I'm honestly not crazy about these. I was hoping they'd replace this with a chip on a board or something a bit more literal.

> maybe the icon had started clicking, and Apple just wanted to replace it before it suffered from catastrophic icon failure—but regardless, the switch is logical

this is clearly the right explanation

Whilst I understand a spinning hard disk is not really relevant in this day and age, I question changing the icon to something that doesn't particularly resemble a modern storage solution. I feel apple are moving away from clarity for the majority.

Apple!, person (restroom style), basketball (as described to someone who has never seen one), trash (drag down to open?).

The perspective of the new icons matches the non-euclidean plane of existence Apple's current designers famously occupy, but they're a little uncomfortable to try to make sense of to a regular Earth-dweller like me.