iOS 7 Back Button Symbol?

Question

I really like the shape of the back button arrow in iOS 7, and would like to use it on one of my UIButtons, but like > instead of <. Would there be a way with text, or should I just use images?

Answer 1

My solution is to use a Unicode character as back button icon:

‹

SINGLE LEFT-POINTING ANGLE QUOTATION MARK Unicode: U+2039, UTF-8: E2 80 B9

HTML Entity: ‹

Drawback:

• Does not exactly look like the real back button icon, but close enough for me

Advantages:

• Simple and quick to implement
• No image file needed
• Thus, the color of the back button icon is not fixed but may get adjusted by color design changes / new versions of iOS

Instructions:

• Show the OS X Character Viewer (next to the clock, maybe you have to activate it in Preferences -> Keyboard)
• In the left list, click on "Parentheses"
• In Xcode, place your text cursor inside the string you define as back button text
• In the Character Viewer, click on the first entry in the third row (I had to click a few times until it was inserted in Xcode)

Maybe there are even better characters which look like the back button icon...

Answer 2

Official Apple back button symbol artwork can be downloaded at https://developer.apple.com/ios/human-interface-guidelines/resources/

Answer 3

This would best be achieved through the usage of images. There is no way to do this with text, sorry.

I was able to find this image, it's a .png

Answer 4

You can extract all iOS7 artwork using Cédric Luthi's iOS-Artwork-Extractor available on GitHub: compile this app in the simulator and look for UINavigationBarBackDefault.png.

The picture is .

An alternative is to get the Teehan + Lax iOS7 GUI PSD (iPhone) file. It contains most of iOS7 artwork. There's also a Sketch App version: Teehan + Lax iOS7 GUI for Sketch.

Answer 5

You have to use an image. These assets are in the original size from Apple. Here you go, simply right-click and save each one.
1x:

2x:

3x:

Source: https://developer.apple.com/design/resources/