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Indie App Spotlight: ‘Radiance’ is a fantastic, free wallpaper app for iPhone users

Avatar for Michael Burkhardt  | Jan 17 2026 - 12:30 pm PT
11 Comments

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

If you’re looking for a fresh set of wallpapers for your iPhone or iPad, Radiance is a great app to check out. It has a nice feeling interface, and it’s completely free of ads.

Radiance has a pretty large library of wallpapers from a lot of designers in the Apple community, all human made – no AI involved. These wallpapers are even customizable, just in case you want to slightly tweak the design you like. Then, you can just save the wallpaper to your device – no need to sit through an ad

There’s options for both portrait and landscape orientations, making them usable on both iPhones and iPads/Macs. You can also bookmark any wallpapers you’d like to save, just in case you see a design you like now but might feel even more of a need to customize it later.

Lastly, Radiance offers the ability to create your own mesh gradient wallpaper in app, completely from scratch.

Top comment by CyanButterfly

Liked by 15 people

Asher here, founder of Radiance.

I just want to clarify what exactly Radiance Plus is...

Radiance Plus was made as a way for users to help support the app (many have requested the feature to my surprise) The subscription is not pushed in your face, there are no pop-ups or anything of that type. The main function is just to help support the app, and additionally there are "experimental features" which are features still in testing that some users might appreciate in return.

Everything advertized about Radiance... is available for free!

With no ads, AI content, or pop-ups.

Thanks for the spotlight 9to5Mac, and enjoy the app!

View all comments

While most of the app is free, there’s also an option to subscribe to Radiance Plus to both support the developers and unlock additional features, like a deeper level of wallpaper customization. It’s $1.99/mo, $19.99/year, or $49.99 for lifetime access.

You can download Radiance for free on the App Store for iPhone and iPad models running iOS 18 and later. The core experience is completely free.

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Avatar for Michael Burkhardt Michael Burkhardt

Michael is a 9to5Mac Reporter, leading all of our Apple news coverage on weekends and reviewing the newest Apple products and accessories. He got started in the world of Apple news during the pandemic, and it became a growing hobby. He’s also an indie iOS developer, and started the weekly Indie App Spotlight series, which has covered hundreds of blooming new apps since it launched. In his free time, he enjoys shooting street photography around New York City on his Sony A7RV.

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