Question

On the iPhone, you can add a numbered badge to the application icon. On BlackBerry, I’ve successfully painted an image onto the application’s icon while in the program. I want to do this for Android as well. I don’t want to use the notification bar, as it’s not something that needs to be notified instantly. Instead, I just want the user to be able to see how many new messages are in the application just by looking at the application icon.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, Android does not allow changing of the application icon because it’s sealed in the APK once the program is compiled. There is no way to programmatically change it to a ‘drawable’.

You may achieve your goal by using a widget instead of an icon. Widgets are highly customisable and can do what you want.

There’s a short discussion about the difference between iPhone icon notification and using widgets here:

http://www.cnet.com/8301-19736_1-10278814-251.html

As you’ll notice, there is virtually no difference between using a widget or an icon, since they can be the same size and look the same.