In AI Icon Creator's test, all 100 icons of the top free iPhone apps were still recognisable at 29 pt, the size of an app icon in iPhone Settings, but 8 of them clearly lost small print or small marks and 8 more softened. What survived was big and bold: on flat backgrounds the subject spans a median 75% of the icon's width, and a median of just 1% of it is thinner than 2 px at 29 pt. We shrank the icons of the US App Store's Top Free chart on 12 October 2026 and measured what changed. Games and Food and Drink lost the most.
This guide shows the numbers, how we measured them and what they mean for your own app icon. The icons themselves aren't reproduced here, only the statistics. You can download the data as a CSV.
What is 29 pt for an app icon?
29 pt is the size an iPhone draws an app's icon at in Settings: 58 × 58 px on a 2× screen and 87 × 87 px on a 3× screen. A point (pt) is a unit of screen space, not a pixel, and iOS multiplies it by the screen's scale to get the pixels it draws. You can supply one 1024 × 1024 px image and Xcode generates every smaller size from it, as Apple's documentation describes.
| Where it appears | Size | On a 2× screen | On a 3× screen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notifications | 20 pt | 40 px | 60 px |
| Settings | 29 pt | 58 px | 87 px |
| Spotlight search | 40 pt | 80 px | 120 px |
| Home Screen (iPhone) | 60 pt | 120 px | 180 px |
We used 29 pt as the stress test because it is about half the size of a Home Screen icon. Our app icon sizes guide lists every size on every platform.
How did we shrink and measure the top 100 app icons?
We took the US App Store's Top Free chart on 12 October 2026, the top 100 apps overall plus the top 50 in each of 10 categories, shrank every icon to the pixel size of 60, 40 and 29 pt on a 2× screen, and measured what changed. The 10 category charts are the ones in our colour study of 500 top icons, and all the icons come from Apple's public chart feed.
| Measure | How we counted it |
|---|---|
| Pixels that change | The 512 px icon is shrunk to the real pixel size (120, 80, 58 or 87 px), enlarged back to 256 px and compared with the original. A pixel counts as changed when its brightness differs by more than 10% (25 of 255) |
| Subject size | On a 128 px copy, the box around everything that clearly differs from the background colour, as a share of the icon's width. Flat backgrounds only, which is 56 of the top 100 |
| Thin parts | The share of that subject made of parts thinner than 2 px at 29 pt on a 2× screen, which is 3.4% of the icon's width |
| Visual review | Two independent reviews of each of the top 100, both by AI assistants, with the full-size icon next to its 58 px version: is it still recognisable, does it contain words, did small print or small marks blur into dots, lines or smudges |
Four limits apply. These are professionally designed icons from big brands, so they show what works, not what an average icon looks like. It is one day's snapshot of US free charts. The measures count pixels, and the visual reviews were done by AI assistants, so none of this is a test with people. And the reviewers already knew many of the brands, which makes recognition easier than it is for a stranger.
Our rules for tests and data studies, including how we use AI, are on how we test and update our content.
How many pixels change when an app icon shrinks to 29 pt?
On a 2× screen, a median 5.2% of an app icon's pixels look different at 29 pt, against 3.6% at 40 pt and 1.9% at 60 pt, the Home Screen size. That is almost three times as many changed pixels at 29 pt as at 60 pt.
The middle 80% of the top 100 icons change between 2.6% and 9.6% of their pixels at 29 pt. On a 3× screen, which gives 29 pt 87 px instead of 58 px, the same icons change a median 3.3%.
Pixels change where an icon has crisp edges, so the number measures fine detail: text, outlines and ornaments. An icon made of a few big flat shapes changes only along its outline. A stricter threshold (brightness differing by more than 16%) gives a 29 pt median of 2.8%, and a looser one (more than 6%) gives 7.1%, and the order of the charts below stays the same.
What survived at 29 pt?
All 100 icons were still recognisable at 29 pt: the main shape and colours survived in every one. Most of them are built the way small sizes reward. At least 82 of the 100 are a single symbol (40), a single letter or sign such as an M or a $ (24), or a wordmark (18). Only 7 are clearly an illustrated character (4) or a scene (3), and the two reviews put 11 icons in different groups.
Large words survive. Of the 24 icons that contain words, 20 stayed readable at 29 pt. In the icons we measured, letters about 11% of the icon's height or taller were still readable, as in the wordmarks of VIZIO and Roku. Apple's guidelines for app icons agree: text in an icon "is often too small to read easily".
What did 29 pt take away?
Eight of the 100 icons clearly lost something small at 29 pt, and eight more softened. The first group is where both reviews agreed, and the second is where only one of them counted the loss.
- Small print (4 icons). Text with letters about 8% of the icon's height or less blurred into grey bars: a sponsor line on an event icon, a company name above a shopping cart, the word "Life" under a T and a "TV" tag in a corner.
- Small marks (5 icons). A ring of stars around a mountain, coins scattered around a letter, spider webs on a ghost, the stars on a shield and the skyline on an event emblem turned into dots and smudges. The event emblem is also in the first group, which is why the two groups add up to eight icons, not nine.
- Softened (8 icons). Film-strip holes on two video apps, a row of tiny product icons above a wordmark, the swirls on a numeral, small chevrons on a button, a small badge on a game controller, an emblem on a card and the crown tips on a casino logo lost crispness without losing their meaning.
