Michael Flarup:

With the redesign of macOS 11 Big Sur, Apple has made many interface changes and updated the appearance of apps. Materials and dimensionality has made its way back into the interface —and every single app icon for every application and utility that Apple ships with macOS has been redesigned with depth, textures and lighting. This is a big deal. Probably bigger than what most people realise.

Scroll through the post, check out the images. You can’t help but see the emergence of realism in the design, as well as elements that bring macOS a bit closer to iOS (check out the squircles in the Big Sur icon image, about halfway down).

I do agree it’s a pendulum swing, from the full on felt, metal, and torn paper of skeuomorphism, to lossy flat design, to a gentle mix of the two. I’m enjoying the reemergence of fun.