The New Icons of OS X Yosemite – A Side-by-Side Comparison

Apple is giving its desktop operating system a complete visual overhaul with OS X Yosemite. From widespread use of transparency, to new typography, to cleaner and flatter app design, OS X Yosemite will clearly stand out when it launches this fall.

As a preview of what’s to come, here’s a side-by-side comparison of the new application icons, with OS X Mavericks on the left and OS X Yosemite on the right. The icons are proportional to their full size, so any differences in layout or size between Mavericks and Yosemite icons is representative of their actual differences in the UI.

Update: Forgot to add the Trash icons! You can find them at the end of the list. Note that they’re not as high resolution as the others because Apple only provides a standard and 2X “Retina” version for trash compared to much larger 1024×1024 icons for apps.

Update 2: As pointed out in the comments, we forgot Finder, too! It’s now displayed first in the list, and as you can see it’s likely to be one of the more controversial of the new designs.

Update 3: Apple just released the second developer build of OS X Yosemite, and reintroduced Photo Booth with a new design and icon. It’s added first, below.

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