App Icon
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Every app needs a beautiful and memorable icon that attracts attention in the App Store and stands out on the Home screen. Your icon is the first opportunity to communicate, at a glance, your app’s purpose. It also appears throughout the system, such as in Settings and search results.
Embrace simplicity. Find a single element that captures the essence of your app and express that element in a simple, unique shape. Add details cautiously. If an icon’s content or shape is overly complex, the details can be hard to discern, especially at smaller sizes.
Provide a single focus point. Design an icon with a single, centered point that immediately captures attention and clearly identifies your app.
Design a recognizable icon. People shouldn’t have to analyze the icon to figure out what it represents. For example, the Mail app icon uses an envelope, which is universally associated with mail. Take time to design a beautiful and engaging abstract icon that artistically represents your app’s purpose.
Keep the background simple and avoid transparency. Make sure your icon is opaque, and don’t clutter the background. Give it a simple background so it doesn’t overpower other app icons nearby. You don’t need to fill the entire icon with content.
Use words only when they’re essential or part of a logo. An app’s name appears below its icon on the Home screen. Don’t include nonessential words that repeat the name or tell people what to do with your app, like 'Watch' or 'Play.' If your design includes any text, emphasize words that relate to the actual content your app offers.
Don’t include photos, screenshots, or interface elements. Photographic details can be very hard to see at small sizes. Screenshots are too complex for an app icon and don’t generally help communicate your app’s purpose. Interface elements in an icon are misleading and confusing.
Don’t use replicas of Apple hardware products. Apple products are copyrighted and can’t be reproduced in your icons or images. In general, avoid displaying replicas of devices, because hardware designs tend to change frequently and can make your icon look dated.
Don’t place your app icon throughout the interface. It can be confusing to see an icon used for different purposes throughout an app. Instead, consider incorporating your icon’s color scheme. See Color.
Test your icon against different wallpapers. You can’t predict which wallpaper people will choose for their Home screen, so don’t just test your app against a light or dark color. See how it looks over different photos. Try it on an actual device with a dynamic background that changes perspective as the device moves.
Keep icon corners square. The system applies a mask that rounds icon corners automatically.
App Icon Attributes
All app icons should adhere to the following specifications.
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Format | PNG |
| Color space | Display P3 (wide-gamut color), sRGB (color), or Gray Gamma 2.2 (grayscale). See Color Management. |
| Layers | Flattened with no transparency |
| Resolution | Varies. See Image Size and Resolution. |
| Shape | Square with no rounded corners |
App Icon Sizes
Every app must supply small icons for use on the Home screen and throughout the system once your app is installed, as well as a larger icon for display in the App Store.
| Device or context | Icon size |
|---|---|
| iPhone | 180px × 180px (60pt × 60pt @3x) |
| 120px × 120px (60pt × 60pt @2x) | |
| iPad Pro | 167px × 167px (83.5pt × 83.5pt @2x) |
| iPad, iPad mini | 152px × 152px (76pt × 76pt @2x) |
| App Store | 1024px × 1024px (1024pt × 1024pt @1x) |
Provide different sized icons for different devices. Make sure that your app icon looks great on all the devices you support.
Mimic your small icon with your App Store icon. Although the App Store icon is used differently than the small one, it’s still your app icon. It should generally match the smaller version in appearance, although it can be subtly richer and more detailed since there are no visual effects applied to it.
Spotlight, Settings, and Notification Icons
Every app should also provide a small icon that iOS can display when the app name matches a term in a Spotlight search. Additionally, apps with settings should provide a small icon to display in the built-in Settings app, and apps that support notifications should provide a small icon to display in notifications. All icons should clearly identify your app—ideally, they should match your app icon. If you don’t provide these icons, iOS might shrink your main app icon for display in these locations.
| Device | Spotlight icon size |
|---|---|
| iPhone | 120px × 120px (40pt × 40pt @3x) |
| 80px × 80px (40pt × 40pt @2x) | |
| iPad Pro, iPad, iPad mini | 80px × 80px (40pt × 40pt @2x) |
| Device | Settings icon size |
|---|---|
| iPhone | 87px × 87px (29pt × 29pt @3x) |
| 58px × 58px (29pt × 29pt @2x) | |
| iPad Pro, iPad, iPad mini | 58px × 58px (29pt × 29pt @2x) |
| Device | Notification icon size |
|---|---|
| iPhone | 60px × 60px (20pt × 20pt @3x) |
| 40px × 40px (20pt × 20pt @2x) | |
| iPad Pro, iPad, iPad mini | 40px × 40px (20pt × 20pt @2x) |
Don’t add an overlay or border to your Settings icon. iOS automatically adds a 1-pixel stroke to all icons so that they look good on the white background of Settings.
