from Hacker News

Every default macOS wallpaper

by jorgesborges on 2/15/24, 4:29 PM with 176 comments

  • by rezmason on 2/15/24, 7:31 PM

    Don't forget the OS 9 wallpapers:

    https://512pixels.net/projects/mac-os-9-5k-wallpapers

    My favorites among these are the gradient-rich desktops that dropped in Mac OS 8.5 back in '98, like those UFO ones.

    That's when the OS gained support for icons with 24-bit color and 8-bit masks, which are the direct ancestors to today's 1024x1024 32-bit app icons. Perhaps to commemorate this full leveling up of the classic Mac desktop to millions of colors, Apple hired a small team of designers to custom make the UFO, Capsule and Tub desktop pictures.

    Screen sized gradients between two relatively close colors almost always land in the sandbar of banding or dithering in order to quantize all those subtle variations to the limited color depth. But these desktops do a beautiful job at avoiding that. I'm not sure, but I think they achieved it by color grading a zero-to-255 3D render with a high bits/channel ratio in Photoshop, tuning the grade and quantizing to 8 bits per pixel from time to time as a sort of gamut warning. Any problematic areas could then be "buffed out" with careful blend mode shenanigans on the boundaries.

  • by hcarvalhoalves on 2/15/24, 6:24 PM

  • by vanilla_nut on 2/15/24, 5:58 PM

    I wish more OSes would work with independent photographers to compile a set of beautiful wallpapers. It used to feel easy to find good wallpaper online, but nowadays, especially with macOS's hiDPI settings and my personal desire for #000 true black wallpapers to hide notches and camera holes, it can feel very difficult. Search engines don't yield good results for 4k or 5k images, and a lot of the hi-res wallpaper subreddits have disappeared since their API debacle.

    I source solid wallpapers from a couple of OSes for use in macOS:

    * https://stories.gregannandale.com/raspberry-pi-desktop-image...

    * Ubuntu has some default hits (and misses): https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/every-ubuntu-default-wallpaper

    * Ubuntu hosts a wallpaper competition (most years) for photographers all over the world: https://ubuntu.com/blog/winners-of-the-21-10-wallpaper-compe...

    * and here's a somewhat-outdated repo of wallpapers from a bunch of Linux distros: https://github.com/LinuxKits/Distro-wallpapers -- I'm especially fond of the Elementary OS images.

  • by danans on 2/15/24, 6:27 PM

    Tangentially, I find wallpaper to be fascinating as it's one of the few aspects of desktop UX that is basically still 100% open to self-expression.

    For functional reasons, every other desktop UI surface has converged with only a few minor variations. But the static desktop OS background - perhaps because it has no inherent functional purpose and remains covered most of the time - remains as a canvas.

  • by ruined on 2/15/24, 4:41 PM

    (admirable) these images did incredible psychic damage to kde designers

    i used the catalina bg until late last year, when they started shipping the former appletv video backgrounds as the default, because it was just so good. seriously, after that on a 5k display, i thought i would never enjoy another desktop background

  • by ChrisMarshallNY on 2/15/24, 4:50 PM

    The one that mystifies me, is why Apple pulled their original Dubai At Night screensaver[0].

    [0] https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=766810966790684 (This seems to be the only place to find it online).

  • by Bondi_Blue on 2/15/24, 5:20 PM

    A few photographers recreated some of them:

    https://petapixel.com/2019/09/16/this-photographer-trio-recr...

    They also created one for Monterey since it didn’t ship with exclusive landscape photography:

    https://www.techradar.com/news/photographers-make-their-own-...

  • by johnbehnke on 2/15/24, 4:41 PM

    The macOS screenshot library from Stephen is also excellent: https://512pixels.net/projects/aqua-screenshot-library/

  • by scq on 2/16/24, 1:31 AM

    It's not mentioned on the page, but at least 10.0 to 10.8 are AI upscaled -- you can tell from the artifacts when looking at the image closely.

    I don't think it's reasonable to call this an "archive", as the link does, when the images have undisclosed changes to them and are clearly not the original files :/

  • by mostlysimilar on 2/15/24, 5:06 PM

    They're beautiful, but a small tangent... the latest macOS has a bug that repeatedly reverts the wallpaper to the default whenever I unplug/plug my external monitor and it's driving me crazy.

  • by cmiller1 on 2/15/24, 4:41 PM

    Here's an album containing all of the built in wallpapers in every version including for the classic Mac OS https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNNQyeVrqxBdNmBkq9ILswi...

  • by yrro on 2/15/24, 4:49 PM

  • by Erazal on 2/16/24, 12:16 AM

    I'm obsessed with having a clean desktop, and beautiful wallpapers. Until recently, I used a neat little app for MacOS called Artdiario [1] that would update my wallpaper every day with a beautiful piece of art and I LOVED it.

    "Used to" because it looks it's not updated anymore since around 2 months :(

    Was thinking of re-creating the same "open-source" version of it, that would pick and show art from museums around the world every day [2].

    Would some of you be interested?

    And if by chance you're reading me Jimmy - I love the app and would be happy to help maintain / curate it!

