Mike Swanson
blog.mikeswanson.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2012
Mike Swanson is a developer who writes about Apple design details, immersive video, and his own apps and projects.
What HN saysCommenters call his analysis of the iOS 7 icon shape the best available and cite his posts on Apple's fisheye video projection.
18HN people shared it
6linked it in comments
27stories submitted
237story points
7 months agolast shared
2012people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Backseat Software5 people · 5 points · first shared 2026 · 1 comments on HN
- 2Unleashing Genetic Algorithms on the iOS 7 Icon4 people · 12 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 3Spatial Video Tool3 people · 7 points · first shared 2024 · 1 comments on HN
- 4My Year-Long Struggle Against a Call of Duty False Permanent Ban2 people · 5 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 5Immersive Video Production Tips2 people · 3 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 6Apples mysterious fisheye projection2 people · first shared 2024
- 7I Have No Idea [Why Apple Featured My App]1 people · 117 points · first shared 2012 · 21 comments on HN
- 8Apple's mysterious fisheye projection1 people · 38 points · first shared 2024 · 2 comments on HN
- 9Achieving 2.5Gbps with the UDM Pro1 people · 24 points · first shared 2021 · 5 comments on HN
- 10Instagram Name-Squats Indie Developer1 people · 8 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 11Encoding Spatial Video1 people · 4 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 12Smaller Apps with vector images1 people · 3 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 13What I've Learned About Apple's Spatial Video1 people · 3 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 14Freemium Distaste1 people · 3 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 1527 WatchKit Development Tips1 people · 2 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
lstamour · 2013-11-02
Very cool.
For those who want to follow along at home: http://blog.mikeswanson.com/iosroundedrect
I modified this myself to produce better background colors for testing different icon designs with an angular gradient and some layer cropping. This script and a script to save icons at different sizes really helped when making 30 iOS apps for iOS 7 recently. (I don't have time now to share my changes but if anyone's interested, I'll check this comment later for replies.)
nickheer · 2013-10-18
This is probably the best analysis that I've seen of the iOS 7 icon shape: http://blog.mikeswanson.com/post/62341902567/unleashing-genetic-algori…
(I am slightly biased, though.)
mdswanson · 2025-05-29
Not too many steps away from this: https://blog.mikeswanson.com/spatial/
quitit · 2024-12-19
This outlines how Apple approaches the immersive video format to put the most pixels on the horizon line:
https://blog.mikeswanson.com/apples-mysterious-fisheye-projection/
alejohausner · 2024-05-03
Apple used straight segments and circular arcs on its icons upto iOS 6, and switched to 2nd-order continuous shapes on version 7. Here is a side-by-side comparison :
https://blog.mikeswanson.com/photoshop-script-for-ios-7-rounded-rectan…
Your visual system can actually see those discontinuities.
wll · 2018-02-02
On iOS 11, CALayer has a `continuousCorners` private property [0].
I did a spartan reverse engineering by recreating the UIBezierPath equivalent of the two types of radii found in the Apple Design Resources [1], then adding a convenience initializer on UIBezierPath that recreates the shape with arbitrary radius of the chosen kind (either UISwitch-like, or App Icon-like).
Earlier attempts include the fascinating Unleashing Genetic Algorithms on the iOS 7 Icon [2].
[0] https://mobile.twitter.com/argentumko/status/955773459463790592
[1] https://developer.apple.com/design/resources/
[2] http://blog.mikeswanson.com/post/62341902567/unleashing-genetic-algori…