Tricking iOS into Animating Icons

Let's create the wildest home screen effects that iOS has ever seen!
Demo Project: github.com/bry...
Text post for this video: bryce.co/anima...

[@brycedotco]

Hey y'all - completely overwhelmed by the response to this. More videos on the way! ❤

[@Hazem-Gt]

Hi

[@anushtabhtv]

Hey! Can you make the GitHub icon convert into the Pedro Pedro Racoon?

[@CapybaraBros-lc9xd]

can you try to make a video on how to do this on windows?

[@nicholasvarner2706]

@@CapybaraBros-lc9xdyou can’t unfortunately; unless you were to access an internet hosted mac server and work through that. IOS development can only be done through Xcode, and Xcode is only available on macOS

[@edorion6212]

"oh nice, animated icons ! I guess this won't be too complicated" Opens IDA

[@petethepete]

💀

[@Sound_.-Safari]

Underrated comment of the century

[@brycedotco]

we like to make things complicated here

[@bb010g]

if you're not opening your decompiler are you even having a good time?

[@Sound_.-Safari]

Takes me back to using IDA to remove the 7 day free trial limit from IDA (for science)

Came for the animated icons, stayed for the insane low level debugging skills. What a gem of a channel, please don't stop making videos, I binged all of them already.

[@pta103]

You don't have a tag?

[@steve_1507]

I'm waiting for someone to port Bad Apple to this

[@generimposter]

Or running doom on iOS icon

[@abc-oo8ce]

@@generimposter How to control

[@Bari-gd]

​@@generimposter or watching ht1t on the icon

[@midnite59]

@@abc-oo8cepress other icons!

[@aw1lt]

@@abc-oo8cea widget

[@_tomch]

This channel is scratching an itch I genuinely didn’t even know I had

[@stephn.]

this is sick, I never thought this would be possible on something as proprietary as iOS. hope you get some more recognition cause after watching your other videos too you've become one of my favourite coding channels

[@SrIgort]

I guess they wouldn't allow you to submit apps with this trick to AppStore though

[@anianii]

Pretty much anything is possible on iOS as long as you get a valid code signature. Just won't get it approved for App Stores

[@kreuner11]

How did they make the clock icon? I wish they let us

[@denisblack9897]

They will, when TikTok eats another half of our brain. They eventually will, 100%

[@aw1lt]

or even cooler- the compass icon

[@crackedEgg]

It's not actually an icon, it's rendered by SpringBoard.

[@mebeim]

@@aw1lt wait what makes the compass icon special? Seems like a normal static icon to me.

[@Cmanorange]

@@mebeim rotate your phone on the short axis for a surprise

[@GJToken]

Its probably already been asked, but the iOS Clock app shows the current time as an icon, there must be another way to animate an icon somehow or they're just holding out the secret sauce for themselves

[@Nightcaat]

The clock hands and calendar date are rendered by SpringBoard

[@Exilorian]

@Nightcaat , that’s probably the case, and the only way to do it the proper apple way we would need some sort of jailbreak tweak to do it

[@Avighna]

This is a really cool video. You’ve highlighted the perks of knowing reverse engineering really well with excellent explanations. Good job, and I had fun watching this.

[@Run1nho]

Thank you for this video. Just binged all of them. The best reverse engineering iOS content I have seen on the internet 🚀

[@_opa334]

Nice video! One miniscule thing I wanted to note though is that the "LS" in the APIs does not mean "Lock Screen", it means "Launch Services" and the APIs communicate with the "lsd" daemon :P.

[@brycedotco]

Serves me right for trying to guess an acronym on the fly - especially since we weren't even looking at the lock screen for this one 🤦 Thanks Lars / appreciate you!

[@illuminum8576]

That workaround is actually amazing, thank you YT algorithm for finally recommending me a channel I want to watch

[@kibbewater]

I think I just found the most underrated channel on KZbin, great work!!

[@GiovanniKody100]

Overrated*

[@benmitchinson9831]

Dude this is so cool. Great edit, was super satisfying to feel like I was problem solving with you, even though I've never written a line of swift. Great great stuff. Looking forward to checking out your other vids!

[@JollyTVance]

Mark my words: Apple will make this harder to do in an upcoming version of iOS, and then a few versions later they'll impmement this as an "innovative" new feature

[@JoelGorostieta]

Look at the clock app icon, it the current time and you can see the second hand moving. They must do something like this

[@Brixster]

@@JoelGorostietathe clock, compass, and calendar icons are rendered directly by Springboard. you could argue that it's sorta hardcoded into the OS and not really a specific function call that the clock app is uniquely tapping into

[@klnsbl]

@@Brixstercompass too? it looks static to me

[@SideLoadingScripts]

@@klnsbliOS 17 removed the moving compass.

