Over at his blog Cult of Mac, writer Leander Kahney published a post this morning featuring full-size 512 x 512 pixel screenshots of Mac icons. As he notes, the highly detailed icons are part of a move to make the OS resolution independent, but they're also an indication of Apple's attention to detail.

Many of the icons are works of art when viewed at their full size. The TextEdit icon, for example, is actually a note from "John Appleseed" to "Kate" featuring the text of the "Here's to the crazy ones" ads of the late 1990s. The Jar Launcher app, featuring a cup of hot Java sitting on a paper napkin, reveals miniscule bubbles on the side of the coffee, as well as real Java code written on the napkin.

All of these icons are indications of the fanatical attention to detail of Apple designers. After looking at Kahney's gallery of art, I gathered my own collection of icon goodness from both Apple and third-party apps. Click the gallery icon below to see what I found. If you have found any 512 x 512 icons that are incredibly good, send 'em to us at http://tuaw.tumblr.com/submit.

But not the right place, and that's the problem. Apple support boards are seeing increasing message traffic about icons that vanish, or attach themselves to the wrong app. This seems a problem with iPhone 3.0. Older versions seem unaffected.

I saw this myself yesterday. My AT&T Navigator app which I am testing for a forthcoming review, somehow acquired my Reuters News icon.

I deleted the AT&T app and re-downloaded it, but that didn't help. I reset the phone and that didn't help either. Finally I did a sync with all the apps turned off in the iPhone apps tab, then did another sync with my apps on. That restored the proper icon, but some of my apps acted like they had been downloaded for the first time and I had to set them up again.

This is clearly a real bug that Apple will have to address. There are some other solutions floating around on the Apple message boards, such as deleting the app, downloading it again, and restarting the phone. If you have the problem, I'd suggest you try the easiest solutions first.

Some other users are seeing icons turn white, while other app icons simply disappear. One developer said this was a common issue before the final release of the 3.0 software, and he was surprised to see it now.

Let us know if you've got this affliction and what you did to fix it, and be sure to let Apple know.

Thanks to Steve for the tip.

Gallery: Mixed up icons on iPhone OS 3.0

Yeah, I know we haven't seen it yet, but based on what we do know, here's some things I'll bet Apple missed that I'd like to see ASAP.

• Unified mailbox as an option: This works great in OS X. I sure am getting tired of checking 3 email accounts with hundreds of extra finger swipes every day. Even an icon to get me to any inbox I want to see would be an improvement. Some people don't want this. A simple software switch would be fine.
• Louder speakerphone: I have no idea why this as been such a problem since day 1. The volume of this phone is just not loud enough in a noisy environment. Maybe this is a hardware thing, maybe it's software. Whatever. Just fix this!
• Getting to Bluetooth and location manager: These settings are just buried too deep. How about a switch in the top level of settings? Once again, save me all that tapping.
• Consistency of app settings: Sometimes they appear in settings, sometimes within the app. I shouldn't have to scrounge around trying to guess which app works which way.
• Moving icons around on the desktop: Have you ever tried to organize icons by type, or popularity? Gee whiz, what a nightmare. Maybe this could be done by dragging apps in iTunes, or some easy method on the phone itself would be even better. As it is now, it's like one of those old plastic puzzles where you had to get things in order. Every drag of an icon on the iPhone often has unexpected or at least unwanted results. This is not one of those 'it just works' things on the iPhone.
  

Apple might surprise me and sneak some of this stuff in. Or not. You probably have your own list. Let's hear it. C'mon Apple, we're counting on you to get these things right. For the rest of us.

Welcome back to Mac 101, our occasional series of tips for new and novice Mac users.

Over the past 25 years, icons may have become ubiquitous almost to the point of fading into the visual background; still, the little pictures that began in 32x32 black and white format have grown up quite nicely into the massive 512x512 icons we enjoy in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Although the list and column views are more utilitarian for most file management tasks, there are times when icon view is the way to go.

You can control whether or not a particular Finder window displays in Icon view via the View Menu ("as Icons," or ⌘-1), and then adjust the display size of the icons via the View Options inspector panel (⌘-J). You can get up to 128px square icons in Finder windows, which is plenty big, but what if you want to see all the graphical power of those fully operational battle icons?

One way to see the full-size icons is via Cover Flow -- simply switch your Finder window to "as Cover Flow" (via the toolbar button, the View menu, or with a quick ⌘-4) and you can scale your icons at will by adjusting the window size. If you prefer not to have that black background around your icon, however, what is there to do? Thanks to Rob Griffiths at Macworld & MacOSXHints, here's a great tip for getting the maximum size out of your icon previews in the Finder without resorting to Cover Flow.

