IOS 18 App Icon Photoshop Template Won’t Work

Question

Created Oct ’24

Replies 2

Boosts 1

Participants 3

I can’t figure out how to make the iOS 18 photoshop template for app icons work. In the past, each variant of the icon size was an editable layer you could open up, change and save. In this one, only the large App Store icons are editable. So I thought maybe if I put my icon in the App Store layer, the smaller icons would automatically scale and fill in. But they don’t. When I checkmark the generate assets option, it generates all the icon files, but all of them are blank, except for the App Store one. I don’t really want the smaller icons to just automatically scale down anyway; I would rather have them be fine-tuned by hand so that they look good at all sizes.

I used the sketch template in a free trial of sketch and it automatically scaled and generated all of the icon sizes, as expected. But I don’t own sketch; I use Photoshop and Illustrator for all of my work.

I’ve always been able to use the template in the past; it’s only this year‘s iOS 18 version that isn’t working for me.

Boost

Answer 1

themikestern OP

4w

Previously, the Photoshop app icon template used smart objects that were scaled to each of the icon sizes used by the system. With the introduction of the ability to have a single app icon that the system would then scale to any size it needs, having the template structured in this way didn't really make sense. It would have the same end result: A large icon size scaled to smaller sizes.

The smaller sizes are there if someone (like you!) wants to make pixel hinted app icon sizes. The masks and app icon grids are meant as a handy reference. But there's no smart object of the largest app icon size. We figured that, in this scenario, putting in a scaled smart object isn't helpful since the vector or raster layers were being tuned for each size. And further, if you're doing this work you probably know how to duplicate and scale layers.

As for exporting blank images, the thinking is that developers don't need to add smaller sizes to their asset catalog if they're using the single app icon feature and these smaller icons could just be ignored. But, we set them up to export with Generator for convenience if you choose to make size specific icons.

Totally understand that the current structure of the template could be a little confusing. Ultimately something of a judgement call on how to optimize this for the majority of users.

0

Answer 2

Phil_ OP

2d

The PSD file provided by Apple doesn’t make sense to me.

It doesn’t seem to "simulate" how iOS actually displays the icon design. What’s even worse is that the Figma template and the PSD template output different simulated icons.

Currently, on iOS 18, our app’s icon is "magically" handled correctly in all modes without me having to update the icon file. (It has a white background and two colored circles: one blue and one red.) In dark mode, the icon becomes slightly tinted, and the white area automatically turns transparent. The tinted mode also reveals perfectly distinct tones on both colored circles.

This is surprising because my original file, created before iOS 18, doesn’t even have a transparent background.

Now, I’m trying to create a seasonal Christmas icon, but I can’t find a way to properly simulate how it will render in real life. My original icon file doesn’t even show what iOS 18 is actually doing when I test it with the templates.

Honestly, I’m a bit lost.

0