When it comes to finding a great wallpaper for your iPad or iPhone, you can choose a couple of different paths. Some people like to create their own wallpapers with photography or art, others like to scour the internet for the best iPhone wallpapers. But if you're an iPhone or iPad user, you can always download a brilliant app to do all the legwork for you.
There is a swathe of great wallpaper apps for iPhone and iPad that can bring all of the best options together in one place. The great thing about wallpaper apps is that their curation means you're only choosing from great high-quality images, so you know you'll get a wallpaper in tip-top Retina resolution that's the right size, shape, and proportion for your iPhone or iPad.
If you want to find the best wallpaper apps for iPhone and iPad in 2023, we've got you covered, here are our picks!
Editor's choice — Lockd - Lock Screen Wallpapers
With iOS 16, Apple unveiled a stunning new array of tools to help users create great lock screens, especially using really nice depth effects that interact with your iPhone's time and date on the Lock Screen. This has led to a massive uptick in fantastic-looking iPhone wallpapers on iOS 16, in particular thanks to the power of portrait mode on the iPhone's camera.
Lockd is an incredibly popular App Store app with a 4.7-star rating and over 3,600 reviews. It's a collection of Depth Effect Lock Screen wallpapers that all work with iOS 16's overhauled lock screen, bringing objects in the images out to the front and interacting with your Lock Screen furniture. It has great categories such as cities, fashion, cars, nature, and more, so there's something for everyone!
Vellum Wallpapers
Vellum Wallpapers is one of the most popular iPhone and iPad wallpaper apps out there, with more than 55,900 ratings and a 4.8-star score. It has hundreds of free hand-picked wallpapers, with new packs arriving often and a new wallpaper daily. Vellum also has a fantastic blurred background tool so that you can create cool effects.
Vellum is free if you're happy to use it with ads, or you can pay a small in-app subscription fee to remove them.
Everpix
Everpix boasts a myriad of 4K, Retina, and HD wallpapers in all manner of themes and categories, curated to ensure they fit your device's display perfectly. Again the app is organized into handy categories, and features cool additions like the aforementioned Depth effect, and even AI-generated wallpapers!
Like Vellum, a premium subscription will unlock even more content and get rid of those pesky ads.
WLPPR
Do away with vowels and rubbish wallpapers thanks to WLPPR. WLPPR specializes in real-life shots, in particular from nature, so this is great if you want realistic, scenic landscapes of lakes, forests, fields, seas, space, and beyond. Not only does it have 1000s of images in great high quality, but there are no in-app purchases to be seen either, which some users definitely prefer.
Papers.co
Papers.co boasts a similarly excellent library compared to other options on here, but excels thanks to its very minimalist and simple interface which offers you a very narrow choice of sharing, saving, and liking wallpapers.
Papers.co is also available on Android and Desktop, and can be used simply through a desktop browser if you want to add a splash of excellence to your laptop or PC. With nearly 3,000 ratings and a 4.8-star score on the App Store, it's definitely a popular option, and is available for free with an optional in-app purchase to remove all ads.
Walli
Walli is a unique wallpaper app in that its images come from artists, helping them to earn money through the sharing of their creations. The app is free, as are the wallpapers, and because it offers artist-created wallpapers it definitely boasts a more unique collection of images. There are a slew of categories to suit every taste, and wallpapers are linked to artist bios where you can see more of their work, view their websites, and access their social media.
So Walli is giving you great wallpapers while promoting great artists and helping you find them in the process!
Zedge
When you want a plethora of wallpapers for pretty much anything you can think of, then Zedge should be your go-to.
Zedge is one of Apple's top 100 App Store apps in the entertainment section and boasts wallpapers, live wallpapers, and even ringtones.
It also has an AI wallpaper generator and literally millions of wallpapers to choose from. There's a big set of both free and premium options and even GIF wallpapers so you can set your favorite meme as your Lock Screen and Home Screen backgrounds. If you're still into that sort of thing, there are even NFTs that you can buy, although all the usual caveats and warnings about blockchain art definitely apply.
While there are paid options for this free app, it does offer the chance to buy credits as an in-app purchase, rather than making users sign up for a subscription.
Make your iOS device stand out above the rest
You can always trust iMore. Our team of Apple experts have years of experience testing all kinds of tech and gadgets, so you can be sure our recommendations and criticisms are accurate and helpful. Find out more about how we test.
One of my favorite things when checking out other people's devices in person or through their home screens is what they use as their wallpaper. In fact, I change my wallpapers pretty frequently as well, and I love having a variety of options available to me when it comes to finding awesome wallpapers.
These are some of the best options out there on the App Store, and you're sure to find something you love from these choices.
