Why Blurry Wallpapers Shouldn’t be Used on iOS 7

One of the most stressed concepts in iOS 7 is the idea of continuity. Apple has worked really hard in this update to make the user experience consistent across all apps and features, it’s own and third party. One of the biggest, and most overlooked, ways apple has achieved this is with the implementation of system wide layers. To a degree, iOS 6 had this, but iOS 7 perfected it. In this system, the first layer is the wallpaper. Blurry wallpapers ruin this sense of continuity.

 Notice how only three of the 33 stock wallpapers are blurry, and even they have some small texture in them. The reason for this is Apple did not intend for blurry wallpapers to be used on iOS 7. Why? Because they ruin the layering system. As you can see from the above image, in Apple’s picture demonstration of how layers work, they used the, very textured, space wallpaper.

But a lot of other things in iOS 7 are blurry, why can’t my wallpaper be? The frequently used Gaussian blur effect in iOS 7 is meant to re-enforce the layer concept. When you use a blurred wallpaper, you make it seem as if there is a layer of nothing obscuring your wallpaper, because according to the design language of iOS 7, there is.

If you like having a blurred wallpaper and you think it looks good, more power to you. I’m not telling you how to use your device. Just for fun, here is a gallery featuring some more Parallax ready wallpapers for iOS 7 [click on image to enlarge]

What is your current wallpaper? Share a image with us in the comments bellow!