Notices

I'm not too keen on the icons in maemo 5. They look very basic, which is a bit surprising because nokia designed some good icons on the n810. When you compare most icons to Apple they look a bit flat. What do other people think and does anyone know whether the icons will be redesigned? There's a great user interface in terms of ease-of-use but it kind of looks more functional and dull with the icons

They've used the icons from S60 on the N900. They don't appeal to me, either, although I couldn't say why not. I imagine Nokia will be sticking with these icons, at least for Maemo 5. They should be replaceable/themeable by the community, though.

They are not "icons from S60" but "Nokia icons" shared across all platforms.

If you have graphical skills you can create and distribute a theme with your own icons pretty easily: http://konttoristhoughts.blogspot.co...-for-n900.html

Couldn't Nokia make available some of their icons under a somewhat open licence? It would make much sense if 3rd-party applications could re-use tool/action-related icons (such as e.g. Open/Edit/Save/Add/Delete/Cut/Copy/Paste/Publish etc.). This would enable non-Nokia developers to style their applications similar to the default Nokia apps. In turn, this would increase usability and make the apps more accessible to endusers.
One way to do this would be to publish a catalog of icons and annotate each one with a description of what it symbolizes, then nail the allowed usage using a EULA similar to the Nokia Binaries in the SDK.

I'm pretty sure app developers are already able to use the Nokia toolbar icons in their own apps, aren't they?

Maybe only slightly related, but see this:

https://garage.maemo.org/projects/guitemplate/

Tim

Theres alot of svg icons around the s60 forums with the same style as the new icons, iv made some myself, you can even find the original nokia icons in svg format so icons wont be an issue, id rather have all icons that match when using a 3rd party app, i do alot of modding on s60 and will do so on maemo if its easy enough.

Yes, this is what I do. Not sure on the legalities of it, but all I am doing is hardcoding a name, and if the icon is found then that is what is shown...

The icons provided by the pre-installed themes are available for all applications and we actually encourage using them instead of bringing their own substitutes.

I wonder if someone can make some HTC style icons for maemo 5? My dad has a touch pro 2 (energy ROM) with Hero icons and they look much crisper and cleaner than the ones on the n900.

EDIT: like these