[whatwg] <link rel=icon width="" height="">

[Kornel Lesinski]

I don't think it's that important to specify exact icon sizes. Authors  
won't bother to accurately provide such detailed information, and  
applications don't need it anyway.

iPhone shouldn't be a concern here. It isn't limited to 59x60  
icons—Apple's own website uses 129x129  
(http://www.apple.com/apple-touch-icon.png) and current EDGE network  
iPhones won't use anything else than rel=apple-touch-icon.


My suggestion is to simply define rel=application-icon without extra  
attributes.

There isn't much bandwidth to be saved. These icons are going to be  
downloaded only once. 128x128 PNG icons take only 20-30kb.

Large PNG file + favicon for smallest sizes may be good enough in most  
cases. In cases when icon design doesn't scale well, authors could provide  
additional .ico/.icns files.

When website provides application icons (not favicon) in .icns or .ico  
files, I think it can be reasonably assumed that these files contain all  
sizes that are needed for desktop icons, and it doesn't matter which  
exactly.

-- 
regards, Kornel Lesiński