Canonical is prepping up for its most important year yet. First ever official Ubuntu Phone is supposed to arrive in early 2014. Not only that, the next major Ubuntu release will be the much talked about long term support (LTS) edition, which is known for its rock-solid stability and reliability (I'm writing this in an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS powered laptop actually). And they are leaving no stones unturned. The latest round of updates to Ubuntu's default icons theme is a prefect example for its newly found enthusiasm for attention to detail.
Ubuntu design team's main objective was to create a single modern, high-resolution icon theme for desktop and touch devices that can adapt to various screen densities and reinforces the Ubuntu user experience. The current icons theme looks pretty boring already, and when compared to the revamped ones, they look ages apart. Take a look for yourself.
Old:
New:
This new icons theme is supposed to arrive on Ubuntu for phones along with the next Ubuntu 14.04 iteration. No timeline is set for its adoption into desktops yet though, but we expect it to arrive by the time Ubuntu 14.10 is released. See also: design.canonical.com