On Apple Watch your icon is a small circle on a dark screen. Details that look fine on iPhone disappear there, so the design has to work inside that circle.
watchOS masks app icons into a circle. You still hand it square layers, and the system cuts the circle. Anything near the corners is gone, so the main shape has to sit in the middle.
The examples above are shown as rounded squares, the way they look on iPhone and Mac. On Apple Watch the same kind of layered design is cut into a circle and shown much smaller, so bold, simple shapes matter even more.
Apple Watch icons use a 1088 × 1088 pixel canvas, a little bigger than the 1024 one for iPhone, iPad and Mac.
Apple asks you to lighten a black background on watchOS, so the icon doesn't blend into the dark display around it.
Unlike iPhone and Mac, watch icons have no dark, clear or tinted versions. Icon Composer shows no looks to preview for watchOS.
If your Watch app comes with an iPhone app, Apple wants the two icons to look like the same app. One Icon Composer file holds the circular watchOS version next to the iPhone one, so the two are designed side by side.
See iPhone app icons for the iPhone side, or app icon sizes for every size Apple uses.
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Round on the watch. You design square layers and watchOS cuts them into a circle, so the important part has to sit in the center.
1088 × 1088 pixels, a little bigger than the 1024 × 1024 canvas for iPhone, iPad and Mac. The system makes the smaller sizes from it.
It should. Apple asks for a consistent icon across platforms. One Icon Composer file can hold both the iPhone and the Apple Watch version, so they are designed side by side.
No. watchOS has one look for app icons, so there's no dark, clear or tinted version to design. Avoid a black background, though: it blends into the watch screen.
More answers in the main FAQ.