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Mini-review: Lockscreen Wallpaper Designer, the simple iPhone app for creating prettier lockscreens

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You’d think choosing a photo to use on your iPhone lockscreen would be a pretty simple task. Scroll through your Camera Roll, choose a photo you like, hit Set and you’re done.

The reality is a little different. Half the time the photo you really want to use is landscape format (horizontal) and you need a vertical image. The iPhone will automatically crop it, and allow you to slide the image around to get a crop you like, but the result rarely does justice to the original shot.

The other half of the time, you find a portrait (vertical) photo which looks great on its own but then clashes with the clock and slide to unlock text when you set it as your lockscreen. Lockscreen Wallpaper Designer is a very simple app that aims to solve these problems … 

What the app does is take your chosen photo and then set it into a circular, rectangular or star-shaped aperture. It then uses the colors present in the photo to create a blurred surround that sets off the clock and slide to unlock message clearly and without over-writing the photo itself.

Let’s look at a few examples. Here’s a portrait shot I took in Sydney that I really like on its own but which looks terrible on a lockscreen, with the white clock against the white background:

photo 1

And here’s the result after choosing a landscape crop in the app:

photo 3

Landscape format photos are no problem: just select the rectangular aperture. Here’s my favourite shot from Shanghai where I’ve picked the best crop the Settings app allows:

photo 1

Which again looks absolutely terrible. And here’s the same photo as processed by the app:

photo 2

The app couldn’t be simpler to use. Open it, touch Change Image and select the photo you want to use from your Camera Roll (or any other album on your iPhone). Touch the aperture shape you want. Touch the photo to slide it horizontally and vertically to get the crop you want. Touch Save.

photo 1

The app can’t set a lockscreen photo itself, so it instead saves the resulting wallpaper to your camera roll.

photo 2

You then use Settings in the usual way: Wallpapers & Brightness > Choose a New Wallpaper > Camera Roll. Select the image the app just created, and there’s your new lockscreen.

photo 3

I found that it was trivial to find photos that worked, and was especially pleased to be able to use landscape photos without losing most of the image. The blur surround the app creates is sympathetic to the photos, and I found myself consistently pleased with the results. It’s how I expect to create all my lockscreen photos from now on.

The app costs just 99 cents and is available on iTunes.

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Comments

  1. edwinchristopher1 - 10 years ago

    Great Work! Keep It Up…

  2. randomguyishere - 10 years ago

    It’s always the simple ideas that do well. Hope this app hits #1.

  3. Bryan Chang - 10 years ago

    I haven’t bought an app for months, thanks for the recommendation.

  4. What an amazing app idea, I’m absolutely buying this.

  5. robertvarga79 - 10 years ago

    Now this is beautiful! Good tip!

  6. clarkberryman - 10 years ago

    I like your use of the word trivial. Completely different meaning here in ‘Muricah, but totally apropo when you cheeky Brits use it! Sounds like a great app. I’ll definitely be checking it out!

  7. Eric Johnston (@EBone) - 10 years ago

    How did you get the app to re-size the circular crop field? And mine has no rectangular crop – only circle, square, and star shapes…

    • Ben Lovejoy - 10 years ago

      You can’t resize. Rectangular shape may vary by screen dimensions – I’m using on a 4S.

      • shm1ck83 - 10 years ago

        “I’m using on a 4S”

        So old school! Lol

Author

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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