3D Touch Quick Action Icons

Feb 11, 2016

I've recently been experimenting with adding 3D touch quick action menus to some of my apps.

These quick actions can be a very useful way to provide fast access to specific sections of an app, and are relatively easy to implement in a Cordova app through the use of a Cordova plugin.

At the time of writing this, the only devices that can use these quick action menus are the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, but since 3D touch technology will presumably spread to all iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices at some time in the future, it's probably a good feature to add to your app (assuming your app is one that would benefit from quick actions).

There appears to be several 3D touch related Cordova plugins available, but I've been testing out the great 'cordova-plugin-3dtouch' by Eddy Verbruggen (Thanks Eddy!) and it has worked flawlessly so far.

The plugin provides three different ways to customize the appearance of the quick actions:

  1. Use text only
  2. Use text and a custom icon added to an Asset Catalog within your app
  3. Use text and a built-in icon provided by iOS

Apple's official documentation in relation to the built-in icons (UIApplicationShortcutIcon) can be found here, but I thought it might be handy to create a concise reference table with all of the icons that can be used.

So here it is:

iconTypeIconAvailable Since
AddAddiOS 9.0
AlarmAlarmiOS 9.1
AudioAudioiOS 9.1
BookmarkBookmarkiOS 9.1
CapturePhotoCapturePhotoiOS 9.1
CaptureVideoCaptureVideoiOS 9.1
CloudCloudiOS 9.1
ComposeNewComposeNewiOS 9.0
ConfirmationConfirmationiOS 9.1
ContactContactiOS 9.1
DateDateiOS 9.1
FavoriteFavoriteiOS 9.1
HomeHomeiOS 9.1
InvitationInvitationiOS 9.1
LocationLocationiOS 9.0
LoveLoveiOS 9.1
MailMailiOS 9.1
MarkLocationMarkLocationiOS 9.1
MessageMessageiOS 9.1
PausePauseiOS 9.0
PlayPlayiOS 9.0
ProhibitProhibitiOS 9.1
SearchSearchiOS 9.0
ShareShareiOS 9.0
ShuffleShuffleiOS 9.1
TaskTaskiOS 9.1
TaskCompletedTaskCompletediOS 9.1
TimeTimeiOS 9.1
UpdateUpdateiOS 9.1

All of these icons are the ones provided by Apple, reproduced here purely for developer convenience. More details can be found in Apple's documentation. Some of these icons have been available since iOS 9.0, but most of them have only been available since iOS 9.1. All of the icons are present in iOS 9.2, but new versions of iOS could change them or add more.

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