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Ridiculous: No way to have your own backgrounds without iPhone downconverting to crap

What I was trying to show was how much dithering was going on in the photo that isn't caused by JPEG compression.

If you think it's JPGE compression then go ahead and upload the actual screenshot PNG image.

I'll take a better screenshot when I have time and show you the original and the image that the iPhone syncs when it's sync'd from iTunes.
 
TheSpaz said:
What I was trying to show was how much dithering was going on in the photo that isn't caused by JPEG compression.

If you think it's JPGE compression then go ahead and upload the actual screenshot PNG image.

I'll take a better screenshot when I have time and show you the original and the image that the iPhone syncs when it's sync'd from iTunes.
Click to expand...

The screenshot is jpg, not png, and its 480x320, so blowing it up will never prove anything.
 
Here's the PNG of my screen. Only looks 'ok' here on my computer screen, but shrunk down on the phone, it looks great.

That's what matters.

Look at the alarm clock icon by the battery. It's quite clear on the iPhone screen. The rest of the image is improved in a similar way.
 

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For giggles, here's a higher resolution version (since I had a request). Still not the original since my aperture library is off-line.
 

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Small White Car said:
Here's the PNG of my screen. Only looks 'ok' here on my computer screen, but shrunk down on the phone, it looks great.

That's what matters.

Look at the alarm clock icon by the battery. It's quite clear on the iPhone screen. The rest of the image is improved in a similar way.
Click to expand...

Lovely shot. Great lighting.
 
Spaz is not talking about the reduced quality when zoomed in, obviously.

He's talking about the odd color speckles that show up. Some pixels are inexplicably a different color, and zooming in allows you to see that better.


Also, I just grabbed Backdrops, seems to be much better until I find another solution. I'll try that phoneview app too. thanks.
 
Why are you guys bashing this guy? He's absolutely 100% right. There's no way to get a decent quality background on the iPhone without jailbreaking and manually transferring the .png file.

He zoomed on in the Rome picture to make artifacts that come along with the awful iPhone compression algorithms more visible. The fact that you're Apple maniacs who praise everything Apple does doesn't mean this guy can't have his complaints.

Sure, custom backgrounds look good, but uncompressed the backgrounds simply look WAY better. Even without picking up a magnifier or blowing up a screenshot in Photoshop. It's annoying that even 480x320 images (which exactly fit the screen without resizing) are compressed, because there's no reason to. If you don't notice it or simply don't care - good for you. But don't decide for a person what he or she can complain about. It's a valid complaint. Don't be so awfully childish, I'm sure you're all older than 16.
 
cmaier said:
For giggles, here's a higher resolution version (since I had a request). Still not the original since my aperture library is off-line.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I'll use that to show out the difference between iPhone compressed wallpapers and uncompressed wallpapers.
 
This is a well-known bug that I have been complaining about (both in feedback to Apple and in the forums) since 2007.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1554646&tstart=0

iTunes_compression.png


and another, larger sample here.

Apple doesn't seem to care at all about this. The only way I've found to get decent pics on the phone to use as lock screen wallpapers is to jailbreak, install OpenSSH, and transfer the files in that way. Asinine, really.
 
Merkie said:
Why are you guys bashing this guy? He's absolutely 100% right. There's no way to get a decent quality background on the iPhone without jailbreaking and manually transferring the .png file.

He zoomed on in the Rome picture to make artifacts that come along with the awful iPhone compression algorithms more visible. The fact that you're Apple maniacs who praise everything Apple does doesn't mean this guy can't have his complaints.

Sure, custom backgrounds look good, but uncompressed the backgrounds simply look WAY better. Even without picking up a magnifier or blowing up a screenshot in Photoshop. It's annoying that even 480x320 images (which exactly fit the screen without resizing) are compressed, because there's no reason to. If you don't notice it or simply don't care - good for you. But don't decide for a person what he or she can complain about. It's a valid complaint. Don't be so awfully childish, I'm sure you're all older than 16.
Click to expand...


Thanks, and i LOVE my iPhone, as well as the first gen and the 3G I had after that. This just ticks me off because as hard as I try to tell myself I don't need to jailbreak, I find little things like this.
 
Merkie said:
Why are you guys bashing this guy? He's absolutely 100% right. There's no way to get a decent quality background on the iPhone without jailbreaking and manually transferring the .png file.

He zoomed on in the Rome picture to make artifacts that come along with the awful iPhone compression algorithms more visible. The fact that you're Apple maniacs who praise everything Apple does doesn't mean this guy can't have his complaints.

