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Pixel phones tend to get all the coolest new Android features first, and the same thing is true with Cinematic Wallpapers, a new feature coming to Pixel phones soon.
Like live wallpapers, cinematic wallpapers will feature an animated graphic that brings your phone’s homescreen to life. But it’s going to offer much more customization to users. Cinematic wallpapers will let users add a cinematic touch to photos. So basically you can take a picture from your phone (whether you captured it or not), and you can turn into a 3D image that moves as you tilt your device.
It’s just one of the ways that Android is becoming more customizable. The feature uses on-device machine learning networks to give your pictures that 3D look. That shouldn’t be a surprise as AI was a big theme at Google I/O this year. And machine learning has been a staple of new Pixel features for years.
Pixel devices get cinematic wallpapers and emoji wallpapers this Summer
Cinematic wallpapers aren’t the only new wallpaper feature coming to Android. Coming later this Summer, exclusive to Pixel devices at first, Google is also adding emoji wallpapers.
Emoji wallpapers will let you create a custom wallpaper background based on any combination of your favorite emoji. You can select from a list of different emoji, patterns, and colors to create a unique backdrop that screams “you.” Or if you just don’t like the pressure of picking things you can hit a “randomize” button and let the phone pick for you.
Then there’s generative AI wallpapers. Using this option instead, you can get a completely unique wallpaper generated by answering a set of suggested prompts. It uses Google’s text-to-image diffusion model to analyze the prompts you select and the spit out a wallpaper that matches those selections, while also fitting your theme thanks to Material You.
Cinematic wallpapers and emoji wallpapers will land in June, while generative AI wallpapers will arrive sometime this Fall. Probably around the stable launch of Android 14.