If you’re into playing around with wallpapers on your iPhone, especially now that iOS 18 has introduced some neat dynamic color-changing wallpapers, it’s pretty tempting to give it a shot. These wallpapers shift colors throughout the day based on the time, which sounds kinda cool, but it’s not always straightforward to set up if you’re not familiar with all the steps. Here’s a quick rundown of how to get it working so your lock screen can glow with changing hues instead of static images.
Dynamic Color Changing Wallpaper on iPhone
First off, make sure you’re running iOS 18 or later. No point trying if your device is still stuck on an older version — it just won’t show up. After that, the idea is to pick a wallpaper that supports the dynamic feature, which is often labeled clearly, but sometimes you just need to browse around or search for ‘iOS 18 Dynamic’ wallpapers in your wallpaper options.
Here’s how it generally works:
How to set up the dynamic wallpaper
- Head over to your lock screen. Press and hold to bring up the customization view. Looks like a long press, but it’s actually more like a tap-and-hold. Then tap the + button to add a new wallpaper. On some setups, you might need to go through Settings > Wallpaper > Add New Wallpaper.
- Once in the wallpaper picker, navigate to the Featured section. Swipe left until you see the iOS 18 or dynamic wallpapers category. Sometimes, you need to scroll or search if they’re not immediately visible.
- Select the wallpaper labeled as Dynamic or with a similar name. If the slide shows color options or preview animations, that’s your cue.
- Swipe left/right to preview different options. You’ll notice some wallpapers are animated or change based on the time of day. This is actually taking advantage of your device’s clock and location data to update periodically.
- Tap Done or Add at the top right corner. Sometimes you’ll get a prompt to set it as lock screen, home screen, or both. Confirm your choice.
As you might’ve guessed, the color shifts work best when you’ve set the wallpaper for your lock screen. The wallpaper syncs with your iPhone’s internal clock, so expect to see a gradient or hue shift occur during the day. Fun in theory, but sometimes, it doesn’t update instantaneously or can be a bit laggy depending on your device and settings. Weird, but on some machines, a quick reboot of your device helps, like locking/unlocking or toggling the wallpaper off/on in settings.
Other Customization Options on iPhone
Sure, the dynamic wallpaper is the big shiny feature, but iOS 18 also brought a decent bunch of other tweaks. Want to hide app icon names? Change icon sizes? Tweak colors for accessibility? All possible. Open Settings > Wallpaper > Customize Home Screen or Settings > Display & Brightness to dive into those options. There’s also a new suite of Accessibility features like Vehicle Motion Cues (which can help if you get overwhelmed with motion sickness), voice message transcriptions, and Vocal Shortcuts — yeah, Apple keeps cramming in more tools to personalize stuff.
If you’re trying to get the wallpaper to behave a certain way but it’s not updating or syncing as expected, you might need some extra steps like resetting the wallpaper cache or toggling some settings in Settings > Accessibility > Motion.
Honestly, figuring out these dynamic wallpapers can be a bit hit or miss initially. Sometimes it just works, other times you have to fiddle around or restart the device. Not sure why it works sometimes, but…because of course, Apple has to make it a little trickier than it needs to be.
If you’re still having trouble getting the colors to change or the wallpaper not updating during the day, checking that Location Services are enabled for the system (go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services and make sure it’s set to ‘While Using the App’) can help improve timing accuracy.