Android changed how splash screens work — twice
For years a splash screen was a do-it-yourself affair: you set a window background on your launcher activity, or worse, showed a full-screen image for a fixed number of seconds before starting the real app. Android 12 replaced all of that with a system-drawn splash screen that every app gets automatically, whether you asked for one or not. If you also draw your own, users see two — the system's, then yours.
That is why this tool exports two different things. The 1080×1920 image is a conventional splash for a WebView wrapper or a game engine that draws its own. The 432×432 icon is what the modern system splash screen wants, and the two are not interchangeable.
The 432dp rule nobody mentions
The Android 12 splash icon lives on a 432×432 canvas, but only the middle 288×288 — two thirds — is visible. The system masks the rest. Supply a design that fills the full 432 and the edges get clipped, which is exactly why so many migrated apps ended up with a cropped logo on Android 12. The export here places your artwork inside that safe zone automatically.
| Asset | Size | Used by |
|---|---|---|
| Splash icon | 432 × 432 (288 safe) | Android 12+ system splash screen |
| Splash image | 1080 × 1920 | WebView wrappers, custom splash activities |
| Background colour | windowSplashScreenBackground | The whole screen behind the icon |
Why splash screens exist at all
A splash screen is not decoration — it fills the gap between the launcher icon being tapped and your first screen being drawable. For an app that wraps a website, that gap is real and unavoidable: the process has to start, the WebView has to initialise, and your page has to load over the network. Without a splash, the user stares at a white or black rectangle and assumes the app has hung.
The corollary is that a splash should never be shown for longer than that gap. Adding an artificial three-second delay so people can admire your logo is the fastest way to a one-star review about the app being slow.
Design that survives every screen
- Centre everything. Aspect ratios run from 4:3 tablets to 20:9 phones. Anything positioned near an edge lands somewhere different on every device.
- Let the background do the work. A solid colour or a soft gradient scales to any screen; a photographic background gets cropped unpredictably.
- Match your first screen's colour. If the splash is teal and your site loads white, the transition flashes. Matching them makes the app feel continuous.
- Skip the tagline. Text on a splash is unreadable in the half-second it exists and forces you to redo the asset for every language.
- Mind dark mode. A white splash on a phone in dark mode is a flashbang. A mid-tone brand colour works in both.
A loader, or not?
A spinner tells the user the app is working rather than frozen — worth it when your first screen depends on the network, which for a converted website it always does. A determinate bar is better still if you know the progress, but do not fake one: a bar that fills at a constant rate and then sits at 100% while nothing happens reads as broken.
If you are building with our converter, the splash step there uses exactly these values — background colour, gradient, icon size, corner radius, gap and loader style — so whatever you settle on here transfers directly.