Hello Apple Design and macOS Engineering Teams,
With macOS 27 Golden Gate, the introduction of custom color tinting, dark, and clear icon styles has significantly modernized the desktop and application experience. However, there is a noticeable inconsistency in this design language that directly impacts the overall user experience.
While all application icons on the left side of the Dock immediately adapt to the selected icon style (Dark, Clear, Tinted), the folder shortcuts, Downloads, Applications directories, and the Trash on the right side of the Dock remain entirely excluded from this visual transformation.
As a user who values visual symmetry, color harmony, and attention to detail, having default bright yellow folders and legacy icons sitting right next to dark/clear-themed app icons completely breaks the interface's consistency. The dynamic GPU-layer style transformation applied to the left side should naturally extend to the folder and directory shortcuts on the right side of the Dock as a system standard.
In an effort to resolve this locally via scripts or automation, I found that these icon style preferences are not written to any user-accessible system parameters (plist) nor exposed via APIs. Consequently, users have no means to manually or automatically align these visual styles.
I have attached screenshots that clearly demonstrate this visual discrepancy.
I would like to inquire whether this design gap will be addressed in upcoming macOS updates and if dynamic theme support is planned for the right side of the Dock. I look forward to your feedback on this matter.
Sincerely,
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