Create and Upload iPhone Wallpapers

iPhone users are familiar with the customization and ease of use provided by the device. Some of them want to create their own wallpapers, and, for that, one can use ImagePhone, an application that lets its users follow their inspiration, put together stunning wallpapers and upload them directly to the phone.

The iPhone was a technological revolution when released, back in 2007, and since then, a lot of Mac applications have been developed to help users customize their iPhone with ease.

This is the case of iMagePhone, an application originally designed to create, edit or customize iPhone wallpapers. The latest versions also allows you to produce iPad wallpapers, which have a higher resolution and an increased level of detail.

There are some things though that make ImagePhone stand out of the crowd. One of them is iPad support, while other things like iPhoto integration, direct application to device upload and quote generation are also worth mentioning.

The Looks

The interface is very well organized and all the elements are placed in an intuitive way, therefore you will not have to read any tutorials or additional information to get the best out of what the app has to offer. On top of the main window there is a taskbar with buttons for functions like add to gallery, zoom to fit or direct to phone wallpaper upload.

On the left side there is a panel containing the text editing area, the quote generators and a thumbnail for the source image.

In the central panel you can view the source image, which can be moved or zoomed in order to focus on a certain area, while in the right panel you can visualize a small phone preview and access some basic editing options like rotate, flip, change contrast and brightness.

The right panel will also allow you to change the current device (the available options are iPhone, iPad, iPhone 4) and the wallpaper name.

The Works

Upon starting iMagePhone, you can choose one of the default wallpapers, or add your own by drag and drop. As I said earlier, the interface is very well designed so that even less savvy users will be able to use the app without any help. The only thing one has to do is to select an image , add some text (if needed) and then choose the target device.

You can add any text that comes in your mind, there aren't any visible boundaries. If you don't feel inspired, you can use one of the two text generators, one of them displays random interesting facts, while the other generates some fun, silly quotes. They both work great and can really change a dull wallpaper’s appearance.

Under the text generation panel you can access some text alignment and position changing options. Here you can also change the text size as well as the current font.

One can also select an image for editing by clicking the Edit Source Image button located on the left side, and then you can begin to move, zoom or rotate it until your get the desired effect. If you're not careful and zoom too much, the application warns you that pixelated images have a reduced quality.

The nice thing here it's that you can visualize a direct to iPhone preview that will show you exactly how the wallpaper will look on the phone, and make the required changes at any time.

I created a wallpaper for the iPhone, but the results are almost the same for the two versions. If you want to create an iPad wallpaper you must work with high quality images, so the result will have a higher resolution when compared to the iPhone output.

The right-side panel features various image editing options. By far, the most interesting thing for me here is the photo effect panel, where you can add various effects, like blur, gamma, bloom, sepia, sharpening and lots more. This panel will allow you to choose the effects that suit your needs and combine them in order to get the desired result.

After following these steps, you can manually save the newly created wallpaper. The default resolution is 320x480, the one used by the iPhone, or 728x1024 for the iPad.

An interesting feature is the iPhoto integration, meaning that you can easily export the wallpapers to iPhoto, or send them via e-mail.

ImagePhone can be used to visualize and download files from your iPhone. You can view photo data, and also explore the other files currently available on your phone.

The application also lets you upload the newly created wallpaper directly to the iPhone. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do that, because the default upload path was not accessible on my device.

Of course, one can try and create the required path manually, but I don't recommend this to inexperienced users, since any changes to the filesystem may cause damage to the phone.

The Good

ImagePhone is very useful when it comes to creating wallpapers for the Apple mobile devices. You can easily add texts, iCal events, effects, in order to make your image almost unrecognizable.

The Bad

The direct upload function is a little tricky. You must use the default upload path, but for some devices, that path is not available and has to be created manually, a dangerous process if you're not an experienced iPhone user.

The Truth

ImagePhone is very intuitive, so you don't need any experience with this kind of applications. Simply drag and drop the image, add effects, and save the result.. If you have an iPhone, you don't want to miss this small yet very useful tool.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: