Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

When will iOS get Folder Icons

K

ks-man

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 25, 2007
742
15
It is so strange to me that you can't set an App Icon for a folder. I have 5 book apps in a Books folder. Why can't I set the icon for the folder to be the iBooks icon? It is so hard to have many folders on the screen and know which one you are looking for. Our eyes are trained to look for icons over text and the miniature icons inside of the folder are too hard to see.

Have the iOS developers not figured this out yet? As I said at the beginning, so strange....
 
ks-man said:
It is so strange to me that you can't set an App Icon for a folder. I have 5 book apps in a Books folder. Why can't I set the icon for the folder to be the iBooks icon? It is so hard to have many folders on the screen and know which one you are looking for. Our eyes are trained to look for icons over text and the miniature icons inside of the folder are too hard to see.

Have the iOS developers not figured this out yet? As I said at the beginning, so strange....
Click to expand...

I actually think it is kind of cool that I can tell if a folder still has some room in it, without actually opening up the folder. Fine detail is not viewable on the small icons, but you can still tell what many of them are at a glance.
 
I think that because of the larger screen of the iPad which allows you to see up to 9 miniature iconswith enough detail to identify them, there is little necessity for folder icons. I actually don't like the folder icons as some of them look naff, so I prefer the current view.

Also the icons are named, further eliminating the necessity for generic folder icons.

Finally, icons are limiting - Apple can't come up with an icon for every folder type that one would ever think of, and they are not going to let you make your own, so you could perceivably end up with several folders with the same icons. Which would be counter-productive.
 
A little off topic but recently I read where you can change the background of the folder, so not all are the same black looking ones. You could do it without JB but for some reason I can't find it again. And the icons were still recognizable. Hmm. Okay so maybe you need to be JB.
 
Last edited:
I don't think it is nitpicking.

To a couple of the points:

I'm not suggesting you can't use the current icon for folders, just give me the choice to select my own one.

Apple doesn't need to create custom folder icons (though I'm sure some app developer would gladly create hundreds), but just let you choose the icon of any app in the folder or the default (current) view.

As I stated in my original post with respect to names, our eyes are naturally drawn to pictures over text. Why do you think all major news websites have their most important stories shown as essentially one big picture?

While the iPad screen is larger, I (and my wife) still find the icons inside of the folder difficult to see at a quick glance. Sure if I look closely I can figure out which each are, but why should I need to exert the effort?

Have you tried having 3 or 4 folder icons in a row? Then look quickly at the row and you will find that it takes you an extra few seconds to figure out which one you want. You may also get a little bit of eye strain in the process.

My point is that it would be so simple for Apple to make as a choice. When you are inside of the folder with all the apps wiggling you could easily touch one and a popup says "use icon for folder" or "use default icon". Or, where the X is in the upper left corner, make a small folder icon in the lower right corner. Click on that to set the app icon as the folder icon.

There are a hundred different easy ways to implement it. The home screen just doesn't look as nice with all these folder icons on it vs. having bright app icons. Don't misunderstand, I really like the usability of app folders, I just wished they would give you the same option for the icon as has been available for the Mac since Mac OS 5 or 6.
 
I wouldn't mind that as well. More options are always better. And I personally get a bit of eye strain as well.
 
ks-man said:
...As I stated in my original post with respect to names, our eyes are naturally drawn to pictures over text.
Click to expand...

Actually our eyes are drawn to edges first. It also takes less visual processing to read text than to understand a complex picture. I just had not one, but 3 professors go on and on about how we see and read in my CogSciPsych class this last semester and this is one of the few things that actually stuck.
 
what I could really use is the ability to name a page of apps [e.g.,Travel, Health] and an optional index Home page
 
Ciclismo said:
Actually our eyes are drawn to edges first. It also takes less visual processing to read text than to understand a complex picture. I just had not one, but 3 professors go on and on about how we see and read in my CogSciPsych class this last semester and this is one of the few things that actually stuck.
Click to expand...

Ok, I don't have any data to back me up and I don't doubt what your professors told you with respect to how our brains process stuff.

In my experience when using my iPad, I have a much easier time locating the app I want by the picture of the app (since I have launched it many times before and committed the icon to memory) than I do choosing the correct folder that looks similar to all the other folders near it. I also find that if I look hard at the miniature icons inside of the folder, I feel eye strain.

