Apple Also Using Ancient Icons in Its Operating System

Microsoft has come under fire several times lately for using ancient icons in Windows 10, some of them even dating back to the Windows 98 era, but it looks like this isn’t something that only the Redmond-based software giant does in an operating system.

Apple, for example, sticks with the same default user profile images in macOS as in the versions launched so many years ago, something obviously unexpected given the operating system as a whole has been improved substantially.

Netflix engineering manager Maria Kazandjieva signaled this issue on Twitter, emphasizing that despite using a 2020 device, she is still “trapped in some absurd old-school world of flowers, birds, a lipstick kiss, and sports.”

Refreshing an operating system

While you can use your very own profile picture in macOS, Apple indeed hasn’t updated the default user profile image set in its operating system for a long time. This is either intentional, possibly in an attempt to keep the macOS legacy alive, or unintentional, in which case Apple simply forgot that this part of its operating system needs a modern refresh as well.

Certainly, this isn’t a critical issue of macOS, but on the other hand, it does show that overhauling an entire operating system from one system to another isn’t an easy thing to do.

Microsoft, for example, is still in the process of refreshing the look of Windows 10, despite the OS launching in 2015. Parts of the company’s Fluent Design, which was announced many years ago, are still being rolled out to devices gradually, as the work on the facelift advances.

The icons themselves are something that requires a lot of work, and more recently, Microsoft started shipping a refreshed icon pack – however, not all icons are getting a modern overhaul, but only a part of them, with the rest likely to follow in the coming weeks and months.