[HN Gopher] Every default macOS wallpaper
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Every default macOS wallpaper
        
       Author : jorgesborges
       Score  : 304 points
       Date   : 2024-02-15 16:29 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (512pixels.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (512pixels.net)
        
       | alltrue1 wrote:
       | Tiger is just so nostalgic
        
       | johnbehnke wrote:
       | The macOS screenshot library from Stephen is also excellent:
       | https://512pixels.net/projects/aqua-screenshot-library/
        
         | fumar wrote:
         | Intense nostalgia. I remember my updating my MacBook from Tiger
         | to Leopard and being inthralled with the new OS welcome video.
         | It was a powerful feeling like a genuine leap was made after
         | rebooting and new powers unlocked. 10.3 used Rokysopp's Eple,
         | and I still love that song and album.
        
           | xattt wrote:
           | The Welcome videos were technological showcases. Where else
           | were you going to see 1080p videos in 2005-2008?
        
         | vvillena wrote:
         | Looking back at the 10.4-10.7 era, I really miss those app
         | icons, they were so easy to tell apart from each other just
         | from shape. The rest of the design language was also a marvel
         | in usability, it was so clear what everything was and how to
         | interact with it.
        
       | ruined wrote:
       | (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
        
         | _benj wrote:
         | > (admirable) these images did incredible psychic damage to kde
         | designers
         | 
         | made me chuckle :-)
         | 
         | But for real, there is something about a good wallpaper, at
         | least for me, the wallpaper being the first thing I set on a
         | new linux install.
         | 
         | I fully believe that a solid default wallpaper can help with
         | desktop manager adoption (i.e. kde, gnome, xfce4), at least for
         | the bohemians types like me!
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | > the wallpaper being the first thing I set on a new linux
           | install
           | 
           | For me, that would be the last time I ever see it. I have so
           | many windows open providing me quick access to whatever I
           | need without flipping spaces or whatever, that I just never
           | see the desktop.
           | 
           | It's just one of those things that over time of using
           | computers, I just don't care about it any more. I don't
           | begrudge anyone that does, but it is just one of those funny
           | things one realizes how time changes one's outlook
        
           | Affric wrote:
           | Do you have a recommendation for a good place to source
           | wallpapers?
           | 
           | With the photography it's one of the things Apple get so
           | right about UX.
        
             | SSLy wrote:
             | unsplash perhaps?
        
         | pkaye wrote:
         | I don't use KDE but recently came upon some wallpapers on
         | store.kde.org that I really liked. Particularly the Ketsa Color
         | ones.
         | 
         | https://store.kde.org/browse?cat=299&ord=latest
        
       | cmiller1 wrote:
       | 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...
        
       | wk_end wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | jwells89 wrote:
         | > Everything up through 10.6 makes me feel indescribably warm
         | and fuzzy.
         | 
         | 10.2/10.3/10.4 are the ones that do it for me. Spent way too
         | much time on my Macs through those years, through which I
         | frequently used the default desktop pictures because they were
         | so smooth and nice to look at, and each OS X release was nicer
         | to use than the last which made for positive associations with
         | each.
         | 
         | 10.5/10.6 were good too, but I found the default desktops on
         | those too busy and usually used something else. I also
         | typically used custom themes by way of Shapeshifter[0] because
         | I found the gray metal look of those releases too dark and
         | modded my dock with themes found on MacThemes. As a result the
         | default 10.5/10.6 desktops aren't emotionally evocative for me.
         | 
         | I do however miss the 10.5/10.6 implementation of virtual
         | desktops, which gave you a 2D grid to place desktops on instead
         | of just a line.
         | 
         | [0]: https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/ShapeShifter
        
       | yrro wrote:
       | Here are some ones from MacOS 7:
       | 
       | https://osxdaily.com/2018/01/01/classic-mac-os-tiling-wallpa...
        
         | Waterluvian wrote:
         | Repeating bears in overalls is all I can see when I think
         | System 7 desktop pattern.
        
           | jwells89 wrote:
           | For me it's the grass, stones, and star patterns. They look
           | way too busy on modern displays but at 640x480 or 800x600
           | they weren't too bad.
        
         | mattl wrote:
         | System 7... it didn't become Mac OS until 7.6 or something, and
         | then Mac OS 8 came out very soon after that.
        
           | MenhirMike wrote:
           | Also conveniently made sure that clone manufacturers (who
           | only had a license for System 7) didn't have a modern Mac OS
           | anymore.
        
         | jandrese wrote:
         | Even more fun was the fact the wallpaper widget had a little
         | pixel editor built in that let you make your own tiling
         | pattern. I seem to recall that it updated the desktop in
         | realtime as you changed the pixels so you always knew exactly
         | what your pattern looked like tiled.
        
           | 101008 wrote:
           | Oh, memory unblocked! Didn't Windows 98 had something
           | similar? It could be Win95 but I think it would be too much
           | for that time, and for XP we already had background images in
           | "good quality".
        
