Alternate Icon in iOS 10.3

Since the biggest problem is how to configure the icon image source and info.plist, here is a sample to tell you how to set alternate icons in iOS 10.3, implemented in Swift 3.

1. If your app doesn’t support iPad, the icon image source can be 60pt@2x and 60pt@3x (120×120 180×180), and the 20pt 29pt and 40pt all can be generated from the 60pt image. So, your alternate icon image source should also be 60pt@2x and 60pt@3x, if it is a iPhone-only app. And it should be 83.5pt, if your app supports iPad Pro.

2. Like what you saw in the picture, the alternate icon image should be added to the project as a png file (the blackBgColor image in my sample), but not added to Assets.xcassets.

3. The configuration for alternate icons in info.plist is kinda complicated, so if this is your first time doing this, I suggest you copy my code in plist. And, notice my alternate icon’s name (blackBgColor) has beed used TWICE in plist, if you are gonna change the icon’s name based on my version, make sure you changed the name in both of the two places.

   <key>CFBundleIcons</key>
   <dict>
       <key>CFBundleAlternateIcons</key>
       <dict>
           <key>blackBgColor</key>
           <dict>
               <key>CFBundleIconFiles</key>
               <array>
                   <string>blackBgColor</string>
               </array>
               <key>UIPrerenderedIcon</key>
               <false/>
           </dict>
       </dict>
       <key>CFBundlePrimaryIcon</key>
       <dict>
           <key>CFBundleIconFiles</key>
           <array>
               <string>AppIcon60x60</string>
           </array>
       </dict>
   </dict>
   

Now, code in ViewController will be simple.

import UIKit

class ViewController: UIViewController {

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
    }

    @IBAction func changeAppIcon(_ sender: Any) {

        if UIApplication.shared.supportsAlternateIcons {
            print("you can change this app's icon")
        }else {
            print("you cannot change this app's icon")
            return
        }

        if let name = UIApplication.shared.alternateIconName {
            // CHANGE TO PRIMARY ICON
            UIApplication.shared.setAlternateIconName(nil) { (err:Error?) in
                print("set icon error：\(String(describing: err))")
            }
            print("the alternate icon's name is \(name)")
        }else {
            // CHANGE TO ALTERNATE ICON
            UIApplication.shared.setAlternateIconName("blackBgColor") { (err:Error?) in
                print("set icon error：\(String(describing: err))")
            }
        }
    }

}