The iPhone, iPad and iPod touch come with some wallpapers as standard, but you may soon be tired of that. It is therefore nice to download new backgrounds from time to time, or choose a photo from your gallery. In this tip we show you what options you have.
How to set up wallpapers
Tired of the default backgrounds of your Apple device? Then there are several ways to get new iPhone wallpapers. Below we describe a number of options.
1. iPhone wallpapers from your gallery
Of course you can use photos or other images that you have saved as background. To do this, go to your Camera Roll in the Photos app, tap the photo you want and then tap the share button at the bottom left of the image.
Then tap ‘Use as wallpaper’ in the sharing functions. Then you come to a screen where you can move the image and zoom in or out if necessary. You can also choose whether the image should be set as a background or in perspective.
With the latter, the wallpaper ‘moves’ slightly with how you tilt your phone. Tap ‘Set’ and determine for which screens (lock screen and / or home screen) you want to set the wallpaper.
2. Consider the resolution
Many photos that you have saved or shot yourself are not optimized for the size of your iPhone. However, you can crop these photos slightly before setting them as wallpaper. Take the screen resolution of your iPhone into account.
The iPhone SE has a screen resolution of 1136 by 640 pixels and the iPhone 6, 6S, 7 and 8 have a resolution of 1334 by 750 pixels. The resolution for the Plus models of these iPhones is 1920 by 1080 pixels.
For the iPhone X and iPhone XS you calculate 2436 by 1125 pixels, the iPhone XS Max has 2688 by 1242 as the resolution and finally the resolution of the iPhone XR is 1792 by 828 pixels. For the best result, your wallpaper should have at least this resolution.
Furthermore, since iOS 7 you can use the so-called parallax effect, which you set with the ‘Perspective’ option. To perfectly scale your images for this ‘scrolling’ effect of your wallpaper, add 200 extra pixels on all sides. With the iPhone 6 or newer, the minimum resolution of a wallpaper thus amounts to 1734 by 1150 pixels.
3. Download wallpaper app
Another easy way to get new and custom wallpapers is apps. You will find many such apps in the App Store. For example, with the Atlas Wallpaper app you can set your favorite city as a background. Many of these apps are free to download, and offer high-resolution custom wallpapers.
If you cannot find suitable images in these collections, you can also search for ‘wallpaper’ in the App Store. You then get apps that do nothing more than bundle hundreds of images, which you can save and then set as iPhone wallpapers as described in the first step.
Wallpaper Weekly
On iPhone we also love to update our iPhone with a new background on a regular basis. That’s why we highlight a number of cool wallpapers for you in Wallpaper Weekly every Friday. This way you always have a nice home screen and your iPhone looks like new again.
- Wallpaper Weekly # 14 (2021): The 10 Best iPhone Wallpapers of the Week (9-4)
- Wallpaper Weekly # 13 (2021): The 10 best iPhone wallpapers of the week (2-4)
- Wallpaper Weekly # 12 (2021): The 10 best iPhone wallpapers of the week (26-3)
- Wallpaper Weekly # 11 (2021): The 10 best iPhone wallpapers of the week (19-3)
- Wallpaper Weekly # 10 (2021): The 10 best iPhone wallpapers of the week (12-3)