Android Adaptive Launcher Icons

Android 8.0 (API level 26) introduces adaptive launcher icons, which can display a variety of shapes across different device models. For example, an adaptive launcher icon can display a circular shape on one OEM device, and display a squircle (square circle) on another device.

Adaptive Icon

If you haven’t updated your app, the launcher icon can all of a sudden look rather bad. Adaptive Icon

Making adaptive launcher icons

Basically, you still specify the png images, but the OS will prefer launcher icons specified in xml with vectors. You can specify a foreground and background or just one of those. Specifying both would allow the background colour to take on different shapes, while the foreground stays constant with app branding.

<adaptive-icon xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <background android:drawable="@drawable/ic_launcher_background" />
    <foreground android:drawable="@drawable/ic_launcher_foreground" />
</adaptive-icon>

Example manifest