TIP If your app creates custom documents, you don't need to design document icons because iOS uses your app icon to create document icons automatically.
User-Selectable App Icons
For some apps, customization is a feature that evokes a personal connection and enhances the user experience. If it provides value in your app, you can let people select an alternate app icon from a set of predefined icons that are embedded within your app. For example, a sports app might offer icons for different teams or an app with light and dark modes might offer corresponding light and dark icons. Note that your app icon can only be changed at the user’s request and the system always provides the user with confirmation of such a change.
Provide visually consistent alternate icons in all necessary sizes. Like your primary app icon, each alternate app icon is delivered as a collection of related images that vary in size. When the user chooses an alternate icon, the appropriate sizes of that icon replace your primary app icon on the Home screen, in Spotlight, and elsewhere in the system. To ensure that alternate icons appear consistently throughout the system—the user shouldn't see one version of your icon on the Home screen and a completely different version in Settings, for example—provide them in the same sizes you provide for your primary app icon (with the exception of the App Store icon). See App Icon Sizes.
For developer guidance, see the setAlternateIconName method of UIApplication.
NOTE Alternate app icons are subject to app review and must adhere to the App Store Review Guidelines.
| Filename extension | |
|---|---|
| Type code | icns |
| Uniform Type Identifier (UTI) | com.apple.icns |
| Developed by | Apple Inc. |
| Type of format |
The Apple Icon Image format is the icon format used in Apple Inc.'s macOS. It supports icons of 16 × 16, 32 × 32, 48 × 48, 128 × 128, 256 × 256, 512 × 512 points at 1x and 2x scale, with both 1- and 8-bitalpha channels and multiple image states (example: open and closed folders). The fixed-size icons can be scaled by the operating system and displayed at any intermediate size.
File structure[edit]
The file format consists of an 8 byte header, followed by any number of icons.
Header[edit]
| Offset | Size | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 4 | Magic literal, must be 'icns' (0x69, 0x63, 0x6e, 0x73) |
| 4 | 4 | Length of file, in bytes, msb first |
Icon data[edit]
| Offset | Size | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 4 | Icon type, see OSType below. |
| 4 | 4 | Length of data, in bytes (including type and length), msb first |
| 8 | Variable | Icon data |
Compression[edit]
| lead value | tail bytes | result uncompressed |
|---|---|---|
| 0…127 | 1…128 | 1…128 bytes |
| 128…255 | 1 byte | 3…130 copies |
Over time the format has been improved and there is support for compression of some parts of the pixel data. The 32-bit ('is32', 'il32', 'ih32','it32') and ARGB ('ic04', 'ic05') pixel data are often compressed (per channel) with a format similar to PackBits.[1]Some sources mentioned that the OS supports both compressed or uncompressed data chunks.
