Removing the Default Shine from Icons

Apple makes it easy to create a good looking app icon. I just needed to specify a square PNG image file named Icon.png and the OS takes care of creating a rounded edge and overlaying it with a consistant shine over it.

I wanted to make my icon have a distinctive hex shape. I created a PNG with a transparency background but found that it didn't quite work because the default shading was ruining the effect. In order to remove the shading, I needed to modify the Info.plist file. This file holds the app's basic settings and is usually prefixed with the app's name, e.g. Skrambler-Info.plist. The setting for removing the shine is not available by default so it is not available in the Xcode editor. I needed to open the file in a text editor and add the following lines:

 <key>UIPrerenderedIcon</key> <true/>

Another useful setting is to hide the status bar when the app is starting.

 <key>UIStatusBarHidden</key> <true/>