iOS Launch Screen: Image Sizes and Best Practices

What Is a Launch Screen?

A launch screen (sometimes called a splash screen) is the first thing users see when they tap your app icon. iOS displays it instantly — before your app process has finished loading — so the transition from the home screen feels smooth. Rather than staring at a blank white rectangle for a second or two, users see a branded placeholder that gives the impression the app launched immediately.

Apple requires every app submitted to the App Store to include a launch screen. Beyond the requirement, a well-designed launch screen improves perceived performance. Human perception of speed is heavily influenced by the first visual response: if something appears on screen within roughly 100 ms, the interaction feels instantaneous. The launch screen fills that gap between the tap and the moment your first real view controller is ready.

For a deeper look at how screen density and pixel scaling affect the images you place on a launch screen, see the complete DPI guide.

Why Apple Moved to Storyboard-Based Launch Screens

Before iOS 8, developers shipped a set of static PNG images — one for every supported screen size. Every time Apple released a device with new dimensions, you had to generate yet another image and update the asset catalog. This approach scaled poorly: by 2014 there were already more than half a dozen unique iPhone and iPad screen sizes.

Starting with iOS 8, Apple introduced LaunchScreen.storyboard, a single Interface Builder file that uses Auto Layout constraints to adapt to any screen size and orientation automatically. Since June 2020, the App Store has required a storyboard-based launch screen for all new submissions — static launch images alone are no longer accepted.

The storyboard approach is better in every practical way: a single file replaces a dozen PNGs, it adapts to future screen sizes without an app update, and it supports Dark Mode natively through trait collections.

How the Storyboard Approach Works

A launch screen storyboard is a standard Interface Builder file containing a single view controller scene. You design it exactly like any other storyboard scene — drop in UIImageView, UILabel, or plain UIView elements and pin them with Auto Layout constraints.

At launch, iOS reads the storyboard file directly (no compiled Swift or Objective-C code runs at this point). This means you cannot use custom classes, IBActions, or dynamic data. Everything must be expressible purely through Interface Builder's static elements. The practical result is that launch screens are fast, reliable, and consistent.

A typical layout places a centered UIImageView containing a logo on a solid-color background. Auto Layout constraints pin the image to the center of the safe area and give it a fixed width and height, while the background view fills the entire screen. Because the constraints are resolution-independent, the same storyboard renders correctly on a 4.7-inch iPhone SE and a 12.9-inch iPad Pro without any changes.

iPhone and iPad Screen Sizes

Even though the storyboard handles layout automatically, you still need to provide image assets at the correct pixel densities. The table below lists the screen resolutions for current and recent devices — these are the dimensions iOS actually renders.

Notice that every modern iPhone uses either @2x or @3x scaling, while iPads use @2x. You no longer need to supply @1x assets for any currently supported device. For a full breakdown of app icon dimensions across these devices, see the iOS app icon sizes guide.

Using Image Assets in the Storyboard

When your launch screen includes an image — a logo, brand mark, or background graphic — that image must be added to an Xcode Asset Catalog (Assets.xcassets). Inside the catalog, create an Image Set and supply the @2x and @3x variants. Xcode will display two wells labeled "2x" and "3x"; drag the appropriately sized file into each.

For example, if your logo should appear as 120 x 120 points on screen, prepare a 240 x 240 px file for the @2x slot and a 360 x 360 px file for the @3x slot. Always start from the highest-resolution source artwork and scale down — never upscale, as it introduces blur. A tool like App Image Kit can generate both density variants from a single source image automatically.

Choosing the right file format matters, too. PNG is the standard for launch screen images because iOS natively decodes it without additional libraries. For a comparison of when PNG, WebP, or SVG is the better choice, see the PNG vs WebP vs SVG guide.

Dark Mode Support

Since iOS 13, the system can switch between Light and Dark appearance at the user's discretion. Launch screens support this through two mechanisms in the Asset Catalog:

• Named Colors — Create a Color Set in Assets.xcassets with separate values for "Any Appearance" and "Dark". Reference this named color as the background of your launch screen view. iOS selects the correct variant at runtime.
• Image Trait Collections — Inside an Image Set, open the Attributes Inspector and change the "Appearances" dropdown from "None" to "Any, Dark". Xcode will add a second row of wells for Dark Mode images. Supply a dark-appropriate version of your logo or graphic in those slots.

With both a named background color and dark-aware image assets, your launch screen automatically adapts when the user enables Dark Mode — no code required.

Common Launch Screen Patterns

Apple's Human Interface Guidelines recommend keeping the launch screen minimal. The two most common patterns are:

Legacy Static Launch Images

Before iOS 8, the only option was to provide a separate PNG file for every device resolution and orientation. These images were named by convention — [email protected], [email protected], Default-Portrait@2x~ipad.png — and placed in the app bundle.

Xcode still recognizes these assets in older projects, and some cross-platform build systems (Cordova, older React Native templates) may generate them. However, Apple no longer accepts apps that rely solely on static launch images. If you are maintaining a legacy project, the recommended migration path is straightforward: create a LaunchScreen.storyboard, design a simple centered-logo layout, and update your target's General settings to reference the new storyboard.

Best Practices

• Keep it simple. The launch screen is visible for less than a second on modern hardware. Complex layouts, animations, or detailed artwork will not be noticed — they only increase asset size and maintenance burden.
• Match your app's initial UI. Apple explicitly recommends designing the launch screen to resemble the first screen of your app (minus dynamic content). This creates a seamless visual transition that makes the app feel faster.
• Avoid text that needs localization. Launch screens are static resources — they do not support NSLocalizedString or any runtime code. If you place text on the launch screen, it will display the same string regardless of the user's language. Stick to logos or wordmarks that do not change between locales.
• Test on multiple simulators. Verify your launch screen in the iOS Simulator for at least one device from each size class: an iPhone SE (compact width), an iPhone 15 Pro Max (large width), and an iPad in both portrait and landscape.
• Supply both @2x and @3x assets. Missing a density variant forces iOS to scale at runtime, which can produce blurry results — especially noticeable for sharp logos and text marks.
• Clear the launch screen cache during development. iOS caches the rendered launch screen aggressively. If your changes are not appearing, delete the app from the simulator, run xcrun simctl erase all, or clean the build folder in Xcode.

Summary

The modern iOS launch screen is a lightweight storyboard file that uses Auto Layout to adapt to every screen size Apple ships — now and in the future. Provide your logo and brand images as @2x and @3x variants in an Asset Catalog, use Named Colors for Dark Mode, and keep the design minimal. This approach replaces the old static-image workflow entirely, reduces your app bundle size, and guarantees a polished first impression on every device.

Need to generate @2x and @3x variants from a single source file? App Image Kit handles it in seconds — entirely in the browser, with no uploads.