Icons from the future

Some­thing that I’d tru­ly like to see is smar­ter icons, both on iOS and the desktop.

What if your icon were a litt­le, con­stant­ly run­ning snip­pet of Java­Script code that had access to the files within the appli­ca­ti­on that brought it along? That way, the app could store sta­te infor­ma­ti­on for various times the icon needs to chan­ge or visua­li­ze some­thing. Also, the icon would not just alter an image, it could actual­ly pro­gram­ma­ti­cal­ly visua­li­ze some­thing – an ana­log clock that dis­play­ed the cur­rent time would be an easy exer­cise for the reader.

I real­ly think the pro­gramming world is ripe for an inno­va­ti­on like that.