    [1] https://www.artdiario.com/

    [2] a ton of museums provide free access to their art, such as the National Gallery of Art - https://www.nga.gov/open-access-images.html

  • by nrabulinski on 2/15/24, 6:56 PM

    To me leopard is the most iconic. In my head it’s the wallpaper of modern macOS. I still remember back in the day that was the first thing I downloaded when I tried to make my Vista PC look at least a little bit like a Mac :-)

  • by watersb on 2/16/24, 12:22 AM

    You can run screen savers on your Mac desktop (wallpaper), buy running the "ScreenSaverEngine" with the "-background" option from the command line.

    The executable is inside the screen saver application package.

        cd /System/Library/CoreServices/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS
    ./ScreenSaverEngine -background
    (Earlier versions of macOS have the app under /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources )

  • by Ezhik on 2/15/24, 5:45 PM

    I miss pre-Yosemite vibes and Aqua's skeuomorphic iteration.

    An elegant design language, for a more civilized age.

  • by zamadatix on 2/15/24, 5:42 PM

    These seem to be upscaled, does anyone know where to find a collection of the original image files (not scaled or recompressed)?

  • by mvexel on 2/15/24, 5:50 PM

    There is a link at the top for pre-OSX wallpapers. There was one in MacOS 7 or 8 that was called "platte pinda's" in Dutch meaning "flat(tened) peanuts)". That name mystified me at the time. Googling it now, there's only one result for that phrase, completely unrelated. Am I making this up?

  • by concinds on 2/15/24, 7:08 PM

    Just got a MacBook Air from the store, latest Sonoma 14.3.1, and the default wallpaper was the photorealistic one (“Sonoma Horizon”), not the abstract one.

  • by davidhariri on 2/15/24, 6:16 PM

    Louie Mantia has colored, re-rendered versions of the 10.0 Cheetah Wallpaper that include Dark Mode versions. They are great: https://lmnt.me/blog/wallpapers/

  • by alltrue1 on 2/15/24, 4:39 PM

    Tiger is just so nostalgic

  • by divbzero on 2/15/24, 8:12 PM

    This is the analogous website with every Apple TV aerial screensaver:

    https://bzamayo.com/watch-all-the-apple-tv-aerial-video-scre...

  • by mark_l_watson on 2/17/24, 1:59 PM

    That is a cool trip down memory lane. Not only macOS, but also when updating Linux distributions it is always fun to see new eye candy on the desktop.

    Apple has excellent photos and other wallpapers, I would be (slightly) curious what percentage of people just stick with the default?

    Off topic, but I like to use my own pictures of places around the world where my wife and I have travelled for desktops. I also like to use high resolution pictures I have taken of favorite art work I have purchased.

  • by JoshGlazebrook on 2/15/24, 6:53 PM

    Can we do this with iOS wallpapers too? I still have fond memories of those fish from the very first phone. They brought it back in iOS 16 thankfully.

  • by BjoernKW on 2/15/24, 7:11 PM

    The Catalina one always used to remind me of a certain island somewhere deep in the Caribbean.

    Seems like I'm not the only one: https://www.reddit.com/r/MonkeyIsland/comments/dgwm03/the_ne...

  • by jsz0 on 2/15/24, 10:02 PM

    I'm not a big fan of any of the modern macOS or iOS wallpapers. They're so busy it's hard to even read text labels on top of them. My goto background for many years was Leopard Server but it was eventually replaced by the Linen tile texture that IIRC wasn't a default wallpaper choice but could be copied out of the system folder.

  • by globular-toast on 2/16/24, 8:40 AM

    I remember when having a wallpaper was a big deal. I have a few screenshots of my desktops over the years and they do bring back memories. But I've used a tiling window manager for the past 5 years or so and there's no point having a wallpaper. I consider it a waste of screen space now.

  • by marsissippi on 2/15/24, 9:29 PM

    So cool!

    I made this thing that breaks down each image by fraction of each color used

    https://www.julyp.com/shared/018dae67-9ec0-7191-bd9f-7fe9c85...

    Looking at it like a source of color palettes, I really like Venture more...

  • by Sunspark on 2/15/24, 8:26 PM

    Not a critique of MacOS here, but generally stock OS bundled wallpapers for any device are always so generic. Probably a lot of effort goes into picking ones that offends the least amount of people, hence the trend in recent years of just colours and shapes. Only the colour-blind would be offended by those.

  • by Thrymr on 2/15/24, 5:43 PM

    Beyond the defaults, there were 7 different wallpapers available in 10.15 (Catalina): https://9to5mac.com/2019/09/29/macos-catalina-wallpapers/

  • by geon on 2/15/24, 7:50 PM

    I kind of miss the original aqua white striped theme: https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:720/format:webp/1*Xwuj...

  • by bredren on 2/15/24, 5:36 PM

    Tangentially related, my pal had a photo similar to the Andromeda in macOS 10.7 Lion licensed via 500px->Getty Images and it was used on Colbert last night:

    https://i.imgur.com/wtnLpt8.jpeg

  • by lizardking on 2/15/24, 9:20 PM

    Strong nostalgia for this one

    https://512pixels.net/downloads/macos-wallpapers-thumbs/10-2...

