Just a heads up, but there are a few community made Blender icons already out there for testing from the open source icon library macosicons.
Type “Blender” in the site’s search bar - download .icn file from site - hover over Blender Icon in Applications folder - Get Info - drag .icn on top of the icon in Blender’s info pane.
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Thanks for your feedback!
I’ve tried out some of your suggestions. The 3D grid variant is inspired by Grapher’s icon and this exploration by Gavin. This was actually the first thing I tried with the dark background, but I couldn’t really get it to harmonise with the logo. Maybe it would look even better with real reflections on the grid like in the Grapher icon, but this could also be too much. I still like the dark background variant even though it violates the brand guidelines, mainly because it corresponds to Blender’s interface (Sketch’s icon shows its interface in the background and Apple’s Pro apps like Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Logic Pro also have icons that represent the app’s look and feel).
Using the monochrome logo would probably create some confusion because Blender users are more familiar with the coloured logo. I would also like to be as consistent as possible across all platforms whilst matching the visual styles of each platform.
What do you think?
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I like the 3D grid and also like the dark format. The dark format kind of hints at 2.8 and later with the default dark theme introduced for the UI.
Good work.
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I’m not a mac user, but try like @Harleya here
with bigger center logo and one part go across border and with your last dark 3d grid
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Yeah, this could work indeed. It makes the icon very prominent.
Both this one and the previous variant with the contained logo could work in my opinion — this version would definitely make Blender stand out from all the other apps around it.
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Hmm, maybe your original dark with no grid is the way to go. It looks cleaner/ less busy and keeps in line with other Mac icons aesthetics.
Don’t know, both look good just putting in my two cents. 
Edit: I see the version with the larger logo and that looks good with the grid.
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Yes, that’s a valid point.
This is what both look like in context (Dock and Launchpad). Personally, I prefer the original dark icon when I look at these.
Dark
Dark 3D grid with large logo
As I see the problem in “Dark 3D grid with large logo” in small row that BG gradient at the bottom merges with OS BG. Try to inverse 3d grid BG gradient, if it still be merges then yes, simple Dark BG better.
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The left one IMO is best as well as most consistent with blenders design/style guide. But this is just my opinion.
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@johjakob for me personally the versions with white bg looks more “professional”. I would make the gradient more subtle, or even removed it completely. Plus the logo could be larger similar to @Harleya example.
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If you draw a shadow under the logo, it means that it is a 3D object, so it must have some thickness (2). Or it is “printed” - then without a shadow (1). You can try some embossing effect, like many default icons (3).
Double-check the colors, the correct colors are #e87d0d and #265787.
By the way, the link to the guidelines: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/icons-and-images/app-icon/.
From Apple’s app icon guidelines:
Keep primary content within the icon grid bounding box; keep all content within the outer bounding box. If an icon’s primary content extends beyond the icon grid bounding box, it tends to look out of place.
So as I read this there should not be any overflow of the icon, it should stay within the inner bounding box. If you read further, it seems that the outer bounding box should only be used to add a tool symbol, like some apps do.
Plus, from the Blender logo guidelines:
The logo is used unaltered, without fancy enhancements, in original colors, original typography, and always complete (logo + text blender).
Following that we should not try to do things like 3D embossing effects.
The first, second or last one seem like good choices.
Might be just an optical illusion, but the last one seems to have a different orange though?
IMHO this is not a place to be playful or to try to “stand out”. If every app logo tried to stand out you’d have a mess. The logo should be clear, clean and identify the Blender brand professionally.
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I agree with @julianeisel. The logo should not be changed, as I stated in my original post already.
And yeah, I noticed that the colours are different. Interestingly, I used the logo from the official Logo Kit which uses incorrect values apparently. Thanks for the heads-up!
I much prefer the white background. The orange tends to merge with the dark, especially in smaller sizes. As for the dark-themed OSX, most of the icons in my dock right now have fairly light backgrounds, even just counting the Apple apps. (I run in light mode anyway, but the icons don’t change for dark mode.)
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So it’s going to be the contained logo then.
As the UI module owner, what is your opinion on the light vs dark background case?
Just to clarify the ones we are giving feedback on and the ones you are designing differ from the current/original logo.
The one on the right in my image is the current official logo.
I actually love the no background Blender logo that is currently used, and think it should probably remain that way. I just like that we can switch to whatever logo we want to, and that there are designers like yourself making other options. 
I hope you post some of your design changes to the site I posted above!
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Yes, I mean the Blender logo, not the app icon. The Blender logo as part of the app icon should not be altered (should be less ambiguous, sorry!).
Sure, I’m going to provide every variant I posted as ICNS files!
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If this is done, I’d definitely prefer it be optional — if that’s possible; I don’t know. The current trend toward uniformity in app icons is something that I pretty strongly dislike from an aesthetic perspective.
This can’t be done to be optional, but you could still replace the default icon with one you prefer.