How can I make an iPhone launch image easily?

Question

According to Apple's guide line, an iPhone app's launch image/splash screen should be a prerendered static image that looks similar to the application's first screen.

Here are some links to Apple's documentations about this:

1) Launch images, iOS human interface guideline:

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileHIG/IconsImages/IconsImages.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40006556-CH14-SW5

2) App Launch (Default) Images, iOS app programming guide:

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/iPhone/Conceptual/iPhoneOSProgrammingGuide/App-RelatedResources/App-RelatedResources.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007072-CH6-SW12

I just wonder how can I create such launch image easily. In most cases, it seems the launch image should be a combination of empty status bar + navigation bar + empty table/view + tab bar, and each of them should be rendered with iOS's predefined color scheme.

But I cannot find any documentation about how I should do this and cannot find any entry in Xcode which seems related with this. Is there any Apple's official tool to render the launch image easily? Or do all the app developers simply use some mockup iPhone controls + Photoshop to do this?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

It would not be much of a problem, do compose a static XIB file of your main screen (empty tab bar, empty navigation bar) or whatsoever. Just the backgrounds without any elements or labels placed on them.

You can launch this "empty" application in the iPhone Simulator which has a built-in screenshot function. With additional software like the iPhone Simulator Cropper you can crop the image to the preferred size.

That would be my approach to do this.