    Takes me back to my dorm room on my 13-inch iBook.

  • by Kehvarl on 2/15/24, 7:08 PM

    My last mac was a Powerbook g4 12 inch with OS 10.3 Panther, but for some reason I clearly recall the 10.0 wallpaper being the one it came with and the one I stared at for years. The proper 10.3 wallpaper doesn't look familiar at all.

  • by binarymax on 2/15/24, 6:13 PM

    The Catalina wallpaper threw me off guard when I first saw it. It looks exactly like a Bryce landscape I made in the late 90s. I spent some time trying to find it in my data archives but alas it is likely lost.

  • by freitzkriesler2 on 2/15/24, 9:30 PM

    I forgot how much I missed those blue cones.

    This and bliss put me in a wicked nostalgic mood.

  • by imwillofficial on 2/16/24, 1:22 AM

    Things brings back so many great memories.

    I got into computing just as OS X launched. I installed every version with great anticipation. A ritual with my Mac geek friends every year.

    I feel we have lost that excitement in todays world.

  • by dredmorbius on 2/16/24, 2:36 AM

    I'd stumbled across this site just recently after realising that the MacOS Monterey upgrade apparently deletes the Yosemite wallpapers. Which is quite unfortunate.

  • by pompino on 2/16/24, 9:23 AM

    The 10.4 wallpaper brings back some nostalgia for me. It was the first time I could afford to buy a new laptop and I splurged on the 06 core duo macbook pro.

  • by Yhippa on 2/15/24, 7:55 PM

    I can remember eras of my life gone by with these wallpapers.

  • by wk_end on 2/15/24, 4:46 PM

    Everything up through 10.6 makes me feel indescribably warm and fuzzy.

    I don't like Steve Jobs very much as a person, and I don't quite buy the myth that he was as much of a unique genius as some people believe, but...is it a coincidence that 10.7 marked the end of the (second) Jobs-era at Apple?

    ...or maybe it's just nostalgia.

  • by uticus on 2/15/24, 8:49 PM

    What was the one with rotating windmill-like propeller geometric shapes? Or maybe that is a screensaver I'm thinking of...

  • by chungy on 2/16/24, 7:42 AM

    Those 10.0-10.4 wallpapers remind me a lot of wallpapers I made with Fyre back when I ran Windows 95 as a primary.

  • by chris_wot on 2/15/24, 11:21 PM

    The default wallpaper for Sonoma for me has been an interactive image of what looks like wine country in France?

  • by rickreynoldssf on 2/15/24, 6:11 PM

    I still use a background tile from MacOS 7.5. I guess that makes me reallly old and a bit spectrumy

  • by mattl on 2/16/24, 12:50 AM

    Meanwhile I have the same generic blue background from Rhapsody still on all my devices.

  • by dbtc on 2/15/24, 6:59 PM

    A change from abstract to space after 2005.

    A change from space to earth after 2012.

    And back to abstract in 2021.

  • by BizarreByte on 2/15/24, 6:41 PM

    10.3 and 10.4 were the best ones and I still use one of those two to this day.

  • by zgs on 2/16/24, 3:01 AM

    I was far more used to the MacsBug screen of despair.

  • by interludead on 2/16/24, 9:08 AM

    10.4 Tiger - my favorite

  • by Lammy on 2/15/24, 9:23 PM

    See also, for the other (non-default) Mac OS X walls: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/macos-desktop-pictures

  • by justinzollars on 2/15/24, 5:45 PM

    The California thing is kinda played. We need a new theme.

  • by avereveard on 2/15/24, 5:45 PM

    The copyright claim from apple will be legendary

  • by reify on 2/16/24, 8:05 AM

    Running out of ideas to promote the website

    More boring and uninteresting Apple boringness

    What is so interesting about wallpapers? Nothing!

    The typical self promotion through HN.

    Become a member of 512 Pixels. Support projects like these, receive exclusive content in the monthly newsletter and enjoy advanced screenings of my YouTube videos.

    Fraidy not old boy

    A fly in the ointment

  • by sebastianconcpt on 2/15/24, 5:45 PM

    You can't unsee it once seen:

    The last three releases as somehow vaginal canals.

  • by Theodores on 2/15/24, 5:36 PM

    Even if you never use Apple Veblen Goods and have no idea how to use the funny keyboard, mouse and interface that defines Mac OSX, these desktop wallpapers are very familiar.

    This is remarkable because Apple is supposed to be about individuality. Changing the wallpaper could be two clicks away yet most Apple users stay with the stock wallpaper. I think they are focused on work rather than tinkering, with everyone happy with the stock wallpaper.

    Meanwhile, on Ubuntu, the first thing I change is the wallpaper. It goes. But then I have full screen apps and never see the wallpaper ever again.

    Personally I want the desktop wallpaper to be a black and white terminal window with it showing console messages from syslog, representing the guts of the machine.