Wallpaper

Hello Friends is a really nifty Windows Phone lockscreen app that generates a wallpaper based off your Windows Phone contact photos. While the original release had Hello Friends only compatible with Windows Phone 8 devices, the latest update brings the app to our Windows Phone 7 devices.

Version 3.0 of Hello Friends is now available for the Windows Phone 7 devices and while it won't automatically change your lockscreen wallpaper, it allows you to create the image collage, save it to your Pictures Hub and set it manually as your lockscreen wallpaper as you would any other photo.

The Windows Phone 8 lockscreen app Photostream just got a little better.

Photostream already gives you the ability to not only rotate your lockscreen wallpapers from images in your Pictures Hub but PhotoStream will also tapped into Flickr to generate lockscreen wallpapers. The app was recently updated to version 1.2 and allows you to tap into photos on 500px as well.

Lock Themes is a Windows Phone 8 app that keeps your lock screen wallpapers fresh by rotating images from select themes. Lock Themes provides you with over forty themes that include astronomy, nature, horoscopes, daily inspirational quotes, and travel.  Lock Themes has a healthy selection of themes with new themes added weekly.

Lock Themes is laid out in simple and straight forward fashion. You have a page to turn enable/disable Lock Themes and a page listing all the themes. At the bottom of the screen you will find four command buttons; save the current lock screen to your Pictures Hub, request a theme from the developer, search the themes and clear your search results.

A new image has leaked out tonight revealing for the first time Window Phone 8's new "live" lockscreen wallpaper feature. We have mentioned live lockscreen wallpapers before, specifically when the Windows Phone 8 SDK leaked over the summertime (and we told you about them even before then). The feature is not quite as “live” as Android where things are actually moving around, wasting your battery. Instead, this is truly useful.

The image above, received by the site Nokia Innovation, shows three examples of this Live locksreen wallpaper: Bing, ESPN and USA Today. The former will refresh the lockscreen every day with Bing’s latest background, ESPN can show you sports scores presumably of your favorite team and USA Today highlights news via tile images.

Since Windows Phone users can't spend a lot of time customizing their OS (instead we live our lives), there's much focus on the lock-screen. We know we change ours every few days (we use Ffffound for inspiration).

Today, Microsoft has announced a partnership with London based graphic designer Levi Freeman and as a result, they've released eight "officially sanctioned" wallpapers to spiffy up your Windows Phone.

The eight images are nature focused so they may not appeal to everyone (we're more into abstract art here). Still, the designs are nice and they're meant to look perfect on your phone. What's more, the images all have a corresponding QR code for easy download (see, not even Microsoft uses Tag). Plus Microsoft notes that they hope more of these collaborations will happen with Levi, meaning we can probably expect different themes in the future--we like that idea. Levi also plans to release desktop versions too.

There's some interesting tidbits about the inspiration for each image and details about Freeman at his site, so hop on over to grab those images and learn a little bit about their origins.

Source: Windows Phone Blog, Levi Freeman's blog

David Bandey, the brains behind the ZX Spectrum ringtones and owner of the Retro Video Game (RVG) music blog, has released a number of wallpapers that fit perfectly on your Windows Phone. Titles include Batman, Arkanoid: Revengoe of Doh and Firefly.

The retro wallpapers are available in three styles:

• Style 1 – A simple enlargement with smoothing,
• Style 2 – A classic style comic book ink shading applied,
• Style 3 – Glowing Neon Edges.

Bandey is taking requests, should you wish to see another title be available as a wallpaper.

Source: Retro VGM Blog

We're certainly not having a shortage of wallpaper sites these days and this morning, we have another. This one comes from reader Criss and while the selection isn't massive, they are unique and minimalist, featuring the Windows Phone logo and a variety of colors. We're actually digging some of these, especially the variety of colors to match your preferred accent. [Edit: Heads up, if you keep scrolling down, you might see some scantaliy clad ladies]

It certainly wouldn't hurt to browse over there on your phone and take a gander: http://wpwalls.wordpress.com/

And don't forget if you're into making wallpaper, we're having a neat-ol little contest here where you can win a brand-new Samsung Focus S. We already have some amazing entries here in our forum but maybe yours will be the winner? Runner-ups will also get featured here on the site and within version 2.0 of our official app, so crack open that Photoshop on this idyllic Sunday and go for it!

We're always looking to refresh our lock screen on our ten Windows Phones. Okay, well you probably don't have that big of a problem but still, if you're like us and a bit geeky, these "minimalist" Star Wars wallpapers will suit your needs.

Created by Rafal Rola and cropped/re-sized by 1800PocketPC, there are the six posters for the Star Wars films (although lets be honest, there are only three real films, amiright?) and another nine for specific characters, including yes, Mr. Bobba Fett (Boba Fett, where?!).

So haul yourself on over, get your downloading on and represent some Star Wars.

Source: 1800PocketPC