We almost forgot to mention the presentation of the sixth version of SF Symbols, and that would have been a shame. Apple is adding 800 new icons to its library of iconographic resources for developers, bringing the total to 6,000 icons available in nine weights and three optical sizes. Not to spoil anything, the Cupertino company has particularly worked on the animations of the symbols.
SF Symbols is an iconographic extension of San Francisco, the system font of Apple’s platforms, which developers can integrate into their applications in a few clicks. Icons can animate in three new ways to respond to user interactions or signal a change in state. Wiggling, rotating, and breathing can animate different layers of an icon and are compatible with custom icons.
The new effect of “magically replacing” an icon with a variation is reminiscent of the morph transition in Keynote. SF Symbols will now be able to cross out an icon, add or remove a badge or change some of its components rather than abruptly replacing it. Developers can modify the direction and origin of animations, as well as the order in which any colors appear, to fine-tune transitions.
These new features of course concern the 800 new icons covering the fields of automobiles, health and typographic composition. As usual, Apple has taken care to use the icons in the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, the Arabic and Hebrew abjads, as well as the CJC writing systems. SF Symbols 6 icons will be available in apps on macOS Sequoia, iOS 18, iPadOS 18, tvOS 18, watchOS 11, and visionOS 2.
