14 DAY TRIAL // Live tiles are one of the signature features currently on Windows phones, and there’s no doubt that they managed to set Microsoft’s mobile platform apart from Android and iOS which stick with more or less static icons.
But it looks like Apple is at least exploring possibilities of making iOS icons more dynamic, as a new feature aimed at developers and packed into iOS 10.3 betas brings new functionality to the home screen.
Specifically, as iDownloadBlog reports, developers will be allowed to change their apps’ icons in iOS 10.3 without an update, as is currently the case in the existing versions of iOS.
In other words, developers can trigger the icon change based on certain events, so they can specify one or more alternative icons that can be activated without pushing an app update through the store. These icon changes can occur programmatically whenever the developer wants or when a certain action requires it.
iOS vs. Windows Phone
But does this mean that Apple wants to copy the Windows Phone live tiles? Not precisely, especially because Apple is aiming at a different behavior with this update.
For example, app icons can be changed during promotional campaigns or during special times of the year, such as Easter or Christmas. An update wouldn’t be necessary for the new icons to kick in, as the only thing they’d need would be the time and date of the device.
But at the same time, Apple can also offer functionality inspired from Windows phones. As the aforementioned source notes, the Weather app icon can refresh to display a different icon based on weather conditions or even to show the current temperature when a refresh is performed in the background.
Apple is already boasting this kind of functionality, although very limited, for some of its own apps, as is the case of Calendar, whose icon changes every day to show the date, and Clock, which displays the time live at any given moment. The new update, however, will expand this functionality to developers and give them more controls to bring their app icons to life.
iOS 10.3 is still in beta for the time being and it’s expected to debut later this year, so developers will have enough time to get their apps ready before this happens.