How to setup Dynamic Wallpapers on iOS 7

BY Jason

Published 18 Sep 2013

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iOS 7 has an all-new look, and to go with the new look, there are new colorful wallpapers as well. But there’s also a whole new category of wallpapers that bring subtle animations to the home and the lock screen.

These wallpapers are called “Dynamic Wallpapers” and are almost as big a change as the time Apple allowed users to set their own home screen wallpapers in iOS 4.

In this post, we show you how to set up Dynamic Wallpapers on your iOS device running iOS 7.

  • Open the Settings app, and go to Brightness & Wallpaper.
  • Tap on the Wallpaper section
  • You’ll see “Dynamic” and “Stills” under Apple Wallpaper. Tap on the “Dynamic” tile.

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  • You’ll now see a grid of dynamic bubble-based wallpapers in several colors. Select the one you like.

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  • After selecting, a preview screen pops up that lets you see how the wallpaper would like on your Lock screen.
  • If you like what you see, tap on the “Set” button below. You can choose to set the wallpaper on your Home screen, Lock screen or both. Or you can simply tap cancel to select another wallpaper.

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  • That’s it, press the home button to head to your home screen and you should see the animations kicking off. (Scroll to a home screen page with very few icons to best observe the effect.)

Here’s a video walkthrough of how to do it:

The animation in these wallpapers is quite subtle, however, bubbles also move based on the device’s motion. So you can move the bubbles in any direction by titling your device.

As of now, Apple doesn’t allow developers to provide custom dynamic wallpapers, so you’re stuck with the ones preinstalled in iOS 7. However, if/when an iOS 7 jailbreak releases, it’d be pretty straight forward for developers to develop custom dynamic wallpapers by using Apple’s private framework.

Tell us what you think about iOS 7’s new dynamic wallpapers in the comments below.

Update:

Dynamic Wallpapers is not available to iPhone 4 users. Here’s a list of iOS 7 features that are not available on older iOS devices.