Apple Updates iWork, iMovie, and GarageBand With Refreshed Icons and Designs for macOS Big Sur

Following today's release of macOS Big Sur, Apple has updated a number of its apps to support the new operating system version and upcoming Apple Silicon Macs.

iwork big sur icons
Apple's suite of iWork apps is among the updates, with Pages, Numbers, and Keynotes all sporting refreshed icons and a "refined new design on macOS Big Sur." Stability and performance improvements are also included. Alongside the updates on the Mac side, the iWork apps for iOS have seen minor updates for stability and performance improvements.

garageband big sur
GarageBand for Mac has also been updated with a new icon and refreshed macOS Big Sur design, among other improvements and additions.

- Refined new design on macOS Big Sur
- Improved performance and efficiency on Mac computers with Apple silicon
- Allows customisation of region colours in your tracks
- Adds 1,800 Apple Loops in a variety of genres including Hip-Hop, Chill Rap, Future Bass, New Disco, Bass House and more
- Adds over 190 instrument patches and 50 vintage and modern drum kits

Alongside GarageBand and the iWork apps, Apple updated its iMovie app for Mac with ‌Apple Silicon‌ support. No other new features are included.

Apple updated its professional video and audio apps, including Final Cut Pro and Logic, earlier today.

Top Rated Comments

Quu Avatar
45 months ago
I don't understand why Apple is producing such poor quality icons all of a sudden. These just look so bad :/
Score: 37 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Princess Cake Avatar
45 months ago
So are we done with this flat cartoony nonsense? Can we go back to a visually pleasing skeuomorphism design language now?
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
swingerofbirch Avatar
45 months ago
You know how in movies/TV shows they sometimes make fake generic operating systems and applications and icons instead of using real world ones?

These look like that.

Like props for a TV show.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mr. Dee Avatar
45 months ago
There is nothing wrong with the icons. In fact, they are the same icons, just morphed into looking like iOS icons. That’s the part I don’t like, the uniqueness of macOS has been reduced and consumed into the universe of its mobile offspring. I missed the stand out uniqueness of photo realistic icons. It’s really what made OS X attractive. Seeing a representation of true life on screen.

Apple now considers that redundant and I believe it was Jony Ive who promoted this when explaining the abstract look of icons iOS 7 such as Game Center. Icons should hint what they do and at least with these three, you have an idea,

- the charts and cells in the background suggest this has something to do with numbers.

- the pen, quotation symbol and lines suggest this is a tool for writing.

- the podium and what looks like screens it slides is a program for preparing presentations.

I still do miss the unique icons from the old days though. The Adobe Photoshop 7 eye, the Quark Xpress lotus flower, the picture of the child at the beach in preview.




Attachment Image

Attachment Image
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
thePhil907 Avatar
45 months ago
I love the overall look of Big Sur but those icons are butt.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BWhaler Avatar
45 months ago
I love, love, love iWork.

Those icons suck. They had better ones in some of the test versions. Such a shame.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Orange Feature 2

Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments as Demand Falls 'Sharply Beyond Expectations'

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:44 am PDT by
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
Apple Silicon AI Optimized Feature Siri

Apple Releases Open Source AI Models That Run On-Device

Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
iPad And Calculator App Feature

Apple Finally Plans to Release a Calculator App for iPad Later This Year

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:08 am PDT by
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
iOS 17 All New Features Thumb

iOS 17.5 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Sunday April 21, 2024 3:00 am PDT by
The upcoming iOS 17.5 update for the iPhone includes only a few new user-facing features, but hidden code changes reveal some additional possibilities. Below, we have recapped everything new in the iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 beta so far. Web Distribution Starting with the second beta of iOS 17.5, eligible developers are able to distribute their iOS apps to iPhone users located in the EU...