The following pseudocode decompresses the data:
Example: 02 01 02 02 80 03 81 04 82 05 should decompress to 01 02 02 03 03 03 04 04 04 04 05 05 05 05 05
Icon types[edit]
| OSType | Length (bytes) | Size (pixels) | Supported OS Version | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ICON | 128 | 32 | 1.0 | 32×32 1-bit mono icon |
| ICN# | 256 | 32 | 6.0 | 32×32 1-bit mono icon with 1-bit mask |
| icm# | 48 | 16 | 6.0 | 16×12 1 bit mono icon with 1-bit mask |
| icm4 | 96 | 16 | 7.0 | 16×12 4 bit icon |
| icm8 | 192 | 16 | 7.0 | 16×12 8 bit icon |
| ics# | 64 (32 img + 32 mask) | 16 | 6.0 | 16×16 1-bit mask |
| ics4 | 128 | 16 | 7.0 | 16×16 4-bit icon |
| ics8 | 256 | 16 | 7.0 | 16x16 8 bit icon |
| is32 | varies (768) | 16 | 8.5 | 16×16 24-bit icon |
| s8mk | 256 | 16 | 8.5 | 16x16 8-bit mask |
| icl4 | 512 | 32 | 7.0 | 32×32 4-bit icon |
| icl8 | 1,024 | 32 | 7.0 | 32×32 8-bit icon |
| il32 | varies (3,072) | 32 | 8.5 | 32x32 24-bit icon |
| l8mk | 1,024 | 32 | 8.5 | 32×32 8-bit mask |
| ich# | 288 | 48 | 8.5 | 48×48 1-bit mask |
| ich4 | 1,152 | 48 | 8.5 | 48×48 4-bit icon |
| ich8 | 2,304 | 48 | 8.5 | 48×48 8-bit icon |
| ih32 | varies (6,912) | 48 | 8.5 | 48×48 24-bit icon |
| h8mk | 2,304 | 48 | 8.5 | 48×48 8-bit mask |
| it32 | varies (49,152) | 128 | 10.0 | 128×128 24-bit icon |
| t8mk | 16,384 | 128 | 10.0 | 128×128 8-bit mask |
| icp4 | varies | 16 | 10.7 | 16x16 icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format |
| icp5 | varies | 32 | 10.7 | 32x32 icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format |
| icp6 | varies | 64 | 10.7 | 64x64 icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format |
| ic07 | varies | 128 | 10.7 | 128x128 icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format |
| ic08 | varies | 256 | 10.5 | 256×256 icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format |
| ic09 | varies | 512 | 10.5 | 512×512 icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format |
| ic10 | varies | 1024 | 10.7 | 1024×1024 in 10.7 (or 512x512@2x 'retina' in 10.8) icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format |
| ic11 | varies | 32 | 10.8 | 16x16@2x 'retina' icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format |
| ic12 | varies | 64 | 10.8 | 32x32@2x 'retina' icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format |
| ic13 | varies | 256 | 10.8 | 128x128@2x 'retina' icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format |
| ic14 | varies | 512 | 10.8 | 256x256@2x 'retina' icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format |
| ic04 | varies | 16 | 16x16 ARGB | |
| ic05 | varies | 32 | 32x32 ARGB | |
| icsB | varies | 36 | 36x36 | |
| icsb | varies | 18 | 18x18 |
- the values inside the brackets () in the length column is the uncompressed length.
- the ARGB format consists of the ascii values for 'ARGB' and the four compressed channels tightly packed
Other types[edit]
| OSType | Length (bytes) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 'TOC ' | varies | 'Table of Contents' a list of all image types in the file, and their sizes (added in Mac OS X 10.7) |
| 'icnV' | 4 | 4-byte big endian float - equal to the bundle version number of Icon Composer.app that created to icon |
| 'name' | Unknown | |
| 'info' | 259 | Info binary plist. Usage unknown |
Support[edit]
Various image viewers can load *.icns files, and free and open source converters from or to PNG also exist.[2][3]GTK+ can load *.icns resources since 2007.[4] Other tools supporting the format include the Apple Icon Composer and icns Browser, The Iconfactory, and IconBuilder.
MacOS[clarification needed] offers the built-in iconutil command line tool to pack and unpack *.icns files.
External links[edit]
- IconFamily – Open source Objective C class to read and write Apple icns files
- osxiconutils - Command line tools to work with Apple icns files
See also[edit]
Apple Icon Download
- ICO format on Windows
- X PixMap format for X11
References[edit]
- ^Macintosh Icons
- ^'libicns'. SourceForge project icns. 2009. Retrieved August 18, 2016.
- ^'png2icns'. Moin Uddin. 2016. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
- ^Lyonel Vincent (2007). 'Mac OS X icons for GTK+'. Retrieved August 18, 2016.
Apple Icon Mac Keyboard