Icon design follows platform guidelines

An icon that violates platform visual rules isn't just aesthetically off — it signals to App Store and Play Store reviewers that the app is unpolished and may trigger manual scrutiny. On iOS, pre-rounding corners before export causes a double-rounding artifact: the OS clips the icon again with its squircle mask, creating visible banding on every home screen. On Android, icons with excessive fine detail or thin strokes become unrecognizable at mdpi (48×48), the density shipped on entry-level devices that still make up a significant share of installs in growth markets. Apple's Human Interface Guidelines (apple-hig-app-icons) explicitly call out these failure modes as grounds for rejection. A visually degraded icon undercuts store conversion rates before users open the listing.

Fix iOS icons by removing any pre-applied corner rounding from the source file — export a sharp-cornered square and let iOS apply its squircle mask. For Android, verify the icon reads clearly at 48×48 by exporting a test thumbnail.

// app.json — reference a clean, non-pre-rounded source
{
  "expo": {
    "icon": "./assets/icon.png"
  }
}

Design rules: keep the focal element within 80% of the canvas (iOS safe area), use solid fills or bold shapes with stroke weights ≥4px at 1024×1024 scale, and verify the icon at 48×48 and 64×64 test sizes before exporting. Use Figma or Sketch's export preset to confirm no rounding is baked in.