             | jandrese wrote:
             | I don't think Windows ever included anything like it with
             | the OS. Windows 95 switched to having a giant JPEG
             | background for the wow factor. Certainly there could have
             | been a third party program that implemented that
             | functionality, but I don't think Microsoft ever shipped it
             | with the OS. Maybe as one of those optional fun pack things
             | they used to offer?
        
               | fourteenfour wrote:
               | Windows 3.1 and 2000 definitely had a pattern editor. I
               | think it was removed in XP.
        
       | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
       | 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).
        
         | mig39 wrote:
         | I'd take a guess and say that Dubai is one of those places
         | that's a bit paranoid of aerial imagery?
         | 
         | Was this filmed with a drone or helicopter? Is it possible the
         | right "permits" weren't obtained before flying over the rush
         | hour traffic?
        
           | madeofpalk wrote:
           | There's still a daytime top-down Dubai screensaver video on
           | Apple TV I believe.
        
             | randgoog wrote:
             | My Apple TV shows downtown LA.
        
               | madeofpalk wrote:
               | Looks like there's five active Dubai screensavers. The
               | one parent was talking about is missing.
               | https://bzamayo.com/watch-all-the-apple-tv-aerial-video-
               | scre... also https://aerial-videos.netlify.app/
               | 
               | https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D011_C010_PSNK_DE
               | NOI...
               | 
               | https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D008_C010_PSNK_v2
               | 1_S...
               | 
               | https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D002_C003_PSNK_v0
               | 4_S...
               | 
               | https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D001_C001_PSNK_v0
               | 6_S...
               | 
               | https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D001_C005_COMP_PS
               | NK_...
               | 
               | Looks like they're hosted on a domain with invalid
               | certificate, so your browser might take a bit of
               | convincing to load them.
        
           | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
           | I have no idea. It's an awesome video.
           | 
           | I have a couple of friends that used to work for Apple, and
           | neither one has any idea why.
        
             | 10729287 wrote:
             | Could something be copyrighted here ? Eiffel Tower isn't,
             | but lights are :
             | https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/business/use-image-of-
             | eiffel...
        
         | rgovostes wrote:
         | I was in a room of Apple TV engineers when the screensaver of
         | I-110 in LA came on. Everyone agreed that it caused mild
         | anxiety. I'm glad I don't see it in the rotation anymore.
         | 
         | https://bzamayo.com/watch-all-the-apple-tv-aerial-video-scre...
        
           | ravetcofx wrote:
           | I don't know why anyone would want to look at gross car
           | dependent hell. Not something to be in awe of
        
           | pimlottc wrote:
           | The videos on this page don't work for me (tried Chrome and
           | Firefox)
        
             | zbirkenbuel wrote:
             | It links off to `https://sylvan.apple.com/` which has a
             | name mismatch cert error. If you follow the url in the
             | console (and ignore the cert error) you can download it.
             | Not super convenient but there you are.
        
             | rvnx wrote:
             | https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_LA_A005_C009_PSNK_ALT_
             | v...
        
           | Affric wrote:
           | Weirdly I that always happened to me and I thought I was the
           | only one.
        
           | Gigachad wrote:
           | It's a beautiful recording of a dystopic society.
        
         | ace2358 wrote:
         | I thought you could pick that categories in the settings, I
         | swear I turned off the city ones cause I hate the city and I
         | don't live i. A city.
        
         | cwizou wrote:
         | The files are still available in both 4K and 4K HDR versions, I
         | still have them by default in Aerial if you miss them.
        
       | mostlysimilar wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | pixelHD wrote:
         | Happens to me too. I use a display link'd dell dock from work,
         | with 3 monitors. Every few times i plug it in, the wall papers
         | revert, and the wallpapervideoextension process starts soaking
         | up ram and cpu cycles (I dont use video wallpapers at all, just
         | static images from my folder as wallpapers everywhere). I've
         | made it a habit to check the activity manager everyday after I
         | plug in the mac, and kill that process if its taking up too
         | much resources.
        
         | jwells89 wrote:
         | I think what's actually happening here is that spaces have
         | separate desktop picture settings between displays.
         | 
         | I noticed this a few days ago when moving a space from one
         | monitor to the other and seeing its desktop picture change.
         | Moving the space back to the original monitor restored the
         | desktop picture.
         | 
         | Not sure why it's this way, kind of an odd choice.
        
           | mostlysimilar wrote:
           | I think it's a deeper issue than that. I shouldn't have to
           | set the wallpaper back both when I plug in and when I unplug.
        
         | cwizou wrote:
         | Sonoma did change the way wallpaper (and screensavers) get
         | integrated (preferences have moved in an unusual
         | place/preferences format too) which may be the root cause of
         | this (although I admit I never hit that precise bug). Are you
         | using classic images or some of the built in videos ?
        
