Why Instagram's new icon and interface suck

I hate the new Instagram icon. You can disagree, but you're still wrong. 

Instagram finally changed its app icon this week and, boy, did the Internet react. The iconic instant camera icon -- with a glass lens, viewfinder, brown leather wrap and rainbow, alongside the word "Insta" in the corner is gone.

As I'm sure you've seen by now, it's been replaced with a simplified glyph in the shape of a camera outlined in white and set on top of a yellow-orange-red-pink-purple gradient.

It's definitely different. Instagram recently said that, during the creative process of flattening the icon, it wanted to make sure the updated look was still recognizable. But my issue is it's too minimal and the gradient choice is too loud.

All up in my face

Though the old icon was a remaining vestige of skeuomorphic design (digital designs that resemble physical objects to make them more relatable and familiar), there was something very calming about seeing it on your homescreen and then tapping on it.

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Whether that was because of the brown upper-third portion of the icon (warmer colors are known to be more relaxing) or the old-school lens and viewfinder design inspired by old instant cameras, the app icon didn't feel like it was ever in your face.

The new icon does. It's screaming for attention. OPEN ME! (Like we don't already compulsively check Instagram 20 million times a day anyway.) The new icon's loud design is intentional; its designers feared a barebones icon would get lumped in with other camera apps.

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Analyzing my iPhone's main homescreen, it's been apparent to me over the last few years the most popular apps I use are typically green (Phone, Messages, Spotify, Whatsapp, Vine, etc.) or blue (Facebook, Twitter, Weather, Outlook, App Store, etc.). The third most widely-used color icon seems to be white: all of Google's apps (Chrome, Google, Google Photos, YouTube, Hangouts), Apple Music, Calendar, Reminders, Safari, etc.

The only real app that sticks out is Snapchat and its yellow icon. And now the new Instagram icon sticks out like a sore thumb, too.

Perhaps the worst part, in my opinion, is how the app looks like it's slanting to the left. It's an optical illusion created from the bulbous camera glyph that sits inside of the less rounded and straighter app icon shape itself. The depth of the gradient only makes it all worse, furthering the visual slant trick.

Stripped of color

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

It's about as generic as the other two dozen photo-editing apps I have installed on page three of my iPhone homescreen.

The icon's not the only thing that's different if you updated to the latest version of the app — the UI is entirely new, too. It's stripped of almost all of its color, and the blue has been replaced with black. Meanwhile, the notification icons are red and no longer orange.

The black and white design is supposed to not only put your photos and videos front and center (with fewer distracting elements around it), but also bring it in line with today's modern interfaces that emphasize lots of white space and minimalism.

I'm a bit of a minimalist when it comes to product design (hardware and software), but even I feel the app now looks terribly bland. Sure, it feels faster in all areas, but there's nothing distinct about it anymore. It's about as generic as the other two dozen photo-editing apps I have installed on page three of my iPhone homescreen.

I could gripe about how snow-bright the editing sliders are — especially when you're editing a post in a bar or dimly-lit restaurant and don't want the screen illuminating your entire face so intensely — but I think you already know how unhappy I am with the new changes.

I've got Instagram as the second app in my dock and the new icon clashes so hard I want to just:

Change is hard. I know. I'm sure I'll get used to the revamp over time (What choice do I have? Not use Instagram?), but right now I hate everything about the new app with a passion. In  fact, I detest it as much as I did the new Uber icon. 

But I only have one real option right now: Deal with it.