Click to Skip Ad
Closing in...

Gorgeous iPhone wallpapers give your phone a magical look

Published Dec 9th, 2021 4:00PM EST
iPhone on a wood grain desk showing wallpaper
Image: Zach Epstein for BGR

If you buy through a BGR link, we may earn an affiliate commission, helping support our expert product labs.

iPhone wallpaper

Years ago, a smartphone user discovered an interesting glitch in Apple’s iOS software. By creating an iPhone wallpaper that was just one pixel in size, an iPhone would stretch it to cover the entire screen and some interesting effects would be displayed as a result. Namely, the dock and folder backgrounds would completely disappear, giving the iPhone a cool minimalistic look.

It just so happened that this discovery was made all the way back in 2016, which is when Apple released the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in a new Jet Black finish. Applying this special black wallpaper on a Jet Black iPhone gave it a sleek new look, and people absolutely loved it.

Throughout the years, the person who created those original glitch wallpapers has created a number of other unique wallpapers for Apple’s iPhones. Apple fixed the bug that enabled those original glitch wallpapers, but after two years they’re finally back and fully functional on Apple’s latest iPhone models.

The most well-known recent wallpaper from the collection is a nifty one that traces the outer edges of the iPhone’s display, highlighting Apple’s notch design in a cool way. Those wallpapers were updated for Apple’s new iPhone models, but now they’re back with a new twist: The person who created them has found a way to combine them with a series of “magic” wallpapers that change the colors of the iPhone’s dock and folder backgrounds.

An Apple enthusiast named Hideaki who goes by @heyeased on Twitter is the man responsible for all of these nifty iPhone wallpapers, and he often emails us when he releases new creations. As you might have guessed by now, he just sent us a new email to show off his latest creations.

Image source: Zach Epstein, BGR

This time around, @heyeased combined two of his most popular lines of iPhone wallpapers to create a new series that’s very cool. As you can see in the image above, the new wallpapers include @heyeased’s signature outline of the iPhone’s display. These wallpapers are called “X Style” wallpapers. But if you look closer at the photo above, you’ll notice that the background of my dock is pink, and the background of my folders is green. This design element is from the “Magic Color UI” wallpaper line, and now it has been combined with @heyeased’s X Style series. The results are very cool and unique, and they’re available in sizes for the iPhone XR, iPhone X/XS, and iPhone XS Max.

As is always the case, you’ll have to adjust a setting on your iPhone to make these wallpapers work. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility and then tap “Reduce Transparency.” Then just tap the toggle to enable it. Also, be sure to choose “Still” when applying each wallpaper, and not “Perspective.”

There are plenty of different color combinations available for download on @heyeased’s website, and they’re all completely free. Of note, if there are color combinations you want but you don’t see on the site, just open one in the photo editor of your choice and you’ll see exactly how they work. The dock background color can be found at the bottom of each wallpaper, while the folder background color is at the top. Change either or both of those colors to create the palette of your choosing.

Read more about the newest iPhones

If you’re more interested in the newest iPhones, you should take a look at our coverage of the iPhone 12 and its iterations and the iPhone 13 and other versions of it.

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.