What Happens If You Set a Fully Transparent Image as Your Phone Wallpaper?

A Curious Thought

Last week, while setting a new wallpaper on my phone, an interesting idea popped into my mind: "What if I set a completely transparent image as my phone wallpaper? What would happen?"

But then a practical problem arose: how do you actually make such an image? For people familiar with Photoshop, this might be easy, but I only know how to use the default Paint app on Windows. When I opened Paint, I realized there was no option to create a fully transparent image.

I tried searching online for "download transparent image," but the images I found were actually just plain white—not truly transparent.

In the end, I used AI to write a simple Python script that generated a real transparent image.

When I set it as my wallpaper, I got the effect you see in the photo above.

Where Did the Icon Border Styles Go? How Does This Work?

After some trial and error, I figured out the full process:

Step 1: Create a fully transparent background image and save it to your phone's gallery.

Step 2: Open the image in your gallery, tap the share button in the lower left, and select "Use as Wallpaper" from the options.

Step 3: Tap the "Add" button in the upper left, then choose "Customize Home Screen."

Step 4: This is the key step! Turn off the "Blur" option in the lower right (it's on by default), then tap "Done" in the upper right.

The Truth

At first, I thought I had discovered a fun little "bug" in iOS. But after more testing, I realized something: even if you use a plain white image and follow the same steps, you get the same effect!

The real reason lies in the icons themselves. All the icons that seem to "lose" their borders have one thing in common—their background is white. To demonstrate, I grouped together a bunch of white-background app icons (forgive my little trick 😄).

If you want to get creative, you can use different colors for different effects. For example, gather a bunch of blue-background apps and use a blue wallpaper to create a unique "blue version" of this effect.