Making pixel perfect parallax wallpapers for iOS

iPhone

There’s a lot of contradictory information floating around the net on the exact dimensions for iPhone & iPad parallax wallpapers. Since we did a fair amount of testing on various devices to make sure that Deko would support parallax wallpapers out of the box we thought we might as well share our findings and hopefully clear some of the confusion.

The exact size of the wallpaper required depends on the device. iOS is of course happy to use smaller or bigger files and resize or crop them to fit, but this can result in artefacts as the images get interpolated. So for pixel-perfection use the dimensions below or grab the Photoshop templates.

Hopefully you find these resources useful! If you have any comments, questions or queries just send us an email on info@dekoapp.com or tweet us @dekoapp.

Parallax wallpaper sizes

iPhones

Screen: 960 x 640
Wallpaper: 1196 x 740
• for iPhone 4S

Screen: 1136 x 640
Wallpaper: 1392 x 744
• for iPhone 5, 5C & 5S; iPod Touch 5th gen

Screen: 1334 x 750
Wallpaper: 1608 x 852
• for iPhone 6

Screen: 1920 x 1080
(downsampled from 2208 x 1242)
Wallpaper: 2662 x 2662
• for iPhone 6 Plus

iPads

Screen: 1024 x 768
Wallpaper: 1262 x 1262
• for iPad 2nd gen & iPad mini

Screen: 2048 x 1536
Wallpaper: 2524 x 2524
• for iPad 3rd & 4th gen; iPad Air; iPad mini (retina)

Photoshop templates

Here are .PSD files for each one of the individual sizes. Feel free to use them as a tool to roll your own pixel perfect parallax iOS wallpapers.

Sub-pixel rendering (and its malcontents)

One thing to keep in mind when making wallpapers is that the parallax movement happens in sub-pixel increments. This means is that a wallpaper can move by just a half or a quarter pixel on either axis and iOS resamples it to match the (non-moving) physical pixels on the screen.

Most of the time is not a problem but if you have hard edges on your image you might notice how these smear when you tilt the phone as the edges move in between pixels (see the illustration for reference). This effect is especially visible on the non-retina iPads.

Animation showing subpixel rendering

Can't you make an app that does parallax wallpapers for me?

Sure, have a look at Deko. It allows you to create your own beautiful abstract images, patterns and wallpapers with a simple swipe of your finger. You can build galleries, save new wallpapers and share your designs with friends.

The interactive image creation allows you to subtly shift a pattern's shapes or colors with a light swipe, or to create a fresh design with a full swipe gesture. And it uses a generative algorithm so each pattern is always different.

Get Deko on the App Store

… or have a look the here for videos and sample images of Deko in use!