[@arden6725]

they will absolutely remove access to the undocumented api in the next update

[@jiskac]

Thank you! Love the intuitive yet technical detailled explanations of how to figure out block formats, as well as mentioning what happens under the hood 👩‍💻

[@decryptmars]

Hear me out: Original iPhoneOS KZbin icon as an animated icon that plays an actual youtube video

[@mcrich23]

Rick roll

[@deepansharya1111]

Not possible, the approach in this video is not playing any animated video or gif in the app icon, it is replacing the icon with a sequence of images that looks like the icon is animated. KZbin videos won’t work

[@jackg_]

@@deepansharya1111 Possible, but pointlessly hard and pretty useless. You could *technically* download the video, separate it frame by frame.... too much work already.

[@Amirka1719]

@@deepansharya1111 , actualy, a video is nothing else that a bunch of icons/images changed fast enought not to notice)

[@deepansharya1111]

@@Amirka1719 @jackg_ I knew that already & thanks for reaffirming. I mentioned it’s not possible because you can’t download the video in real-time and simultaneously convert each frame to an image and update it in the app icon, not to mention you’d also require youtube premium features to keep the background video playing at all times in case you hop back in the app and want the video to continue playing from the frame you last saw on app icon.

[@worldadmin9811]

never dev'd on mac and watched the whole thing. super cool watch man!

[@hihilogic]

This is actually super cool, deserves more exposure ❤️

[@el.blanco552]

I feel like this is going to be the future of app icons and brand logos, flowing, moving, more eye catching icons or advertisements placed throughout all storefronts or even in side advertising the products themselves.

[@theoldknowledge6778]

You can actually display informations with this (like the clock app displays the current time) cool!

[@honeydoneapp]

This is nothing short of wizardry. Please PLEASE don't stop posting

[@iOSAcademy]

Great video!

[@theocrandall]

Would love to see some live streams, so see the unedited thought process and problem solving. This kind of stuff is so fun to watch live when it is someone this skilled doing it.

[@Kn0tzer]

i’ve created something similar to this in the shortcuts app except it changes your wallpaper to make it a video. never ended up finishing it since ios 17 puts a 50ms limit on how fast actions can run making the fps too low to be practical. (this is good though since you can kinda crash ios by changing between wallpaper states too fast, i learned the hard way)

[@valeekatona]

are u working for Apple? Or how tf someone can be this good? level God.

[@RyanLynch1]

you fly through that low level debugging. incredible

[@enderteck3273]

This 100% should be in every Android Launcher, should be easy too.

[@thatETTYT]

IOS too, but Apple would NEVER give developers this much freedom, we're lucky they allow us to change the icons with this.

[@enderteck3273]

@@thatETTYT I know, that's why it would happen in Android Launchers first/only. Apple doesn't care about making good changes until their products are below average or until the EU gives them rules to follow (like the USB C port).

[@AamitRudberg]

Its complicated af yet i understood every little bit. Youre good at this

[@Zytron]

Wish I'd seen this back when I was in Mobile App Dev class during the semester for IOS. I so would've shown this off in one of my app challenges

[@ThatSocialKid]

Bro when he said click subscribe KZbin Animated the Subscribe icon! 😆

[@pietsous]

This most inspiring and refreshing iOS development material out lately. Keep up the great work 👍🏼

[@encodedlife]

* bows with respect

[@Pfahli94]

Now I want to watch shrek inside an icon on my homescreen.

[@42xzero]

Man this video deserves a million views!, subscribed

[@carterpape]

holy shit bro I NEED more Apple OS development and reverse engineering videos from you

[@bigmanentertainment1803]

iOS programmers learning to code perfectly and practice all possible loopholes known to mankind, just to get animations on an icon.

[@computerfan1079]

First time I actually understand decomp. Great job!

[@smotch7533]

Why would I subscribe before watching the video. edit after watching: This was awesome, subbed.

[@ivanvega9100]

Holy, this is one of the best videos I have ever seen and I have watched a lot throughout my life hahahah

[@tjnangosha]

Your debugging is over the top!

[@kryptonian69]

watch apple steal this and showcase it as "worlds first innovative animated icons"

[@Gameplayer55055]

Wants to add animated icons Ends up cracking denuvo

[@valeekatona]

as a junior dev, amazed on your knowledge. I want to learn swift and things like this, you should teach US from 0 to hero.

[@kitchenarbabvlog]

Very Good Excellent 👍 Sharing 👏 good work thanks for this video 📸 greetings 👍

[@disgruntleddev]

What sorcery is this…

[@henrysanecdotes5323]

Holy crap this is insane. Thank you THANK YOU for making this video

[@LiamHighducheck]

Do you know how to stop iOS from autopausing music when you enter certain apps?

[@Oldy573]

Открыл для себя приватные апи 🎉 Когда-нибудь откроет, что можно напрямую месседжи слать нсклассам, сделанным из стрингов, без использования хедеров 😂

[@Flor-ian]

This is awesome, I’m really glad I was served your channel. You’ve earned a new sub. Your explanation of faking the Boolean success was very interesting

[@mish]

Incredible technical deep dive. Great work mate!

[@MrNobodyX3]

This is amazing and needs to be used more

[@alexarze9769]

This is a beautiful breakdown! Unrelated… what is the map decor in the background??

