Android App Review: Multi-Picture Live Wallpaper - showing off those pictures
One of my favorite features of the Droid X and other Android OS smartphones is the live wallpaper functionality. For the past few months, I've dabbled with the stock options and installed a few of the more prominent marketplace apps (Mario Live, Beautiful Weather, and Aquarium are some favorites). However, with a new baby in the house, and changes happening every day, I've been trying to document as much as I can. And of course, I've succumb to the cliche parent move of using pictures of baby on my desktop, iPad, and laptop. Why should my mobile phone be any different? With MultiPicture Live Wallpaper, I'm able to fully customize the experience. More on why I may never use a different wallpaper after the jump.Oh, the pictures you will see!
MultiPicture lets you choose different pictures for each of your home screens (up to seven for my Droid X on Android 2.2). You can choose to keep the pictures static, or better yet, have the application rotate through a series of photos. Initially, I was worried that I would not have any control over which pictures would be displayed (I've got a lot of junk on my camera roll). Thus, I was relieved to find that MultiPicture allows you to choose an individual folder to draw photos from, so I immediately created a "wallpaper" folder and moved selected pictures into place.
On demand switching
Since it's not a "live" wallpaper if the photos are static, I choose to have MultiPicture rotate through a series of pictures that I've placed in my wallpapers folder. The app allows for users to set a timed interval for how often the wallpaper will change, as well as whether to crop, fit, or keep the photo in its original state. However, if I get impatient, I can double tap on the screen, and a new image is transitioned in, with only a second's delay. I choose to keep the default settings the same for all of my home screens, though MultiPicture allows you to customize each screen for different photo folders, background colors, selection orders, and more.
Eye Candy
One of the coolest features of MultiPicture is the transition that appears when you flip through your home screens. I enjoy the 3D rotation (reminds me of the HTC Cube animation), and the wallpaper handles it very smoothly and without any delay. You can add reflections to the top or bottom (I haven't noticed any difference with these), and as mentioned above, you can adjust the background color, transparency, and sizing for any and all of your screens. Perhaps, the best part is that MultiPicture Live Wallpaper is free, stable, and available for download in the Android Marketplace. I recommend you download it now.
UPDATE (1/25): I switch wallpapers a lot, and it turns out that it was MultiPicture's turn back in the rotation. I was pleased to find an add-on that connects the live wallpaper to Picasa Web Albums. No more manual organization of photos for my wallpaper. Just pick your web album(s) and enjoy your pictures!
Comments
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dngames.websitelivewallpaper
With high refresh duration settings it will not consume more energy than any other static background picture. But if you wish to watch a 'streaming' website on your background that is also possible.