Sure, custom backgrounds look good, but uncompressed the backgrounds simply look WAY better. Even without picking up a magnifier or blowing up a screenshot in Photoshop. It's annoying that even 480x320 images (which exactly fit the screen without resizing) are compressed, because there's no reason to. If you don't notice it or simply don't care - good for you. But don't decide for a person what he or she can complain about. It's a valid complaint. Don't be so awfully childish, I'm sure you're all older than 16.
Click to expand...

He got "bashed" for the way he went on and on like it was the biggest problem with the iphone. Seriously it's not a big enough deal to cry about, I, like most other people have never even noticed it..
 
Regardless of the lock screen, I think pictures on the iPhone are a problem.

When photos are synced to the iPhone, they are "optimized" - whatever that means. Thanks to Mavis for showing just how bad optimization can be. The worst part about it is there is just no need to change the photos in the first place. The iPhone has several gigs of memory, yet a very large image is on the same order of MB as a music file - why compress them?
 
Sam21 said:
I, like most other people have never even noticed it..
Click to expand...
What you're saying is that you, like most people, have never tried to pinch and zoom on one of your pictures, only to find absolutely NO detail past the full-screen size? I find that somewhat odd ...
 
What some people in this thread don't seem to want to realize, is that whenever you save or sync an image to an iPhone (doesn't matter what method apparently, I previously thought it was only iTunes synced media) color dithering is added no matter what.

I have conducted a comparison using a wallpaper I *know* has absolutely NO dithering at all. If I sync the image over (using iTunes) from a lossless PNG to the phone, and then compare it to the exact same image but transferred by SSH, there is a noticeable difference. The SSH'ed image has no dithering.

iTunes also does this to cover art, while Media Monkey does not. I have had one album cover in particular that is solid gray (one single color) that when synced over Media Monkey shows how I would expect (ie, one solid color), while if synced through iTunes, it adds dithering to a solid color image.

Doing this is completely unnecessary as the iPhone LCD actually has a decent color depth capability. Up until this thread I had been very surprised that I couldn't find anything about this issue.


Also, before anyone says it, no, it is not my monitor that is hiding already present dithering in the source image. I know what dithering is and what JPEG compression is, and I'm viewing the source images on an NEC 2490 LCD.
 
Uncompressed Rome wallpaper on the left, compressed Rome wallpaper on the right. The left one looks a lot better, it doesn't even take a hard look. Look at the dark parts and the pillars.
 

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mavis said:
What you're saying is that you, like most people, have never tried to pinch and zoom on one of your pictures, only to find absolutely NO detail past the full-screen size? I find that somewhat odd ...
Click to expand...

What has this got to do with how the picture looks as a fullscreen background? Nothing.

Merkie said:
Uncompressed Rome wallpaper on the left, compressed Rome wallpaper on the right. The left one looks a lot better, it doesn't even take a hard look. Look at the dark parts and the pillars.
Click to expand...

Dude you've either got some kind of OCD or your eyes are a lot better than mine. Yes side by side there is a VERY minute difference but there is no way that is enough to notice/cry about! Obviously this is only my opinion but I'd much rather Apple work on other things than this..
 
Sam21 said:
What has this got to do with how the picture looks as a fullscreen background? Nothing.



Dude you've either got some kind of OCD or your eyes are a lot better than mine. Yes side by side there is a VERY minute difference but there is no way that is enough to notice/cry about! Obviously this is only my opinion but I'd much rather Apple work on other things than this..
Click to expand...
I noticed it immediately when I tried my first custom wallpaper, and I don't have superhuman eyes. I don't understand why you people don't notice it. The uncompressed wallpaper is so much cleaner and nicer to look at.
 
I think the point that Merkie is trying to make, is that the dithered version of the image should not look that way. The iPhone can display most of those colors perfectly fine without any dithering, so why wouldn't you want it to show everything the best it can?

The dithering was the very first thing I noticed when I first tried a custom wallpaper as well, and is the very reason I do not have any uploaded photos on my iPhone. I have to manually SSH for any new wallpapers to get them to look decent and the point is for a device such as this, it should just work properly from the start.
 
Ok I'm just going to put it down to my crap eyes! I've never noticed it enough for it to be a problem but I guess if you do find it a problem then why not complain about it..
 
I don't see the big deal. To each their own I guess. It seems like some people are way too picky.
 
mavis said:
What you're saying is that you, like most people, have never tried to pinch and zoom on one of your pictures, only to find absolutely NO detail past the full-screen size? I find that somewhat odd ...
Click to expand...

ITS A PHONE PICTURE!!! What the hell you expecting the picture to look like, a DSLR Camera. Who cares if its a little loss of detail!

This thread is making me rage!
 
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