At WWDC 2025, Apple introduced Icon Composer, an ambitious tool designed to streamline the often cumbersome process of creating app icons.
Touted as “one tool to rule them all,” Icon Composer promises developers a revolutionary experience — crafting a single layered icon that automatically scales to suit iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch. Intrigued by the prospect of eliminating the traditional hassle involving multiple icon sizes, manual variations for dark and light modes, and endless Photoshop tweaking, I took Icon Composer for a test drive (so you don’t have to 😊).
Getting Started with Icon Composer
The excitement around Icon Composer was palpable, and understandably so. Traditional icon creation has always been notoriously tedious. It typically involves generating upwards of 20 different file sizes, manually adjusting designs for different platforms, and painstakingly ensuring your icon looks perfect across all display modes. Icon Composer, in theory, simplifies this by offering layered designs, intelligent effects, and automated platform-specific variations.
I began by creating an icon for my app using existing artwork prepared externally. Though Apple suggests opening Icon Composer directly from Xcode via Xcode > Open Developer Tool > Icon Composer, I simply dragged my prepared icon assets into my project in Xcode. The initial integration was impressively smooth, with Xcode handling the import seamlessly.
Where Icon Composer Truly Excels
One standout feature of Icon Composer is its innovative “Liquid Glass” effects. These effects introduce sophisticated visual depth, translucency, and lighting reflections that adapt dynamically under varying conditions. It’s genuinely impressive to see your icon rendered in real-time, previewing exactly how it would appear on devices under different light and dark modes. This live preview across multiple platforms simultaneously was undoubtedly one of Icon Composer’s greatest strengths, eliminating guesswork entirely.
Another major plus was how efficiently Icon Composer manages layer adjustments. Changes to blur, translucency, shadows, and layer positioning instantly propagate across all platforms and sizes. This automatic propagation drastically simplifies the icon design process, making it accessible even for developers without extensive graphic design expertise.
It’s reassuring to know that Apple employed Icon Composer internally to refresh their own iconography. If it met the standards of Apple’s famously meticulous design team, there’s considerable potential for broader adoption once stable.
The Practical Test: Integrating with Xcode
Setting the icon for my app in Xcode using Icon Composer was delightfully straightforward. After importing the .iconcomponent into my project, updating my app icon simply required navigating to General > App Icons and Launch Screens and pointing to the new icon set. The app built without any immediate issues, and the icons rendered beautifully in test builds 🎉.
However, the honeymoon phase didn’t last long. When I moved on to archiving the app for distribution, Xcode’s validation process threw up unexpected errors, specifically related to transparency and alpha channels. A dive into Apple’s release notes for Xcode 26 beta 2 confirmed my suspicion — Icon Composer currently has documented issues with some icon sizes (or at least that’s what the errors indicated)
The Icon Composer Workflow: From Design to Deployment
Step 1: Export Your Artwork
I began by exporting individual layers of my design from my preferred design software as transparent SVG files.
Step 2: Import and Organise Layers
Dragging these layers into Icon Composer was impressively straightforward. The layering system is similar to other tools that manage layers, the nice thing is that you can apply specific effects for each layer relevant to Apple’s new design language (see Step 3)
Step 3: Enhance with Liquid Glass Effects
This step truly showcases Icon Composer’s capabilities. Adjusting specular highlights, blur intensity, translucency, and shadows provides immediate visual feedback. The live preview lets you effortlessly refine your design across different display modes.
Step 4: Preview Across All Devices
Icon Composer allows instant previewing of your icon across multiple platforms and appearance settings. This real-time feedback alone significantly simplifies the icon creation process.
Step 5: Export
The actual exporting of the .icon file was easy, literally drag and drop. The App built correctly both in virtual and real devices. Unfortunately, it was the last hurdle when I encountered issues, as the archiving threw some errors. Until Apple addresses these integration issues, developers should anticipate additional steps or temporary workarounds.
Known Beta Issues: A Reality Check
Despite the promising start, my experience revealed significant hurdles:
- Icon Composer Assets: They worked well for testing on device and in virtual devices. The issue I encountered required me to create individual files. I was pleased to see that I did not have to provide all the different sizes of the icon, it simply required a 1024-image for each of the three options (Any Appearance, Dark and Tinted)
- Transparency and Alpha Channels: I tried putting the PNGs exported from Icon Composer in
.xcassetsbu I got some validation errors thar pointed specifically to transparency and alpha channel incompatibilities. Ironically, the advanced features Icon Composer excels at — such as the Liquid Glass effects — utilise precisely these visual elements. So I had to flatten the exported files. A lot of trial an error! - Documentation Gap: For a tool intended to reshape the icon creation landscape, comprehensive documentation was sparse. This lack of clarity forced reliance on WWDC session videos and community forum discussions to resolve even basic issues.
Workarounds and Alternatives
Due to these beta limitations, I ultimately had to revert to traditional methods — generating individual, non-transparent icons. This was particularly frustrating, as it completely defeated the purpose of the streamlined workflow that Icon Composer initially promised.
Given these experiences, here’s my practical recommendation:
- For Production-Ready Apps: Hold off. The current beta version of Icon Composer, while visually impressive, isn’t yet robust enough for reliable, streamlined app deployment. Maybe things will improve in the next beta. I will update you!
- For Exploration and Experimentation: Dive in. The tool’s innovative design features, particularly the Liquid Glass effects, are genuinely groundbreaking. It’s an excellent opportunity to preview future icon design workflows and standards.
- For Future-Proofing Your Skills: Absolutely start learning. Familiarising yourself with Icon Composer now will give you a competitive edge when the stable release becomes available. The foundational principles and workflows established in this tool represent the future of Apple’s iconography.
Take Away
Despite the current limitations, Icon Composer undeniably represents a significant advancement. It directly addresses long-standing pain points in app icon creation:
- Eliminating the manual creation of numerous icon variants.
- Automatically generating platform-specific assets.
- Integrating sophisticated design effects without extensive graphical expertise.
However, beta software is, after all, beta software. Issues like the ones I encountered must be resolved before Icon Composer can truly deliver on its lofty promises. Apple’s acknowledgment of these problems in their release notes provides some reassurance that improvements are on the horizon.
While my experience uncovered some hurdles, the potential of Icon Composer is clear and genuinely exciting. When Apple resolves these beta issues — and I’m optimistic they will — Icon Composer could very well become the go-to tool for developers and designers, fundamentally reshaping how app icons are crafted across the Apple ecosystem.