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neven

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 10, 2006
815
0
Portland, OR
I was wondering why the Home view on the iPhone features a flat black background. It saves battery (it doesn't, it turns out), I suppose, but it's also a little boring. Here's my mock-up of what it would look like with images as the background. Keep in mind, this probably won't be available on the actual iPhone.

Apple's "blue swoosh" image. Nice, but feels like bastardized Mac OS X.
415093857_2cd2112be4_o.png


Apple's "Nemo" picture. Colorful, but too busy?
415093853_bb42b69106_o.png


This is a photo I took - it's a typical photo someone might use if you could make your own home screen background. Way too busy!
415093852_fa17271f7f_o.png


Maybe it's just my failure to find better images, but the black looks better than any of these to me.

P.S. It's been pointed out to me, and I now agree, that an all-black LCD screen uses MORE power than an all-white one.
 

MacbookSwitcher

macrumors 6502
Mar 13, 2007
299
1
The background on the iPhone is customizable.

When the Cingular Exec showed off his iPhone at the wireless show, he had a different background.
 

koobcamuk

macrumors 68040
Oct 23, 2006
3,195
9
you should post the comments and names of the photo and then the photo, otherwise people get muddled.

I think it would be a good idea to have a wallpaper with no icons... but then nothing to touch. We'll see I guess. I like my full screen wallpapers at the moment.
 

neven

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 10, 2006
815
0
Portland, OR
This is the only CTIA pic I was able to find, and it really seems to show the home screen with the clownfish background (somewhat darkened?). Odd, I hadn't seen this anywhere else.

436408761_9659e03925.jpg



And here's a mock-up with a white background:

480416447_0e6cf58f67_o.png
 

buymeaniphone

macrumors 6502
Feb 8, 2007
303
0
San Antonio, Texas
Yeah the white background is pretty borring. I think for the image behind the buttons that something simple would work better than a photograph, whats the point of having an image when theres buttons all over it.
 

Chaszmyr

macrumors 601
Aug 9, 2002
4,267
86
If you have a PSD with transparency so you can make a quick mockup, can you show us one with a black and white photo in the background?
 

AppleMatt

macrumors 68000
Mar 17, 2003
1,784
21
UK
Black actually doesn't save battery, as the screen has to physically 'close' all of its pixels (hence black), which uses power.

AppleMatt
 

neven

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 10, 2006
815
0
Portland, OR
Here's one with a grayscale background:

481679925_d21e17d144_o.jpg


And here's the Photoshop file if you want to play with it yourself (CS2 required)

iPhone.psd (1.8 MB)


P.S. If I may be permitted a very subjective digression, DP's images are just cheesy as hell.
 

Project

macrumors 68020
Aug 6, 2005
2,297
0
I might just be being boring, but I think the black background looks better than every alternative posted so far in the thread.
 

neven

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 10, 2006
815
0
Portland, OR
Project, I agree and I said so in the top post. It's a more monolithic look, which comes in handy since the device itself is a little lacking in that department (the black "butt", the border around the front, the home button.. I'm not saying it's ugly, but it's not as unified as it could be)
 

notsofatjames

macrumors 6502a
Jan 11, 2007
856
0
Wales, UK
Here's one with a grayscale background:

And here's the Photoshop file if you want to play with it yourself (CS2 required)

iPhone.psd (1.8 MB)

i didnt know safari had .psd viewing support! i was expecting it to auto download, not to show in a browser window!!

i do agree that the black looks a tad boring. Maybe you can have a standard image for the background, and then when you bring up the menu the images darkens. That would be an elegant way to solve it. Suppose a more elegant way is just to leave it black though...
 

neven

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 10, 2006
815
0
Portland, OR
However, which screen would be most efficient on battery life AM, perchance you know?

It turns out that, contrary to intuition, an all-white screen uses the least power with a backlit display like the one on iPhone/iPod/Mac notebooks. The backlight has to be on ("all of it") regardless of what's shown on the screen, and blocking out a pixel by making it opaque actually uses a tiny bit of energy.

So, it almost doesn't matter what's on the screen, but black uses a little bit more power than white.

I'm not touching one till rev.b

I will be multi-touching mine for 6 months before I get a 2g :)
 

notsofatjames

macrumors 6502a
Jan 11, 2007
856
0
Wales, UK
To quote myself..
i do agree that the black looks a tad boring. Maybe you can have a standard image for the background, and then when you bring up the menu the images darkens. That would be an elegant way to solve it. Suppose a more elegant way is just to leave it black though...

So heres a mock up with tinted images (same as posted above)..
 

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notsofatjames

macrumors 6502a
Jan 11, 2007
856
0
Wales, UK
i hope that tinted just makes it to the final product. I bet we'll get all excitied, then its not in the realease. It does seem to be the obvious thing to do. And as neven said, its dashboard-y, so its something Apple might do. Theres not a lot else you can do apart from darken them, unless its left black. Just have to wait and see...
 

BEASTMAN

macrumors member
Oct 15, 2005
56
0
sorry to bring up such an old thread, but thought it would be better than starting a new one. Just wanted to see if anyone else had any new good ideas for backgrounds. I doubt I am gonna change the home screen, I will leave it black, so I decided to do a quick crude template for the "slide to unlock" screen since this is the screen all the videos have shown a picture.

I rendered up a simple image in a 3d program while I think up something perfect, but this is what I have...

iphonemockupzf6.jpg



I have all my contacts, music w/ album art, and some pictures ready for the move, just need to finish finding pictures and a few videos, I think I am going to make a video with clips from a bunch of pixar movies and a few action movies with good 3d in them in after effects with some animation thrown in, I will post it tomorrow when i do it.
 
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