To view icon previews up to 512x512, hit the Spotlight search field at the top right of the window; search for a null string (two quotation marks next to each other, no space in between, like so ""), then change the search target from This Mac to Current Folder and the search type from Contents to File Name. Switch to icon view and you'll see, at the bottom right corner of the window, a scaling slider. Push it to the right to maximize your icon size. It's just the thing for appreciating the fine detail on your bottle of unicorn tears. (If you're looking for the CHOCK LOCK and Rick Astley icons above, they're in the QuickPix 2008 pack from the Iconfactory.)

Rob also hazarded a guess that we might see a more accessible version of this feature in future Mac OS X versions. If you watched the Snow Leopard stealth preview video posted earlier, you know he may well be right.

One of the most common ways to customize your tried-and-true desktop is by changing the wallpaper. While easy and effective, the wallpaper switcheroo is not the only trick up the sleeves of the customizers among us. For some, the most rewarding customization results from replacing icons.

There are many reasons to do this, including replacing system and application icons to create an overall aesthetic, easing the identification of a particular external hard drive by using its product image as an icon, or even replacing poorly-designed icons entirely (we're looking at you, Adobe).

We Love Icons aims to make it easy for icon lovers to discover new icons from around the web that are free for personal use. In their own words, designers Dan Wiersema and Nando Albuquerque started We Love Icons because, well... they love icons! The site itself is very well designed and easy to navigate; there is even an easy-to-spot option for filtering icons based on type: Mac-compatible, PNG file format, or Windows-compatible.

Further adding to the greatness of this site, the How-To page is a great resource for those new to the icon-customization game. There are links to external content on the history of icons, tutorials on changing icons, and even design-related icon articles. The How-To area also features an Apps section which lists several useful programs for replacing and creating icons. Each application list item includes a one-sentence summary, the application's platform (web, Mac, or Windows), and also the application's price.

Overall, I am impressed with the content of the site and the quality of its presentation. We Love Icons has secured a bookmark in my "Icons" folder right next to the link to InterfaceLIFT's icon section. Dear readers, I present this question to you: in my never-ending search for the best icons, do you have any favorites that you have either designed or found? Hit up the comments and share the love.

Thanks, Alex!

Gedeon Maheux has an post about how an icon is designed from the aptly-named Iconfactory (specifically the Frenzic app icon), and while I don't have any design skills to speak of at all, it's an interesting look into how those little snippets of art are made.

Icons are increasingly important, especially on the iPhone and OSX, as Apple leverages icons more and more in their interfaces, from the Dock to CoverFlow to the iPhone's home screen. He sounds a little sheepish that they obsess over icons, but why shouldn't they -- every time you decide whether or not to buy or use an app (some might say the most important part of an application's lifeline), you're likely looking right at the icon.

There are a few things to take away here: they designed the icon not by itself, but right alongside all the other icons on an average iPhone screen -- in context, where people would see it. And they walked a thin line: while they wanted it to stand out as something you'd chose even among the apps you've already purchased, they didn't want it to be so bright or flashy that it broke the UI. Truth be told, Frenzic's icon still looks a little bright to me, but the lesson is good: the UI comes first.

Ged closes with a sentiment I've agreed with for a while: while there's a disturbing trend of adding "On Sale" or "New!" to icons in the App Store (not to call anyone out, but ahem) that doesn't serve the developers or their customers. An icon, just like your app, should be subtle and simple and beautiful. After all, isn't that why we're all using Macs in the first place?

We're in the middle of gift guide season right now, but here's a gift that would fit great on any Mac user's list: Throwboy has designed a set of throw pillows after some of the Dock's most famous icons, including iTunes, iPhoto, Dashboard, and the Finder. They're 100% fleece, hand-crafted, and look cuddly as all get out.

Sure, a computer icon might seem like a strange thing to squeeze, but hasn't Finder been there for you in the worst of moments before? No reason that shouldn't remain the case outside the computer as well. You can pick up a pillow (for yourself or anyone else this holiday season) for $29 each, or $149 for the whole set. They ship in about 3-6 weeks, so there's no guarantee you'll get it by Christmas, unfortunately, but as their order page says "handmade takes a while."

Apple has designed some beautiful stuff over the years, from the ][e (hey, I think it looks good) to the iPod, but you can take the new OfficialApple YouTube channel off that list -- it's hideous. The glaringly huge sidebar ads got squished and crunched, and managed to make even the new nanos and iPod touches look ugly.

On the plus side, the channel offers lots of Apple videos in the YouTube player, from tutorials to tours to TV ads, so that's nice -- what YouTube videos lack in quality they make up for in ease of use and playability. Sure, the comments aren't much to read (unless you're a glutton for punishment), but at least the videos work.

But what did they do to those icons?! I'm tempted just to report the background with the link at the bottom of the page -- not because it's offensive or crude, but just because it's so badly done.