[@mobiledevlife]

This is awesome, haha! 🎉 As a mobile developer myself, I really enjoy watching this kind of content, and I didn't know it was possible 😂

[@andrewarnopoulos1819]

Would you be able to achieve the same result with an animated png and calling the private API?

[@isurujn]

This is so cool. I always wanted to see how reverse engineering private iOS APIs looked like.

[@mathiasvojtek3545]

Impressive! Please upload more content like this

[@gospodbog]

Before this video I dared to think I was a senior iOS dev

[@joshofosho3]

Can you turn this into a jailbreak tweak? 👀

[@timothybradford8216]

Waaay over my head. Sorry for the bad click through rate.

[@Qiuvox]

Do it for android. Must be way easier to make an icon pack tbh

[@rezq2883]

This video is extremely beautiful… nothing but respect! I never knew messing with iOS was this accessible 😛 (with the right knowledge and tools…)

[@gFamWeb]

I built my own setup for calling private API's in Swift that doesn't require a header file. Instead, though, you have to define the function shape as a typealias. But it works!

[@gFamWeb]

Granted, I'm more of a security researcher than a dev, so it may not really be useful in these cases. My method dynamically links at runtime, which may have performance issues.

[@ccf_1004]

Apple: "Nooo, you can't make animated app icons, that goes against our UI design principles!" iOS Devs: :trollface:

[@HIGH-TUNE-f]

The clock app:

[@ZynSays]

This is a) cool and b) probably a great way to get your app store submission rejected. :D

[@tonyjaimep]

Loved the video and the low-level debugging with such great explaining One thing that kind of OCD-d me out - your window management could be more consistent and visually appealing with a window manager line rectangle (free)

[@mredig]

Broke my phone screen smashing that subscribe button

[@justinwlin]

This insanely impressive. definitely one my newer programming ytbers to follow 🔥

[@buresdv]

This is awesome! I love watching your videos, I'm sick of all the beginner tutorials. Keep it up!

[@owRekssjfjxjxuurrpqpqss]

Can’t imagine how annoying it would be to have dozens of icons moving around constantly

[@lampree]

This is super cool and a side of iOS I wish I knew more about

[@bb010g]

Great introduction to reversing! Very enjoyable. I'm a bit envious of how IDA handles those blocks; Binary Ninja requires more manual work to get them decently readable. :)

[@e.6z1]

woah that's neat! subscribed :3

[@protodimbo]

i need a whole course about ios app reversing

[@sherlockluk2225]

you should do more of these Private API videos

[@kanauvist]

wow that is amazing. great video

[@tdrg_]

Incredible work, thanks for the video and the source code!

[@fabian3411]

This is genuinely so impressive

[@RKBDl]

this animation with youtube also worked with dislike that is so cool

[@jesuscr1tikal]

next up, put shrek movie as the app icon

[@SWinxyTheCat]

wow that's sick! quite involved trickery.

[@j0hnr3x]

I didn't know Apple allows you to change/call internal methods on iOS

[@danielridzon]

Nice work 🙌 Great showcase of the more advanced debugging capabilities of using lldb and decompiler It would be funny to see the reaction of the Apple Review team 😅

[@arjundureja]

Amazing. I could see production apps on macOS using this to update the app icon in the background

[@theairaccumulator7144]

Hopefully not as it's a stupid hack

[@zuman_one]

This got me interested in iOS development

[@ashadsaeed2514]

keep making videos my guy 😊

[@Flaming-Wolf]

Wow! This is so cool! Do you think the same effect is possible to replicate on Samsung phones?

[@valvium]

When he said subscribe my button lit up

[@yeknommonkey]

This video highlights to me firmly that I am on the stupid end user side of using a computer.

[@06howea1]

iOS development needs to be more accessible!

[@XKurrA]

I don't even know why I'm even watching this, I'm never going to daily drive an iPhone

[@JustAlexanderThings]

You really did reverse-engineer the whole this, very interesting video!

[@bobgodwinx]

😂 the best part of the video is when he smiled after destroying Apple engineers... 😂 23:11

[@scotdotwtf]

finally someone who’s doing gods work 😭 i hate the insane limits apple puts on ios

[@ashwinalagiri-rajan1180]

i wonder if this is how the clock icon is animated

[@tamertamertamer4874]

No the hands are just separate objects rendered on top of the static icon. It’s hard coded to the clock app so it can’t be replicated by any other apps

[@AwesomeAR]

never felt worse about my career as an ios dev lol

[@Vortex_Studios_]

Did someone say live tiles? * Grins intensely *

[@gFamWeb]

20:05, that looks like a mangled name. I would think there are Objective C demanglers out there that help you avoid hand-decoding it.

[@AryaShah-gj7se]

Why is no one is talking aboud the subscribe button animation if you are not in full screen. At 0:10 , it had a little rainbow border.

[@octubre_lilaka]

Actually yeah that's weirdly interesting. I'm surprised I haven't heard anybody else mention this before. I wonder how long it's been there