Make your app icons boring

He's right on the theory, but the way he applies it to his own icon is terrible, in my opinion.

Sparrow is meant to replace the original Mail, and be one of the most essential apps on your iPhone, along the Phone and Messages apps — which is why it emulates their style. A movie showtimes app has absolutely no reason to look like the essential communication apps — and I'd throw up if all the icons on my home screen were a different tint of that same ugly striped background.

(That said, the original icon is also really bad, in that it doesn't have any relation to what the app does.)

Someone needs to show this to...90% of Dribbble.

The car example is terrible. The black car isn't better because it's boring. It's better because it shows off the shape of the car better (any other color would be better since black hides details). The pink w/tattoos is terrible because it camouflages the car's shape.

A boring icon doesn't have an underlying form to fall back upon.