Android, Iphone wallpaper

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yowen

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I don't own either of these, but I do own a wallpaper website, so if I were to make wallpapers for these, what size(s) would I want to make these? I tried a google search, but need a little more info. I guess there isn't one end-all be-all resolution?

What things do I need to consider when making these? I know the wallpaper kind of scrolls when sliding the homescreen from left to right, doesn't it? Anything else I need to consider?

I guess another thing to ask, what do you guys like to see in your wallpapers?
 
Droid, droid X, and droid 2 are all 854x480 resolution

Go for darker wallpapers. If you want to use it at night, the dark screen makes your eyes adjust faster. Opening a white wallpaper phone in a dark room is blinding.

Go for more abstract wallpapers. Unlike a computer desktop that might have a few icons on the edges and be mostly empty, a smartphone homescreen is very cluttered. Every available space on the grid has an icon, so you want a background that looks fine with tons of icons in front of it. I find that dark textures or space pictures meet both criteria.
 
so that 854x480 resolution is the for one screen, but do I need to take in account being able to slide over to other screens, doesn't the background slide with it?
 
If you're on Android you crop the picture if the resolution is higher and it "slides" with it. I have a wallpaper I took from the internet on my Thunderbolt and it has you crop it when you set it as the background. Same goes with camera shots. I believe the iOS is just static and doesn't slide when you change pages.
 
yowen said:
Did you mean "if the resolution is higher it slides"?
Click to expand...

No. If you have say a desktop sized wallpaper and you want it to be your cellphone wallpaper, when you select the image Android will ask you to crop the photo. A small box appears and you select the portion of the image that you want. When you slide around the home screen the image slides with it.
 
ok, so back to my original question what xxx*xxx pixels does it need to be? It needs to be more than the resolution of the screen doesn't it? If its 854x480, how much more than 480 pixels wide does the background need to be?
 
Found it: "The wallpaper thus needs to be 2 times the width of the screen resolution"

Did some more googling. Is there a common aspect ratio that I should stick to instead? I imagine there is different screen resolutions.
 
Dude, I think you're looking WAY into this. Pick a background you like, see how it looks, and be done with it.
 
ebs5049 said:
Dude, I think you're looking WAY into this. Pick a background you like, see how it looks, and be done with it.
Click to expand...

he's not choosing one for himself, he is making them for other peoples phones.
 
Zepher said:
he's not choosing one for himself, he is making them for other peoples phones.
Click to expand...

Ah, I missed that in the OP. My apoligies.

Anyway, a lot of phones now run a 800x480 resolution, which is 1.667 aspect ratio.

The iPhone 4 is 960 by 640, so 1.5

Droid x2, 960, by 540, 1.778 (16:9)

HTC EVO 3D is same as the X2 which is qHD. More modern phones will probably be rocking something similar.
 
My android phone has like 5 desktops that you can slide between. So I think some backgrounds may even be 5x the width, but I'm not sure.

One important thing though is that most people search the market place for new backgrounds, not the web. How do you plan to be seen?

Also for android... I like the animated backgrounds...
 
aL Mac said:
My android phone has like 5 desktops that you can slide between. So I think some backgrounds may even be 5x the width, but I'm not sure.

One important thing though is that most people search the market place for new backgrounds, not the web. How do you plan to be seen?

Also for android... I like the animated backgrounds...
Click to expand...

I just figured its another category I can hit on my website, I imagine there is also people that just google search for android wallpaper?

It's however starting to look more complicated than I initially thought.
-Iphone shouldn't be too hard since its a static background
-Android has various aspect ratios and resolutions (if only aspect ratio's were the same)
-Android has 3 or 5 homescreens

I guess I could at least look into targetting the iphone/ipad/itouch crowd
 
android has 5 or more homescreens, but the wallpaper is stretched over them. Android has different screens for the icons, but if you noticed as you scroll from one to another, the icons move faster than the wallpaper. I have a few screens on my droid x2 that have no icons and the wallpaper barely moves. I'd say the icons move a whole screen while the wallpaper moves maybe a 1/3 of the screen with each transition. If you catch my meaning...I believe android makes it one size, and then moves it according to how many screens the user has.
 
Someone posted an android wallpaper grid. Don't know if this helps...

androidwallpapergrid.jpg


Image is 640x480
 
Do you have a link to the post? What do the red and green rectangles signify?
 
I wasn't even aware this was an issue. Until Zedge made an app for Android, I just took my desktop wallpapers (typically 1920x1200) and put them in a folder, where I'd just pick out of those and then just set them via the Gallery, or Wallpaper Wizardii if it wasn't going to crop properly.
 
SamuraiInBlack said:
I wasn't even aware this was an issue. Until Zedge made an app for Android, I just took my desktop wallpapers (typically 1920x1200) and put them in a folder, where I'd just pick out of those and then just set them via the Gallery, or Wallpaper Wizardii if it wasn't going to crop properly.
Click to expand...

I guess I could just get the necessary information to write a tutorial on how to resize any wallpaper to work for someone's phone, with maybe a gallery of one's that would work well. If I used my cousins HTC Evo to write this, it should be applicable to most android phones, no?

and thanks for the link Dadi.
 
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