I didn’t add these to my config.xml, but I do have some icons in /Resources/icons/… and these work fine when deploying to my devices.
So my question is, in order to add icons, do we just have to put them in the correct icons directory or is there any good reason to add the entries to config.xml?
The config.xml approach is simple a way to automate the process a bit.
The icons that are added when you make a project are the default cordova icons. Adding the icons to the config.xml will replace the default icons during ionic prepare or ionic build.