Update: The evil, unpleasant background is gone. Most commenters, justifiably, are quite skeptical that this is an actual Apple effort (could it be the 'ca' Canadian prefix?) -- we'll ask Apple.

Our friends over at the Iconfactory have a devil of a time protecting one of their more popular icons: David Lanham's blue bird that adorns their Twitterrific software.

Turns out there are plenty of people that think the icon is free for the taking, and have used it in all kinds of projects and web sites.

Of course, this means more work for Ged Maheux, tracking down each person and letting them know that, no, they can't use the icon, because it's for a piece of commercial software.

The good news is that there are, however, plenty of design alternatives to the Iconfactory's copyrighted artwork. Lots of friendly, smiling flyers have come out of the woodwork/birdhouse -- and they're free to use for your website or other non-commercial project. Read on for a rhapsody in bluebirds.

Maybe I'm not paying attention (likely), but Derek B. told us about something in iTunes 8 that I'd never seen before -- you can organize your music in Grid view by genre, and when you do, there are some pretty good-looking icons that show up for each genre. I especially like the Blues and Jazz icons (nice nod to the old Blue Note Records in there), but all of them have a pretty neat vibe, summing up each genre as best they can in a colorful little box.

Of course, there will always be more music out there than boxes to put it into, and so Derek B has started up a Flickr group to come up with icons for some of the more obscure genres out there. Replacing the icons is pretty easy to do, and there's even an app that will let you do it with ease -- just find the icon you want, and tie it to your genre. As you can see above, if you don't have an icon for the listed genre, it'll show off your album art (and just like iPhoto, mousing over the picture will let you flip through whatever albums are in there). It's kind of a weird thing to add into iTunes (and it's kind of tough to line them all up -- it's too bad iTunes won't pull down genres for music it recognizes from the iTunes store), but odds are we'll see these icons pop up more later, so getting them all lined up now is probably worth it.

Macenstein posted a strange little tip earlier this week for getting Apple's official apps off of your iPhone (I personally never use the Stocks app, and really don't need it taking up space around the apps I do use). But his method isn't so much a tip as an exploit -- basically, Apple has a secret 10th "page" of Application icons, and Macenstein's method is to put so many apps onto your iPhone that the official ones get squeezed off screen.

It works, though installing 144 apps on your phone might be more trouble than it's worth. And the change isn't even permanent -- restarting or syncing the iPhone will bring the apps back on screen (provided you make room on them -- you could just leave 144 apps up if you wanted, and presumably they'd stay out of the picture).

It's too bad that Apple has never really provided a tool to organize the iPhone's app screen quickly -- stacks have long been suggested as a way to get more icons on there, but it'd be nice to even have an iTunes-based tool to get all those icons in the right places. Until then, you can always fill up all your screens and kick any icons you don't want off of there.

Without using Exposé, it is hard to tell which Mac OS X applications are hidden and which aren't. But, with a simple Terminal hack, you can have all your application icons displayed as transparent. Simply open Terminal.app (Applications > Utilities) and type the following command exactly:

defaults write com.apple.Dock showhidden -bool YES

Once you type the command and press enter, you need to restart the Dock by typing "killall Dock" and pressing enter. Once the Dock restarts and you hide applications, you will notice that hidden applications have a transparent look. If you want to reverse the command, just replace the "YES" with a "NO" and restart the Dock again.

Like these tips and tricks? Why not take a look at TUAW's Mac 101 and Terminal Tips category.

Rearranging the icons on the home screen of your iPhone is a part of the customization fun that Apple built in. However, if you rearranged your icons and want them back to factory specifications, it is as easy as a simple tap. Just navigate to Settings > General > Reset. Once there, select the "Reset Home Screen Layout" button. A dialog will pop-up asking for a confirmation.

Once you return to the home screen, you will notice that all the icons are placed just like they were when you first turned on your iPhone! Third-party applications' icons will follow the default applications.

Want more iPhone tips and tricks like this? Just visit the TUAW iPhone 101 section.

Do you spend part or all of your time creating resolution-independent graphics for the Web? If you do, then you're probably familiar with Opacity. It's a powerful tool for creating icons or other graphic elements that are designed for viewing on a screen rather than on paper.

The developer of Opacity, Like Thought, LLC, is now shipping version 1.1 of their app. Opacity 1.1 requires Mac OS X 10.5.2 and has a redesigned interface with a new grid and dynamically generated images in the toolbar. To make life easier for new users of Opacity, Like Thought also added a "How To" screencast and four new templates.

The biggest addition to Opacity 1.1 is support for SVG vector graphics for the Web. Opacity creates reusable workflows called factories, which now support such cool features as gamma stripping in PNG images, automatic uploading to Web sites using Cyberduck, and multi-page PDF images.

If you own Opacity 1.0, this is a free upgrade. A demo is available for download, and you can purchase Opacity for $89.