uiapplication - Is this possible to apply the alternative icon to the iOS application?

Question

I need to change the app icon based on region, is this possible?

Answer 1

Yes, this is possible since iOS 10.3.

First, you need to define all alternative icons in your Info.plist file, you can't fetch them dynamically.

In the example below we define 2 alternative icons: "de" and "fr":

<key>CFBundleIcons</key>
 <dict>
  <key>CFBundleAlternateIcons</key>
  <dict>
   <key>de</key>
   <dict>
    <key>CFBundleIconFiles</key>
    <array>
     <string>ic_de</string>
    </array>
    <key>UIPrerenderedIcon</key>
    <false/>
   </dict>
   <key>fr</key>
   <dict>
    <key>CFBundleIconFiles</key>
    <array>
     <string>ic_fr</string>
    </array>
    <key>UIPrerenderedIcon</key>
    <false/>
   </dict>
  </dict>
  <key>CFBundlePrimaryIcon</key>
  <dict>
   <key>CFBundleIconFiles</key>
   <array>
    <string>ic_none</string>
   </array>
  </dict>
 </dict>

Then you can set the icon name based on anything you like (game progress, weather conditions, premium user, etc.). To change the icon use:

UIApplication.shared.setAlternateIconName("de") { (error) in
    if let error = error {
        print("err: (error)")
        // icon probably wasn't defined in plist file, handle the error
    }
}

Result:

The gif is from a Medium article by Julien Quéré.