Android APK launcher icon has wide white border/padding since v1.8.1

[StrideLeo]

Describe the bug

Since v1.8.1, the Android APK launcher icon has a wide white border/padding around it. The icon image is too small and does not fill the icon canvas, resulting in an ugly white margin on the home screen. The last version with a correct icon was v1.8.0 — all versions from v1.8.1 onwards (including the latest v1.8.8) are affected.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Download Blinko_1.8.8_universal.apk from the v1.8.8 release page
2. Install it on an Android device
3. Look at the app icon on the home screen / app drawer
4. See the wide white border around the icon

Expected behavior
The app icon should fill the entire icon canvas without transparent padding, just like the v1.8.0 APK did.

Screenshots

The icon with white border (v1.8.8):

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS: N/A (Android only)

Smartphone (please complete the following information):

• Device: Multiple Android devices
• OS: Android 14+
• Browser: N/A (native APK)
• Version: Blinko v1.8.1 ~ v1.8.8

Additional context

I did a binary-level comparison of the icon resources between v1.8.0 and v1.8.8 APKs. Here are the findings:

Root cause: The launcher icon PNGs have transparent padding that was introduced after v1.8.0.

Both versions use the same manifest configuration (android:icon = @7F0D0000, no roundIcon, no mipmap-anydpi-v26 adaptive icon). The only difference is in the icon PNG files themselves:

Density	Image Size	v1.8.0 (Good)	v1.8.8 (Bad)
mdpi	48×48	Content fills entire canvas (0,0,48,48)	Transparent padding (3,3,45,45)
hdpi	49×49	Content fills entire canvas (0,0,49,49)	Transparent padding (3,3,46,46)
xhdpi	96×96	Content fills entire canvas (0,0,96,96)	Transparent padding (9,9,87,87)
xxhdpi	144×144	Content fills entire canvas (0,0,144,144)	Transparent padding (15,15,129,129)
xxxhdpi	192×192	Content fills entire canvas (0,0,192,192)	Transparent padding (20,20,172,172)

In v1.8.8, each icon PNG has approximately 10% transparent padding on all sides. Since no adaptive icon (mipmap-anydpi-v26) is used, Android launchers display this transparent area as a white border.

Suggested fixes:

1. Quick fix: Regenerate the icon PNGs without transparent padding (like v1.8.0 did)
2. Proper fix: Implement Adaptive Icons by adding mipmap-anydpi-v26/ic_launcher.xml with separate foreground and background layers. This ensures the icon looks correct across all Android launcher shapes (circle, squircle, rounded square, etc.)

Additionally, the versionName and versionCode in AndroidManifest.xml have been stuck at 1.0 / 1 since at least v1.8.0, so the installed app always shows "Version 1.0" regardless of the actual release version. (Related: #1205)

[dosubot]

Hi @StrideLeo! I'm Dosu and I'm helping the Blinko's Org team.

Great investigation — your binary-level comparison is very thorough. I looked into the codebase and can add some context on the root cause and fix path.

Blinko uses Tauri 2 to build the Android APK [1], not Bubblewrap/PWABuilder. The source icon lives at app/src-tauri/icons/icon.png [2], and platform-specific icons are regenerated via bun run tauri icon [3].

A couple of things likely contributed to the padding issue:

1. Icon redesign in Sept 2025: A commit (c989b75) did a major logo update that reduced icon file sizes by ~37%, indicating a significant design change — not just compression. This is the most likely point when the transparent padding was introduced into the source icon.
2. Maskable icon influence: The PWA manifest declares the 310×310 icon with "purpose": "any maskable" [4]. Maskable icons are supposed to have ~10% safe-zone padding built in (per the W3C spec). If this same padded source image was used to regenerate the Tauri/Android icons, it would explain exactly the ~10% transparent border you're seeing.
3. Dec 2025 optimization: Another commit (b0181be) between v1.8.0 and v1.8.1 further optimized/compressed all icon PNGs (~20-23% size reduction), but the padding was likely already baked in from the source.

To fix this, the source icon at app/src-tauri/icons/icon.png should be replaced with a version that fills the full canvas (no transparent padding), and then bun run tauri icon should be re-run to regenerate all density-specific PNGs. Ideally, the maskable web icon and the Android launcher icon should use separate source images — the maskable one with safe-zone padding for PWA, and a full-bleed one for the native APK.

Your suggestion about implementing proper Adaptive Icons (mipmap-anydpi-v26/ic_launcher.xml) is also the right long-term approach. The codebase already has adaptive icon XML files with foreground/background layers [5] [6], but the fallback PNG icons in the mipmap-* directories are what's actually being used based on the manifest you analyzed.

To reply, just mention @dosu.

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