IOS7 draw ios app icon at runtime?

Question

How to change iOS app icon programmatically like in iOS 7 Clock app? The iOS 7 Clock app icon shows the current time, complete with moving second hand.

Answer 1

Apple always had some cool private APIs which we developers aren't allowed to use in production Apps, the animated App-Icon is one of them. Most of the time it's to save the experience for the user. Imagine every App uses an auto-updating Icon. The battery-life would go down and it would be a mess on the homescreen when everything is moving and blinking.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userexperience/conceptual/mobilehig/AppIcons.html

Answer 2

Unfortunately this is not possible.

You cannot dynamically change your icon. Apple uses private APIs to achieve that. You may be able to achieve this with a jailbroken phone, but I've never tried that.

Answer 3

It's not possible. Apple doesn't allow it for 3rd party apps.

Your app icon is read-only and can't be modified at runtime.

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/AppKit/Reference/NSRunningApplication_Class/Reference/Reference.html#//apple_ref/occ/instp/NSRunningApplication/icon