Wallpaper Engine finally arrives on Android, the perfect app for animated wallpapers?
Wallpaper Engine finally arrives on Android
Wallpaper Engine, the famous application dedicated to animated wallpapers popular among PC enthusiasts, is finally available also for Android. As promised by the developers in September, the tool dedicated to creating live wallpapers has officially landed on the Google Play Store, run to download it!As part of the long-awaited Wallpaper Engine 2.0 update, the companion application for smartphones arrives with a new logo, wallpapers with 3D depth effect and much more.
Unlike the PC version of the software, Wallpaper Engine for Android is available for free, although to use most of its functions and take advantage of it at most it is necessary to have a paid license of the counterpart for Windows.
You can import the collection of wallpapers available on your computer to your smartphone or use GIFs, videos and images saved in the phone's internal memory. There is also the possibility to cycle continuously between different static or animated backgrounds, exactly as it happens on PC. For installation it is important that the smartphone has Android 8.1 or a newer version.
If you are one of the lucky owners of a smartphone updated to Android 12, you should know that Wallpaper Engine is even compatible with the dedicated engine to themes called Monet, that is the piece of software capable of extracting the main colors from your wallpaper to adapt the system interface and applications to the dominant colors, presented as part of the new Material You design by Google.
These are the main points highlighted by the Wallpaper Engine developer:
No hidden costs, no advertisements, no user tracking or data collection Transfer Scenes and Videos wallpapers from Wallpaper Engine on your computer to Android wirelessly Import any compatible file from your device as wallpaper: Videos Wallpaper Engine, GIFs, images and wallpapers Create a playlist of your wallpapers and use different playlist modes Auto pause when power saving mode is activated, offers FSP and quality settings Full support for dynamic audio viewers, clocks and other dynamic elements of wallpaper Let wallpapers move with the movement of your device (devices with gyroscope) Support for automatic theme colors based on the current wallpaper, including Android 12 Material You You can download Wallpaper Engine from the Google Play Store or install manually the APK file by downloading it from the developer's official site.
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Android 12's Material You crashes games, but it's not as bad as it sounds
Eric Zeman / Android Authority
TL;DR
One of the premier new elements of Android 12 is the Material You theming engine. Using your wallpaper as a guide, Android will automatically change the color accents throughout your system to create a cohesive visual experience.
When you combine this with auto-changing wallpaper, you get a really cool (and very colorful) view of Android. Unfortunately, a new Android 12 crashing bug is causing issues left and right, and it appears to stem directly from these Material You features.
See also: When is Android 12 coming to your phone?
The good news is that you need to fit a very specific set of circumstances to see Android 12 crashing before your eyes. First, you need to have a Pixel phone with Android 12 installed, since the Material You theming engine is still a Pixel-exclusive. Next, you need to have a system active that automatically changes your phone’s wallpaper. That could be one that comes with your phone or a third-party app. Finally, you need to fire up an Android game. With all these factors in play, your game will continually crash every time the wallpaper changes in the background.
Obviously, that’s a very specific set of circumstances. However, as Android 12 becomes more prevalent and Material You makes its way to more phones, this Android 12 crashing bug could be a huge problem. Thankfully, the bug tracker shows that Google is aware of the issue and working on a solution.
In the meantime, if you face this problem, the only workaround is to turn off wallpaper switching while you game. It’s inconvenient but better than consistent crashes.
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