Should a phone represent a call? How do we avoid the trap of keeping a visual metaphor, like the floppy disk for saving a file, as more and more of our physical tools are digitized?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. A cassette tape represents music well if we're talking about, for instance, mixtapes, rare recordings, bedroom bands, and indie music.

Things like phone calls (which in 2012 really means "audio calls over great distances using some kind of device") and music and messages and saving don't have any visual representation since they're not visual ideas. So, it's natural to want to visually represent them using actual, visually rich images associated with them. That's what metaphors are; there are no birds or stones in most situations people apply "two birds with one stone" to, and yet the expression is rich and meaningful.

It would be strange if every time you wanted to accomplish two things with one action you actually had to throw a stone at two birds first.

Some metaphors are stronger than others though. I think part of the reason floppy disks are so groan-inducing is that we understand that their long term cultural significance is minimal compared to the action itself. People will be saving things probably for centuries and floppy disks lasted, what, 20, 30 years?

I'm not asking "what's the right way to identify a digital thing?" I'm interested in the method of reasoning which will prevent the creation of the next floppy disk save icon.

How can we abstract an idea of something's utility beyond it's physical form to ensure a lasting iconography?

I don't think that you can—or that it's even necessary. Images, similar to language, can take on new meanings as we require it to change. Consider it the evolution of an image.

Zach, you're taking the metaphor one step too far. You don't actually pick up an actual banana phone to make a call on your iPhone. Just like a poetic, verbal metaphor, the visual metaphor represents the next thing you do, not how you do it.

The floppy is something we groan at because floppies are inherently a lame design. No one ever loved the way floppies looked. They also got adopted as the visual for Save too late; they belong to the command-line era. The phone symbol and the music note were around for a long time.

You can't create an abstract-yet-meaningful representation of a broad concept like "Music". (Is Google/Microsoft's set of cans any better than a note or a CD?) The best you can do is render an icon well.

Neven - as I'd expect, you have the truth of it. Are you suggesting that icons don't need to be as literal as they are memorable? Stop signs, for instance, don't look anything like the action of stopping, but do to their simple and unique design, that shape and colour is now universally identifiable.

How, I wonder, does this frame the "hamburger" icon - the new trend of having three stacked lines represent a list (usually navigation-related).

Does the context allow you to live without icons? What if your last played album cover was in place of the icon, reminding you of what your device will play when unpaused?

If a voice message, why not the avatar of the person who left the most recent one - that might make you know whether you want to check straight away or if it can wait.

If a generic 'sound recording' in a studio context, show the waveform?

Craig - All of those things are still icons for the tangible world. Especially the album cover.

Album covers are certainly iconic!

interesting question - i dont see the harm in music notes tho - i am thinking these old icons would need to be phased out eventually

not sure what could replace 'Save' tho -

I think the notion of 'saving a file' is getting outdated. Shouldn't your content just sync with a cloud service periodically and whenever you open / close / background the app?