The gap between the desktop/laptop and the mobile device is becoming smaller and smaller, it has never been a better time for mobile app development – The market is huge, very lucrative and highly profitable. Our ever growing appetite for more powerful and better mobile devices has pushed the demand even higher for ever more powerful and better applications to accompany them.

The expectation on the apps UI design is just as demanding. The design has to not only be consistent with whichever mobile OS you are developing for, it also has to be distinctive enough to be unique. And yes, we do love a well designed app.

In this post we are sharing 14 free mobile application development icon sets. For the most part the icons below can be mainly used for the iPhone or Android, there are even some Symbian icon sets, but for the life of me I could not find a single free icon set for BlackBerry development. Anyone know of any?

Android Icons

This Android developer icon set includes 30 .png menu icons plus the additional source files (.eps) for further customization.
All of the icons are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license. Feel free to use them in any form in you projects or even remix them.

130 Glyphish iPhone Icons

The Glyphish icon set have designed and carefully optimized specifically for use on toolbars and tab bars in iPhone apps, but would also be perfect for Android Development.
The 130 icons are 24-bit .png images are about 30×30 pixels for tab bar icons and about 20×20 pixels for toolbar and navigation icons.
These icons have been shared under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

160 iphone Toolbar Icons (The Working Group)

There are 160 clean and simple toolbar icons in this set designed specifically for the iPhone, with a source .psd file for futher customisation.
These icons have been released inder a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license. You may use the icons for both commercial and non-profit purposes, as well as modify them until your hearts content.

iPhone Toolbar Icon Set (app-bits)

This set of 64 icons for the iPhone toolbar that contain beautiful shaded portions to give added depth and to highlight the icon features.
These iconshave been licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. So, don't edit the icons in any way without permission but you can freely use the icons for commercial or non-commercial work.

Android Developer Common Icon Set

The design and style of these icons have been based on some of the icons that are contained within the Android SDK. In total there are 24 .png Glyphs with the option of the following sizes: 16×16, 24×24, 32×32 and 48×48 pixels.
Despite the restrictive appearance of the screenshot, these icons are completely free.

Android Developer Common Icon Set II

This icon set contains icons designed for use in the Menu, Lists, Tabs (selected and unselected) or Dialogs, with the correct sizing sorted into appropriately labelled folders.
In total there are 15 glyphs all in .png format.

Gesturecons – Multi-Touch Icons

These vector based icons have been created to help in the design, development, implementation and promotion of multi-touch interfaces. You can use Gesturecons inside of your applications in order to demonstrate to users how to complete actions or prompt them to interact with an application when they approach it. You can scale them to any size and alter them in any way you wish.
Within the download package there are 52 high resolution vector icons entirely scalable and alterable (.pdf, .ai, .eps file types.).
This work is free to use and is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Free iPhone Toolbar Icons (PixelPressIcons)

These icons have been developed specifically for iPhone developers, completely free for anyone to use commercially under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada license. You may use or modify these icons in any way as long as you credit www.pixelpressicons.com.

108 Mono Icons (Minimal Icons)

There are 108 simple icons included in this set. The icons are avaliable in 32×32 px .png (transparent background) format.
This icon pack comes with 108 gray icons, but you can easily customize the color. In Photoshop, use layer styles and apply Color Overlay to customize. In Fireworks, simply apply Filters → Adjust Color → Color Fill and choose your color!

30 Free Vector Icons (Dezinerfolio)

In this icon set there are 30 free vector icons with an apple touch and feel about them and perfect for mobile app development. The download contains the .psd source file.

TOKEN Icon Set

The TOKEN iconset includes 128 unique icon designs, available in both dark and light variants. The download package contains both .ico (256×256, 32×32 and 16×16) and .png (128×128) formats. There is also a .psd file including the layer styles for each reolution.

Web UI & Button Set

This set has not been specifically designed for mobile developement, but could be easily used. The set contains the following elements in three distinct styles: glossy, satin/light gradient, and single-color. The satin/light gradient set is available in 7 different colors (which you’ll find all of in the psd file).

Mobile Icon Set

This mobile Icon Set includes Phone Call, Photos, Messages, Calculator, Wireless, Calendar, Settings, Contacts, Notes and Map all with the sizes: 128, 64, 48 and 32px.
You are free to use these icons for Personal and Commercial Projects.

478 Free SVG Vector Icons – The “Seven” Icon Pack

All you Symbian theme developers out there you will love this resource. In this original “Seven” style icon package you will find essential Nokia Carbide files, as well as 478(!!!) original fully vectorized icons for theme development.
On the web site they say you will need a password to the .zip file is (which is zomggimmeyoicons), but when I downloaded them I never needed one.

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