Hi, I updated my app to work with Instinct watches but I have trouble related to glance icon. It is not shown. In glances list there is white circle instead of icon on real watch.
My launcher icon is SVG. I tried both white icon on transparent background and black icon on transparent background but result it the same.
In simulator everything is fine.
Any advices?
I would guess that:
- all AMOLED devices will have a black background for the activity/app list
- all currently supported MIP devices (e.g. Fenix 7, fr255/fr955) will have a black background. (Since they share a codebase with their AMOLED cousins, a lot of white background scenarios have apparently been removed, except for the big ones - watchfaces and data pages)
For older devices, it may vary. For example, fr935 has a black background for non-favorites, but a white background for favorites.
That's why I agree that it's preferable to have a transparent background for icons.
Not only will it match what Garmin does (notice how none of their activity/app icons have a visible square / square-ish background that delineates them from the overall background), it will also work with either a white or black background, as long as the foreground is designed properly
Interestingly, I have a CIQ app called "stopwatch + timer" on my fr935 — the app icon is monochrome (with both black and white elements on the foreground.)
Note how it's designed with a black outline around the white elements so that it looks ok on either a white background or black background. And note how the background area on the outside of the icon is clearly transparent (as it takes on the colour of the overall background.)
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TL;DR if you don't know whether the background will be white or black, you'll have to design for either possibility. Use transparency for the icon background (same as Garmin apparently does), and make sure the foreground looks good against either a white or black background. Similarly, if you had to display black or white text as a graphic, and you didn't know whether the background will be black or white, an easy solution would be to use black text with a white outline or vice-versa.
Alternatively, if you only support new devices (especially AMOLED devices), you can probably just assume the background will always be black.
