My favourite is the icon of multiple people. That, to me, obviously signifies social which is what sharing is. You don't need an arrow in this case, just put a group of stick figures in the icon and it makes perfect sense.
Android's approach used to be very acceptable - a directed graph - but then they got rid of the arrows for some reason.
In the context of OS X I never understood what the button was because I never have any need to share something from within my OS. In fact I removed the button from my toolbar. I'm not sure it's that obvious if you didn't have the icon text.
In fact it's inconsistent even within OS X. The Public folder icon is a person on a street sign.
> That, to me, obviously signifies social which is what sharing is.
Except that's not what sharing is at all. I can share a photograph with one person by just emailing it to them. We can even share a conversation that way. I can turn it into a group conversation by adding CC recipients. Or I can make it public by sending to a newsgroup instead of an email recipient.
No social involved in any of those forms of sharing (although you could argue that Usenet is a social network).
The public folder icon isn't inconsistent because the "share" icon represents an action (click this to share something), whereas the folder icon represents a state (the folder is public; there's nothing to click on).
Android's approach used to be very acceptable - a directed graph - but then they got rid of the arrows for some reason.
In the context of OS X I never understood what the button was because I never have any need to share something from within my OS. In fact I removed the button from my toolbar. I'm not sure it's that obvious if you didn't have the icon text.
In fact it's inconsistent even within OS X. The Public folder icon is a person on a street sign.