which gives new users the impression that our software is outdated.”

Again, this problem seems self-created and is more about that hyper realistic 3D rendering GNOME style than pixel and size hinting. Pixel precision isn’t somehow magically outdated: physical pixels still exist, and the level of detail that can be drawn across those pixels varies on the number of them that exist. elementary OS will continue to respect pixel precision and varying levels of detail to ensure pixel-perfect icons everywhere.

Other platforms — especially the web — have gotten more lazy over the years, but that doesn’t mean we should stoop to their low standards.

Cross-Platform Apps

“Cross-platform apps tend to ship with very simple, flat icons these days. The contrast between these icons and our super detailed ones can be quite jarring.”

This is largely a philosophical difference between GNOME and elementary. Consequently, this is not a concern for elementary OS; we don’t ever cater to cross-platform, non-native apps that make no effort to run on elementary OS. Our vision has always been an excellent ecosystem of bespoke apps, and with AppCenter, we’re well on our way. We understand that non-native apps will always exist, and users will sideload them. But that doesn’t mean that we should change the elementary OS icon style to look like a generic mis-mash of trendy non-native icon styles, either.

The New Style