[iphone] What size should apple-touch-icon.png be for iPad and iPhone?

Are Apple touch icons bigger than 60x60 supported, and if so, what dimensions should I use for the iPad and iPhone?

The relevant documentation on Apple's site, Specifying a Webpage Icon for Web Clip.

There is no need to put anything in the head of your document. If no icons are specified using a link element, the website root directory is searched for icons with the apple-touch-icon or apple-touch-icon-precomposed prefix.

For example, if the appropriate icon size for the device is 57 x 57, the system searches for filenames in the following order:

• apple-touch-icon-57x57-precomposed.png
• apple-touch-icon-57x57.png
• apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png
• apple-touch-icon.png

I think this question is about web icons. I've tried giving an icon at 512x512, and on the iPhone 4 simulator it looks great (in the preview) however, when added to the home-screen it's badly pixelated.

On the good side, if you use a larger icon on the iPad (still with my 512x512 test) it does seem to come out in better quality on the iPad. Hopefully the iPhone 4 rendering is a bug.

I've opened a bug about this on radar.

EDIT:

I'm currently using a 114x114 icon in hopes that it'll look good on the iPhone 4 when it is released. If the iPhone 4 still has a bug when it comes out, I'm going to optimize the icon for the iPad (crisp and no resize at 72x72), and then let it scale down for old iPhones.

I have been developing and designing iOS apps for a while and This is the best iOS design cheat sheet out there!

have fun :)!

Update: For iOS 8+, and the new devices (iPhone 6, 6 Plus, iPad Air) see this updated link.

Meta update: Iphone 6s/6s Plus have the same resolutions as iPhone 6/6 Plus respectively

This is an image from the new version of the article:

The icon on Apple's site is 152x152 pixels.
http://www.apple.com/apple-touch-icon.png

Hope that answers your question.

Updated list December 2019, iOS13 One icon for iOS 180x180 px and one for android 192x192 px (declared in site.webmanifest).

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="/apple-touch-icon.png">
<link rel="manifest" href="/site.webmanifest">

#### site.webmanifest
{
    "name": "",
    "short_name": "",
    "icons": [
        {
            "src": "/android-chrome-192x192.png",
            "sizes": "192x192",
            "type": "image/png"
        }
    ],
    "display": "standalone"
}

Deprecated list October 2017, iOS11

List for iPhone and iPad with and without retina

<!-- iPhone(first generation or 2G), iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS -->
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="57x57" href="touch-icon-iphone.png">
<!-- iPad and iPad mini @1x -->
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="76x76" href="touch-icon-ipad.png">
<!-- iPhone 4, iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, iPhone 7, iPhone 7s, iPhone8 -->
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="120x120" href="touch-icon-iphone-retina.png">
<!-- iPad and iPad mini @2x -->
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="152x152" href="touch-icon-ipad-retina.png">
<!-- iPad Pro -->
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="167x167" href="touch-icon-ipad-pro.png">
<!-- iPhone X, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 6 Plus -->
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="touch-icon-iphone-6-plus.png">
<!-- Android Devices High Resolution -->
<link rel="icon" sizes="192x192" href="icon-hd.png">
<!-- Android Devices Normal Resolution -->
<link rel="icon" sizes="128x128" href="icon.png">

Update Oct 2017 iOS 11: iOS 11 checked, iPhone X and iPhone 8 introduced

Update Nov 2016 iOS 10: New iOS version iPhone 7 and iPhone 7plus introduced, they have the same display resolution, dpi, etc as iPhone 6s and iPhone 7plus, until now no changes found respecting the update 2015

Update Mid 2016 Android: Add Android Devices to the list as the apple-touch links are marked as deprecated by Google and will be not supported anytime for their devices

<!-- Android Devices High Resolution -->
<link rel="icon" sizes="192x192" href="icon-hd.png">
<!-- Android Devices High Resolution -->
<link rel="icon" sizes="128x128" href="icon.png">

Update 2015 iOS 9: For iOS 9 and iPad pro

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="167x167" href="touch-icon-ipad-pro.png">

The new iPhones (6s and 6s Plus) are using the same sizes as the iPhone(6 and 6 Plus), the new iPad pro uses an image of size 167x167 px, the other resolutions are still the same.

