html - Apple Touch icon for websites

Question

Up to now, I've been including the line for the Apple Touch icon in my head like this:

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/apple-touch-icon.png">

However, in the Q&A "What are the correct pixel dimensions for an apple-touch-icon?" it is stated in the accepted answer that three images are now needed according to Apple's guidelines.

So how would one go about inserting these into the head section of the code?

Answer 1

Minimalist solution - Recommended

A common practice is to create a single 180x180 icon, which is the highest expected resolution, and let the iOS devices scale it down as needed. It is declared with:

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/path/to/apple-touch-icon.png">

Exhaustive solution - Not recommended

Apple specs specify new sizes for iOS7:

• 60x60
• 76x76
• 120x120
• 152x152

And also for iOS8:

• 180x180

In addition, precomposed icons are deprecated.

As a consequence, to support both new devices (running iOS7) and older (iOS6 and prior), the generic code is:

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="57x57" href="/apple-touch-icon-57x57.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="114x114" href="/apple-touch-icon-114x114.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="72x72" href="/apple-touch-icon-72x72.png">    
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="144x144" href="/apple-touch-icon-144x144.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="60x60" href="/apple-touch-icon-60x60.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="120x120" href="/apple-touch-icon-120x120.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="76x76" href="/apple-touch-icon-76x76.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="152x152" href="/apple-touch-icon-152x152.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="/apple-touch-icon-180x180.png">

In addition, you should create a 180x180 picture named apple-touch-icon.png.

Note that iOS looks for URL like /apple-touch-icon-76x76.png, if it does not find interesting stuff in the HTML code (a bit like what IE is doing with /favicon.ico). So it is important to keep the file names are they are above. It is also important to consider that Android/Chrome is also using these pictures.

You might want to know that this favicon generator can create all these pictures at once. Full disclosure: I'm the author of this site.