Anyway, I think the idea is to get some visual cue that you're about to tap the right icon. You know where you put your apps on your home screen, so the colors or wahtever lead you there faster. And the icon provides a large touch target.
Going back to the original article, it doesn't really matter what the icon looks like, as long as it's unique. You're not looking at each icon and asking yourself "is this a camera?" to get to the Photos app. You know it's a circular array of colors, and your finger goes there.
I'm surprised no one seems to have mentioned this earlier. Everyone's arguing about what image the icon contains and thinking of imaginary folks who are using computers for the first time after coming off a ship from a lonely desert island.
Back in 'teh day' when my icons were all cutesy skeuomorphs, my computer came with maybe a dozen apps and most of them were on my desktop. Now, I have over a hundred sitting in my global Apps folder alone - never mind user Apps, sub folders, etc.
This gets compounded even more on phones - on my iPhone, I've accidentally placed 1Password next to the Settings app - both have a grey background with a circular center. Settings' center is grey gears, 1Passwords is a blue ring with a keyhole. On examination, they're not similar at all, but I can't even begin to tell you how many times I clicked on when, meaning to click the other - even _knowing_ the differences and kicking myself each time.
I think a lot of what the designers are trying to do is create an icon that stands out visually, and is easily found from amongst a large set of other icons, rather than trying to impress upon us what its functionality is from a metaphor.
> You know where you put your apps on your home screen
Really? Because when I used an iPhone, I most definitely didn't know where most of my apps' icons were. I knew most of them on the first screen and the rest of the screens were a mix of random stuff.
Perhaps for you. But for me, icons are cryptic. I can glance at a list of words and find exactly what I'm looking for. My brain is wired to read and pick out words much faster than little drawings.
Going back to the original article, it doesn't really matter what the icon looks like, as long as it's unique. You're not looking at each icon and asking yourself "is this a camera?" to get to the Photos app. You know it's a circular array of colors, and your finger goes there.