How should I design an iPad app using Apple's HIG?

Apple's HIG recommends using sidebars instead of bottom tab bars on iPadOS, supporting split views for multitasking, and adding pointer interactions. Apple HIG Skills provides instant, AI-ready guidance on all iPadOS conventions.

What are Apple's guidelines for adding Apple Pay?

Apple's HIG specifies exact payment button placement, flow design, error states, and UX patterns required for App Store approval. Apple HIG Skills gives your AI agent access to the full Apple Pay design guidelines.

How do I make my Apple app accessible?

Apple's HIG requires support for VoiceOver, Dynamic Type, sufficient color contrast ratios, and motor accessibility features like Switch Control. Apple HIG Skills covers all accessibility foundations and requirements.

How do I design for visionOS and Apple Vision Pro?

Apple's HIG for visionOS covers ornaments, volumes, immersive spaces, eye tracking, and spatial interaction patterns. Apple HIG Skills includes dedicated visionOS platform guidance and spatial layout references.

What are Apple's dark mode design guidelines?

Apple's HIG specifies using system semantic colors, material backgrounds, elevated surfaces, and vibrancy for dark mode. Apps should test in both modes and avoid hard-coded color values. Apple HIG Skills covers the full dark mode specification.

How should I design notifications for iOS apps?

Apple's HIG covers notification grouping, Live Activities, action buttons, and respecting user attention. Apple HIG Skills provides guidelines for the full notification system including widgets and complications.

iMessage apps and stickers

An iMessage app can help people share content, collaborate, and even play games with others in a conversation; stickers are images that people can use to decorate a conversation.

A sketch of the iMessage App Store icon. The image is overlaid with rectangular and circular grid lines and is tinted blue to subtly reflect the blue in the original six-color Apple logo.

An iMessage app or sticker pack is available within the context of a Messages conversation and also in effects in both Messages and FaceTime. You can create an iMessage app or sticker pack as a standalone app or as an app extension within your iOS or iPadOS app. For developer guidance, see Messages and Adding Sticker packs and iMessage apps to the system Stickers app, Messages camera, and FaceTime.

Best practices

Prefer providing one primary experience in your iMessage app. People are in a conversational flow when they choose your app, so your functionality or content needs to be easy to understand and immediately available. If you want to provide multiple types of functionality or different collections of content, consider creating a separate iMessage app for each one.

Consider surfacing content from your iOS or iPadOS app. For example, your iMessage app could offer app-specific information that people might want to share — such as a shopping list or a trip itinerary — or support a simple, collaborative task, like deciding where to go for a meal or which movie to watch.

Present essential features in the compact view. People can experience your iMessage app in a compact view that appears below the message transcript, or they can expand the view to occupy most of the window. Make sure the most frequently used items are available in the compact view, reserving additional content and features for the expanded view.

In general, let people edit text only in the expanded view. The compact view occupies roughly the same space as the keyboard. To ensure that the iMessage app’s content remains visible while people edit, display the keyboard in the expanded view.

Create stickers that are expressive, inclusive, and versatile. Whether your stickers are rich, static images or short animations, make sure that each one remains legible against a wide range of backgrounds and when rotated or scaled. You can also use transparency to help people visually integrate a sticker with text, photos, and other stickers.

For each sticker, provide a localized alternative description. VoiceOver can help people use your sticker pack by speaking a sticker’s alternative description.

Specifications

Icon sizes

The icon for an iMessage app or sticker pack can appear in Messages, the App Store, notifications, and Settings. After people install your iMessage app or sticker pack, its icon also appears in the app drawer in the Messages app.

You supply a square-cornered icon for each extension you offer, and the system automatically applies a mask that rounds the corners.

To ensure that your icon looks great in any context and on various devices, create a square-cornered icon in the following sizes:

Usage| @2x (pixels)| @3x (pixels)
---|---|---
Messages, notifications| 148x110| -
| 143x100| -
| 120x90| 180x135
| 64x48| 96x72
| 54x40| 81x60
Settings| 58x58| 87x87
App Store| 1024x1024| 1024x1024

Sticker sizes

Messages supports small, regular, and large stickers. Pick the size that works best for your content and prepare all of your stickers at that size; don’t mix sizes within a single sticker pack. Messages displays stickers in a grid, organized differently for different sizes.

An illustration showing a grid of small stickers in the bottom half of an iPhone screen. Eight stickers are visible in the area, followed by a partial row of four, arranged in three rows.

Small

An illustration showing a grid of regular stickers in the bottom half of an iPhone screen. Six stickers are visible in the area, in two rows of three.

Regular

An illustration showing a grid of large stickers in the bottom half of an iPhone screen. Two stickers are fully visible in the area, followed by a partial row of two additional stickers.

Large

Create your sticker images using the following @3x dimensions for the sticker size you chose. If necessary, the system generates @2x and @1x versions by downscaling the images at runtime. For developer guidance, see MSStickerSize.

Sticker size| @3x dimensions (pixels)
---|---
Small| 300x300
Regular| 408x408
Large| 618x618

A sticker file must be 500 KB or smaller in size. For each supported format, the table below provides guidance for using transparency and animation.

Format| Transparency| Animation
---|---|---
PNG| 8-bit| No
APNG| 8-bit| Yes
GIF| Single-color| Yes
JPEG| No| No

iMessage apps and stickers

iMessage apps and stickers

Best practices

Specifications

Icon sizes

Sticker sizes

Platform considerations

Resources

Developer documentation

Videos

Change log

Get HIG guidance in your AI