December 21, 2016

Android’s new “live wallpapers” are quite smart

Screenshot_20161215-084802
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Google first introduced the concept of “live wallpaper” on Android on version 2.1 back in 2009. It was a cute idea, but didn’t work especially well. Back then, the “live” part of the wallpapers often required that you touch them. There are already plenty of other touch points on a phone, so adding that in was not especially useful.

With the release of the new Pixel phone, Google has re-imagined the concept of live wallpapers and it’s quite impressive. For example, here is my current wallpaper:

It looks like a neat shot of the earth, and it is, but it’s so much more interesting than that.

Location:

First, it’s centered on my current location on the globe.

Movement: When you log in or swipe between screens, it has a very subtle zooming effect.

Real-time sun and lighting:

I took this image at 8:48am EST. You can see the east coast of the US is light, while the central and west part of the country are still dark with (fake) city lights glowing.

Real-time clouds: All of the clouds are updated in real-time from satellite imagery.

At the end of the day this is just wallpaper, and not really a big deal. However, it shows that Google is working hard to make every piece of this phone a premium experience. They worked with the design agency B-Reel to come up with these, and this post on the B-Reel site digs deeper into some of the unique wallpaper features that they came up with.

I tend not to care too much about Android wallpaper, but I’ll admit that these have been fun to play with and add just a little extra fun-factor to the phone.

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Posts

AI may become your only app

Reading Time: 2 minutesIt’s hard to tell for sure where AI is heading, but one possibility is that it eventually becomes the only app that you use. I…

Read More

Single-focus AI tools are dead

Reading Time: < 1 minuteIt was pretty easy to see coming, and I think we’ve arrived — AI tools that are built for a single purpose are dead. Over…

Read More

Elon Musk is William Shockley

Reading Time: 2 minutesIf you’re familiar with the history of computing, you’ve probably heard the name William Shockley. Shockley was a brilliant man and helped make computing today…

Read More