As to the text, after scanning the icon my eyes will then go to the text and after reading the text my eyes go back to the folder and icons and I will click it. This process takes about 2-3 seconds vs. 1 second when I see the big icon that has already been committed to memory.

Clearly different people will experience this differently.
 
I have different names for all of my folders. It allows me to know which apps are inside essentially...."Games", "Finance", "Weather"...etc. I have never had an issue knowing where my apps are, and I would especially think that simply having an icon for the folder would just make it harder to know what was in it.
 
Ciclismo said:
I think that because of the larger screen of the iPad which allows you to see up to 9 miniature iconswith enough detail to identify them, there is little necessity for folder icons. I actually don't like the folder icons as some of them look naff, so I prefer the current view.
Click to expand...

I think it is easier to see the mini icons on an iPhone 4 than on my iPad.
 
mstrze said:
I have different names for all of my folders. It allows me to know which apps are inside essentially...."Games", "Finance", "Weather"...etc. I have never had an issue knowing where my apps are, and I would especially think that simply having an icon for the folder would just make it harder to know what was in it.
Click to expand...

Perhaps for Reference or Productivity that may have different types of apps in them, but an iBooks icon for all my readers, a $ for my finance apps, ESPN's logo for my sports apps would be helpful.

I'm not suggesting they do away with the current folder view, just allow the extra ability. This way if you get to choose how to use it.
 
ks-man said:
Perhaps for Reference or Productivity that may have different types of apps in them, but an iBooks icon for all my readers, a $ for my finance apps, ESPN's logo for my sports apps would be helpful.

I'm not suggesting they do away with the current folder view, just allow the extra ability. This way if you get to choose how to use it.
Click to expand...

And I would feel just fine calling my iBooks folder..."iBooks", Finance apps..."Finance" and sports "Sports".

I mean, as an example...Apple can't legally use the ESPN logo...and I am sure you have some apps that aren't ESPN apps in that folder too. And what about other countries that perhaps wouldn't use anything ESPN-branded? You just open up a huge can of worms and one would need to have...as you said earlier...hundreds of different folder designs.

Question: Do you not use titles for your folders? From my point of view, this labeling serves the purpose that you desire for knowing what's inside the app folder. It really sounds like you aren't using customized names for your folders.
 
While not exactly what you want, you can use emoji in your folder names, or even as you folder names. I have my weather apps in a folder and instead of the folder labeled "weather", it says   .
 
Just to add.

Whilst the current icon (very tiny icons of what's in there) is nice.

When you have a full screen of these type of icons it can all look a bit grey and bland looking.

What would be nice (if Apple would allow) would be the option to use a "Custom Icon" for any folder.

Could be so easy done, when you are in a folder, and editing the name for the folder, you could pull in a small image file from your pictures on your iPad.

Apple, and people here (or anywhere) could upload folder icons for everyone to use. So we could have many many icons for all sorts of categories to select from.

Just like on the PC or Mac you could use your own icon image for your Games, or TV, or other folders.

As with all things Apple. It would be nice if WE the USERS had the OPTION to customise the look of icons if we WANTED.
 
It is important

Apple should really get off their hindquarters and implement this -- it could be as simple as using the first icon in the group, add a border, or allow any number of choices in the settings applet. So, why is it important? I'll just point to an example: A few months (or a year?) after opening the app store, Apple starting using a single icon (typically a popular app) to represent a group or category of apps, like strategy games, (like Angry Birds showing up as the icon for GAMES). A single icon shouts out the category -- it's easy to process.

So, who do we bribe to get this to happen?
 
skybolt2000 said:
Apple should really get off their hindquarters and implement this -- it could be as simple as using the first icon in the group, add a border, or allow any number of choices in the settings applet. So, why is it important? I'll just point to an example: A few months (or a year?) after opening the app store, Apple starting using a single icon (typically a popular app) to represent a group or category of apps, like strategy games, (like Angry Birds showing up as the icon for GAMES). A single icon shouts out the category -- it's easy to process.

So, who do we bribe to get this to happen?
Click to expand...

I think this is an absolutely horrible idea. What next? Do you want to change the font that the Folder name is? Or the color? Please.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back