None of the 16 lost its main shape. In every case the part that identifies the icon was the big part. The more the reviewers saw lost, the more pixels changed: a median 5.0% for the 84 icons where nothing was lost, 7.8% for the 8 that softened and 11.3% for the 8 that clearly lost something.
Thin parts are the clearest warning sign. On flat backgrounds, the 6 icons that clearly lost something had a median 23% of their subject thinner than 2 px at 29 pt, against 0.4% for the 46 that lost nothing. It is a small sample, but it matches Apple's advice to avoid extremely thin line weights, which lose detail and crispness at small sizes.
Which kinds of icons change the most at 29 pt?
Games change the most at 29 pt: a median 9.8% of their pixels, nearly twice the 5.2% of the top 100 overall, and 52% of the top 50 free games change more than 9.6% of their pixels, a level only 10% of the top 100 icons pass. Food and Drink is next at 8.1%, and Productivity changes least at 3.8%.
The icons that changed most share a look: a game scene with several characters and objects, a food brand's emblem with a ring of small text, fine hatching or a line drawing. The ones that changed least are big single shapes and soft gradients, which have little detail to lose. Our guides to game app icon design and food app icons show what the top icons in those categories do.
More colours and busier backgrounds go with more change, and gradients change least, because soft colour transitions have few crisp edges to lose. This uses the 500 category icons and the colour counts from our colour study.
| Icons with | Number | Median pixels changed at 29 pt |
|---|---|---|
| Two main colours or fewer | 301 | 5.1% |
| Three or four main colours | 159 | 6.6% |
| Five or more main colours | 40 | 10.5% |
| A flat background | 228 | 5.2% |
| A gradient background | 82 | 3.8% |
| A busy background (a scene) | 190 | 7.0% |
Icons with five or more main colours changed twice as much as icons with two or fewer, and the pattern holds outside games: 9.1% against 5.1%, although only 14 of those icons have five or more colours.
How are the top icons built to survive 29 pt?
The top icons are big and bold: on flat backgrounds the subject spans a median 75% of the icon's width, and a median of only 1% of it is thinner than 2 px at 29 pt. This covers the 56 of the top 100 icons that have a flat background.
91% of these icons have a subject at least 60% as wide as the icon, and 61% at least 70%. Only 30% fall in the 60–70% range our guide to small-size legibility suggests, so treat that as a minimum rather than a target. 77% have less than 5% of the subject in parts thinner than 2 px.
Colour helps too. 72% of the top 100 icons use two main colours or fewer, and our colour study found the same preference across 500 category icons (60%, or 65% without games).
What should you do with these numbers?
The data describes what top apps do, not what causes downloads, but it gives six practical checks.
- Look at 58 px and 87 px, not only 180 px. Export your icon at 58 × 58 and 87 × 87 px and view both at 100% on a phone, or build every size with our free app icon resizer.
- Make the subject big. Aim for a subject 60–80% of the icon's width. The top icons' median is 75%.
- Keep every line thicker than 2 px at 29 pt. On a 2× screen that is 3.4% of the icon's width, about 35 px on a 1024 px canvas.
- Cut the small print. Words in the top icons stayed readable when the letters were about 11% of the icon's height or more, and blurred at about 8% or less. Include text only when it is essential to your brand.
- Treat small decorations as optional. Stars, coins, sparkles and dots turned into dots or vanished, so make sure the icon still works without them.
- Be extra careful with scenes, characters and many colours. Games and food brands changed most, and five or more main colours doubled the change.
Our guide to keeping an icon legible at small sizes shows how to test and fix each of these, and app icon design best practices covers the rest of the basics. To see how a simple subject holds up, generate it in a few styles and shrink each result to 58 px:
Frequently asked questions
What size is the app icon in iPhone Settings?
The app icon in iPhone Settings is 29 pt, which is 58 × 58 px on a 2× screen and 87 × 87 px on a 3× screen. A point is not a pixel: iOS multiplies points by the screen's scale. You don't have to supply that size yourself: from one 1024 × 1024 px image, Xcode generates it along with the 20 pt notification, 40 pt Spotlight and 60 pt Home Screen sizes.
Do app icons lose detail at small sizes?
Yes. In AI Icon Creator's test of the top 100 free iPhone apps, a median 5.2% of an icon's pixels changed at 29 pt on a 2× screen, against 1.9% at 60 pt. All 100 icons stayed recognisable, but 16 lost or softened small print or small marks, so keep the idea big and the details few.
Can you put text in an app icon?
You can, if the letters are large. In AI Icon Creator's test, 24 of the top 100 icons contained words and 20 of them stayed readable at 29 pt. The 4 that didn't had small print, with letters about 8% of the icon's height or less. Apple's guidelines advise including text only when it is essential.
What kind of app icon looks worst when it is small?
Icons with scenes, several colours, thin lines or small print look worst. In our test, games changed a median 9.8% of their pixels at 29 pt and Food and Drink icons 8.1%, against 5.2% for the top 100, and icons with five or more main colours changed twice as much as icons with two or fewer.
How do I check my app icon at 29 pt?
To check an app icon at 29 pt, export it at 58 × 58 px and 87 × 87 px and view both at 100% on a phone, next to the icons you compete with. Look for anything that has turned into a smudge: small print, thin lines and tiny marks. Our free app icon resizer builds every size from one square image.
Try it on your own idea, and check the result at 58 px: