Take a look at this screenshot of the iPhone home screen:
See anything incongruous here? Look to the right. Down, down, stop. That orange and white icon, the thing that’s supposed to represent the iPod—what’s it doing with a scroll wheel?
Anyone who’s not been living in an Antarctic ice cave knows what that logo means. I think it’s incredible that Apple was able to simplify the image of their (previously) flagship product to a few simple shapes and make it instantly recognizable. And I understand that the iconography for that button had to stand for more than just music, since it also is the gateway to movies, audiobooks and podcasts. So it makes sense, despite the iPhone’s distinct lack of an actual scrollwheel, to use the universally recognizable iPod logo.
What I wonder is: When Apple moves to an entirely touch-screen line of hardware for the iPod, and scrollwheel iPods are a thing of the past, will the icon still be used? Is that icon burned into our collective consciousness as the symbol for “handheld media player”? If so, that’s a pretty remarkable accomplishment on Apple’s part.
Are there other symbols out there that have outlived the form factors they used to represent?
Responses to “iConography and the iPhone”
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Wow, duh. Right there are two shining examples: the phone received and the envelope. Amazing how one can overlook these things, even as one is writing about it. No one thinks twice about seeing a receiver for an icon, despite no cellphone having that kind of shape, ever. At least people still use actual envelopes once in a while.
You’re right, the web is hard to pin down. Maybe a series of tubes?
August 5th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
The compass has always bewildered me as an icon representative of the internet. It still doesn’t resonate with me whatsoever and I still do a double-take or have to think about what it means, aside from “a compass”.
Undoubtedly a holdover from when Netscape used it for Navigator.
Cat-5 cable has been used in years past as an indication of the internet, as well as a mass of cables plugged into a server, but with the advent of wireless, what makes sense?
The odd thing is that the now iconic RSS wireless-like icon is actually a better icon for the internet to me, and that too, doesn’t really resonate as being an RSS feed to me. Maybe wireless moreso.
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Thanks for pointing this out, your observation is spot on.
It’s also interesting that in that bottom bar of four icons, the only one that isn’t iconic is for the Internet. The telephone will forever be an old handset, e-mail is a paper envelope, music/video/etc. is now an iPod, but what about the web? The compass just doesn’t have the same meaning.
What icon would you use to represent the Internet?