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A week after Apple's not-so-successful release of its new iPhone operating system, today we get an in-depth look at the strict guidelines that dictate Google's design team, showing exactly why the Google app icons all have a similar look and Apple's most certainly do not. Google, per a Visual Assets Guidelines document dug up by Fast Company's Kyle Vanhemert, has very specific examples that only allow for outlined shapes as icons, rather than nasty photos, or both combined:

Apple, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have a rule like that. The new iOS 7 features some icons that are just shapes, like for the Photos app. But others go for more of a Google-esque geometric shape look, like the Camera app:

Google's color palette is also, really, really simple with very specific rules on how to use the limited options:

Apple, on the other hand, doesn't have a specific color set, but it also doesn't seem to care about the consistency of color usage. On the Safari and Mail apps, for example, the gradient inverts from light-to-dark on one supremely popular, built-in app, then switches to dark-on-the-outside-light-on-the-inside right nextdoor:

That Google has these kinds of guidelines is "not especially surprising," explains Vanhemert. "The company's graphic designers, spread across heaps of products on several different platforms, have to have something to reference when they’re nailing down things like app icons," he writes. "But it's nice to actually see the guidelines laid out so clearly, if for no other reason than a bit of proof that Google's continuing to sweat the details."