macOS Sequoia wallpaper is a nostalgic treat for Apple fans

As expected, macOS Sequoia was announced at Apple‘s WWDC 2024 this week. Nut more than the UI updates, iPhone mirroring and new productivity and video conferencing tools, one of the things that’s most attracted the attention of the fans is the animated macOS Sequoia screensaver and wallpaper.

Several developers with access to the new Mac operating system in beta have shared images of the designs, which pay tribute to Susan Kare’s original Mac icons from the 1980s. Named simply Macintosh, the wallpaper shows dynamic randomised versions of the designs filling the screen, including the Happy Mac boot-up icon and the dreaded Bomb icon that would appear when the system crashed.

There are light and dark versions of the wallpaper in eight colors, and the screensaver has the same options. The cursor, the Command icon, the floppy disk with a question mark icon and the Dogcow from the Print Setup dialog box are all present, glide into view from the corners of the screen. There’s also the line “the crazy ones” from the famous Apple Think Different advert.

Basic Apple Guy has shared screenshots of the designs on X, and fans are loving them, with some citing them as their favourite feature of MacOS Sequoia. 

The icons are clearly a lot larger than they were on the original Mac. Susan Kare drew them at just 32 by 32 pixels. An updated version of her smiling Mac icon is still used today in Finder. She sells artwork based on her icons on her website.

For more on Apple’s latest releases, see our Apple iPad Pro M4 review and our Apple Pencil Pro review.