Update 2014 iOS 8:

For iOS 8 and iPhone 6 plus

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="touch-icon-iphone-6-plus.png"> 

Iphone 6 uses the same 120 x 120 px image as iphone 4 and 5 the rest is the same as for iOS 7

Update 2013 iOS7:

For iOS 7 the recommended resolutions changed:

• for iPhone Retina from 114 x 114 px to 120 x 120 px
• for iPad Retina from 144 x 144 px to 152 x 152 px

The other resolution are still the same

• 57 x 57 px default
• 76 x 76 px for iPads without retina

Source: https://developer.apple.com/ios/human-interface-guidelines/icons-and-images/app-icon/

Use these sizes 57x57, 72x72, 114x114, 144x144 then do this in the head of your document:

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="apple-touch-icon-iphone.png" />
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="72x72" href="apple-touch-icon-ipad.png" />
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="114x114" href="apple-touch-icon-iphone4.png" />

This will look good on all apple devices. ;)

With the iPad (3rd generation) there are now four icon sizes 57x57, 72x72, 114x114, 144x144.

Because retina icons are exactly double the size of the standard icons we really only need to make 2 icons: 114 x 114 and 144 x 144. By setting the retina sized icon to the corresponding standard icon iOS will scale them accordingly.

<!-- Standard iPhone --> 
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="57x57" href="touch-icon-iphone-114.png" />
<!-- Retina iPhone --> 
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="114x114" href="touch-icon-iphone-114.png" />
<!-- Standard iPad --> 
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="72x72" href="touch-icon-ipad-144.png" />
<!-- Retina iPad --> 
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="144x144" href="touch-icon-ipad-144.png" />

TL;DR: use one PNG icon at 180 x 180 px @ 150 ppi and then link to it like this:

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="path/to/apple-touch-icon.png">

Details on the Approach

As of 2020-04, the canonical response from Apple is reflected in their documentation on iOS.

Officially, the spec says:

• iPhone 180px × 180px (60pt × 60pt @3x)
• iPhone 120px × 120px (60pt × 60pt @2x)
• iPad Pro 167px × 167px (83.5pt × 83.5pt @2x)
• iPad, iPad mini 152px × 152px (76pt × 76pt @2x)

In reality, these sizing differences are tiny, so the performance savings will really only matter on very high traffic sites.

For lower traffic sites, I typically use one PNG icon at 180 x 180 px @ 150 ppi and get very good results on all devices, even the plus sized ones.

Yes. If the size does not match, the system will rescale it. But it's better to make 2 versions of the icons.

• iPad — 72x72.
• iPhone (=4) — 114x114.
• iPhone =3GS — 57x57 — If possible.

You could differentiate iPad and iPhone by the user agent on your server. If you don't want to write script on server, you could also change the icon with Javascript by

<link ref="apple-touch-icon" href="iPhone_version.png" />
...

if (... iPad test ...) {
  $('link[rel="apple-touch-icon"]').href = 'iPad_version.png'; // assuming jQuery
}

This works because the icon is queried only when you add the web clip.

(There's no public way to differentiate iPhone =4 from iPhone =3GS in Javascript yet.)

For iPhone and iPod touch, create icons that measure:

    57 X 57 pixels
    114 X 114 pixels (high resolution @2X)

For iPad, create an icon that measures:

    72 x 72 pixels
    144 X 144 pixels (high resolution @2X)

Yes, bigger than 60x60 are supported. For simplicity, create icons of these 4 sizes:

1) 60x60  <= default
2) 76x76
3) 120x120
4) 152x152

Now, it's preferable to add them as links in your HTML as:

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="touch-icon-iphone.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="76x76" href="touch-icon-ipad.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="120x120" href="touch-icon-iphone-retina.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="152x152" href="touch-icon-ipad-retina.png">

You can choose to not declare the 4 links above but just declare a single link, in which case give the highest size of 152x152 or even a size higher than that, say 196x196. It will always trim down the size for re-purposing. Ensure you mention the size.

You can also choose not to declare even a single link. Apple mentions that in this scenario, it will lookup the server root first for the size immediately higher that the size it wants (naming format: apple-touch-icon-<size>.png), and if that's not found then it will next look for the default file: apple-touch-icon.png. It's preferable that you define the link(s) as that will minimize the browser querying your server.

Icon necessities:

- use PNG, avoid interlaced
- use 24-bit PNG
- not necessary to use web-safe colors

In versions older than iOS 7, if you don't want it to add effects to your icons, then just add the suffix -precomposed.png to the file name. (iOS 7 doesn't add effects even without it).