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Dimensions for mobile device wallpapers?


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Dimensions for mobile device wallpapers?
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PKIDelirium
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Join Date: Oct 2005
 
2010-10-09, 03:40

I'm looking to produce some mobile device wallpapers for my site. What pixel dimensions would be best? I'd like to be compatible with both Retina and pre-Retina iPhones and Touches, along with Android phones, etc.

I'm also unsure of how to do iPad wallpapers. 1024x1024? I don't have one so I'm not entirely sure how it handles the rotation.
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chucker
 
Join Date: May 2004
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2010-10-09, 04:46

Quote:
Originally Posted by PKIDelirium View Post
I'm looking to produce some mobile device wallpapers for my site. What pixel dimensions would be best? I'd like to be compatible with both Retina and pre-Retina iPhones and Touches, along with Android phones, etc.
Android doesn't mandate resolutions, so you're best off offering a few common ones, such as 800x480. iPhone/iPod touch are 320x480 or 640x960 (Retina).

Quote:
Originally Posted by PKIDelirium View Post
I'm also unsure of how to do iPad wallpapers. 1024x1024? I don't have one so I'm not entirely sure how it handles the rotation.
Yep. To fill the two possible aspect ratios, you need a 1024x1024 square image.
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Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Portland, OR
 
2010-10-09, 06:01

Quote:
Originally Posted by chucker View Post
Yep. To fill the two possible aspect ratios, you need a 1024x1024 square image.
Actually IIRC there's no way to make an iPad wallpaper that's full quality in both orientations — even if you start with a 1024x1024 square, the iPad crops it when wallpapering it and then blows up the center of the newly 4:3 or 3:4 wallpaper when oriented the other way. I haven't done super thorough testing on that, and a software update might have changed it, but I distinctly remember that being one of the (only) things that really irked me when I first set up my iPad.

But that was over six months ago (!!!), so I could be remembering wrong, I suppose.

and i guess i've known it all along / the truth is, you have to be soft to be strong
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chucker
 
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2010-10-09, 06:30

I read about such issues, but see pretty much all iPad wallpapers as being offered in that resolution, and here's two visual guides that seem to suggest that it does "the right thing": [1], [2]

Neither seems to suggest any sort of blowing up.
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Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
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Join Date: Jul 2004
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2010-10-09, 08:30

Huh. Well, then, yeah, 1024x1024 is the way to go.

When in doubt, chucker is right, haha

Common Android Resolutions:

HVGA 320x480 and 480x320 (lots of Android phones are landscape qwerty sliders)

WVGA 800x480 (most phones) or 854x480 (Droids), and ditto on the landscape thing

Some low-end Android phones are QVGA (320x240) or WQVGA (400x240), or the landscape equivalents of each. Also, lots of feature phones — touchscreen dumb phones, fancy flips — have these resolutions as well.

Android has this thing where you can put, say, a 640x480 wallpaper on a 320x480 phone, and the wallpaper pans left and right a little as you page through home screens. Depending on the wallpaper it can either add a pleasant sort of depth or just look really dumb.

Oh, and if you want to make a wallpaper for the PSP, that's 480x272.

and i guess i've known it all along / the truth is, you have to be soft to be strong

Last edited by Robo : 2010-10-09 at 08:43.
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chucker
 
Join Date: May 2004
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2010-10-09, 11:21

Quote:
Originally Posted by Robo View Post
Android has this thing where you can put, say, a 640x480 wallpaper on a 320x480 phone, and the wallpaper pans left and right a little as you page through home screens. Depending on the wallpaper it can either add a pleasant sort of depth or just look really dumb.
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Capella
Dark Cat of the Sith
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Rochester, NY
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2010-10-09, 13:00

Quote:
Originally Posted by Robo View Post
Android has this thing where you can put, say, a 640x480 wallpaper on a 320x480 phone, and the wallpaper pans left and right a little as you page through home screens. Depending on the wallpaper it can either add a pleasant sort of depth or just look really dumb.
My ex used to use Myst and Riven screenshots, and the panning left and right looked awesome. Can definitely see it sucking with other things though.
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Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
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Join Date: Jul 2004
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2010-10-09, 13:59

Quote:
Originally Posted by Capella View Post
My ex used to use Myst and Riven screenshots, and the panning left and right looked awesome. Can definitely see it sucking with other things though.
It seemed to work best with landscapes (here meaning actual pictures of landscapes, not pictures in the landscape orientation) and the like, so the type of stuff you seen in Myst counts. There the panning makes sense...the icons move farther/faster than the wallpaper, so you get a small sense of depth, the same way a nearby haystack or telephone pole moves faster than a distant tree or mountain when you drive by.

What it doesn't at all make sense for is pictures of babes, or skulls, or phat rims, or any number of things that all the Android users I know are far more likely to use as their wallpaper than a scenic landscape. So, on the whole, probably not such a great feature.

and i guess i've known it all along / the truth is, you have to be soft to be strong
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