Should iOS automatically activate white or dark app icons when Dark Mode is on?

Since iOS 10.3, third-party apps have been able to optionally change their icon on the Home screen at user request. Unfortunately, iOS to this date does not provide a way to give app icons a different look when the system-wide Dark Mode has been enabled. Which is a shame, really.

A Twitter thread started by Nuremberg, Germany-based senior digital product designer Alex Muench got me thinking about this. He’s noticed that many popular apps now come with multiple icons for the Home screen that the user can choose from, including white icons.

Problem is, there’s no way to prompt iOS to tell apps to switch to the white icon when Dark Mode has been enabled, or to activate its dark counterpart when Dark Mode has been disabled.


Apple could add a way for apps to automatically switch between white or dark icons depending on the status of iOS’s system-wide Dark Mode (I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this, but many apps which include multiple Home screen icons offer them as one of the perks that are available to you upon upgrading to the app’s paid version — a trend I dislike).

After all, we do have a toggle in Settings → Wallpaper for choosing whether iOS should dim the device’s background image when Dark Mode is turned on, which gives us hope that the tech giant might choose to expand on that feature in future iOS updates by adding new options for adjusting Home screen icon colors manually or automatically, based on Dark Mode.

But even without auto-icon switching, white app icons seem to make quite a lot of sense.

“Many people have dark or colored backgrounds so white app icons stand out more in general,” Alex wrote on Twitter, and I agree with him. And speaking of app icons, how cool would it be if all apps were required to offer both black and white icon backgrounds?

And how does your Home screen look like?

Is it color-coordinated? Do you have more white or dark app icons on the Home screen? Are you someone who prefers the original brand color when it comes to their favorite apps?

Let us know by sharing in the comments down below!