           | mostlysimilar wrote:
           | It always defaults back to one of the new animated ones, and
           | I always manually set it back to the solid black color
           | option.
        
             | cwizou wrote:
             | If you are willing to try something, I would suggest an
             | image (of your solid black color) instead.
             | 
             | Because of how the new system work, I wouldn't be surprised
             | the bug is limited to those solid color backgrounds (which
             | are handled quite differently for historic reasons, and it
             | could very well be why you get the error).
             | 
             | The new wallpaper system is a bit of a mess, and solid
             | colors have always been treated weirdly in their
             | preferences.
        
       | Bondi_Blue wrote:
       | 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-...
        
       | Theodores wrote:
       | 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.
        
       | bredren wrote:
       | 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
        
       | zamadatix wrote:
       | These seem to be upscaled, does anyone know where to find a
       | collection of the original image files (not scaled or
       | recompressed)?
        
       | Thrymr wrote:
       | Beyond the defaults, there were 7 different wallpapers available
       | in 10.15 (Catalina): https://9to5mac.com/2019/09/29/macos-
       | catalina-wallpapers/
        
       | Ezhik wrote:
       | I miss pre-Yosemite vibes and Aqua's skeuomorphic iteration.
       | 
       | An elegant design language, for a more civilized age.
        
       | avereveard wrote:
       | The copyright claim from apple will be legendary
        
         | david422 wrote:
         | I'm curious about this. Somebody pulls a bunch of images from
         | Apple and hosts them on their site. Surely this runs afoul of
         | something.
         | 
         | I have a small site that allows some user uploaded content, and
         | I get random notices that threaten legal action unless I buy
         | license (for users that have uploaded content from wherever).
         | My response is just to take them down.
        
       | sebastianconcpt wrote:
       | You can't unsee it once seen:
       | 
       | The last three releases as somehow vaginal canals.
        
       | justinzollars wrote:
       | The California thing is kinda played. We need a new theme.
        
       | mvexel wrote:
       | 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?
        
       | vanilla_nut wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | > I wish more OSes would work with independent photographers to
         | compile a set of beautiful wallpapers.
         | 
         | Why though? Why should someone be subjected to all of this
         | extra cruft when you can just find the images from websites? As
         | long as Google image search exists, people will find whatever
         | images they want to use. If you're thinking an OS vendor would
         | do proper licensing, that's a nice thought, but the vast
         | majority of people using custom wallpapers don't care about it.
        
         | Kwpolska wrote:
         | If you need to hide the dumb notch, I'd take my nice wallpaper,
         | scale it down to the exact resolution, and just add a black bar
         | as high as the menu bar is. This can be a bit ugly when the
         | wallpaper appears without the menu bar, but it's a fine
         | solution nonetheless. (I had to do this in Big Sur, since the
         | OS thought my wallpaper works best with a black text on the
         | menu bar, which wasn't actually too readable.)
        
         | luuurker wrote:
         | To "hide" the notch, try Top Notch: https://topnotch.app/
        
         | bbrks wrote:
         | Try searching at somewhere like wallhaven.cc[1], which
         | aggregates wallpapers with good tagging, colour, size and
         | ratio-based searches.
         | 
         | A lot of the wallpapers there come from other sources like
         | Flickr, interfacelift, Reddit, 4chan (for better or for worse,
         | /wg/ isn't _too bad_ ), or just direct uploads.
         | 
         | I wouldn't say credit is preserved particularly well at all
         | times, which is a shame, but it is just a reverse image search
         | away usually to find the original.
         | 
         | [1] https://wallhaven.cc/
        
           | xanderlewis wrote:
           | I get all of mine from https://unsplash.com.
        
             | edu wrote:
             | +1 to unsplash
        
           | jwells89 wrote:
           | Another vote for wallhaven, have found several high quality
           | 5k and 6k+ desktop pictures there, as well as some for odd
           | aspect ratios (e.g. 5k portrait). Its predecessor Wallbase
           | was also great.
           | 
           | One thing I appreciate is that its users do a decent job of
           | tagging images so it's easy to find all the work of a
           | particular artist or location.
        
         | AlexAndScripts wrote:
         | It's infuriating finding an excellent wallpaper, only to find
         | that it's 900 pixels wide or "4k" with so much compression it
         | looks worse than uncompressed 720p. That and the grotesque
         | photoshops that fill the results when looking for space
         | wallpapers.
         | 
         | On the plus side, Tineye can be quite helpful for finding
         | things in their original size.
         | 
         | And I only use 1080p!
        
       | rickreynoldssf wrote:
       | I still use a background tile from MacOS 7.5. I guess that makes
       | me reallly old and a bit spectrumy
        
       | binarymax wrote:
       | 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.
        
       | davidhariri wrote:
       | 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/
        
       | hcarvalhoalves wrote:
       | These were the best ones IMO:
       | 
       | https://wallpapertag.com/img/eyJpdiI6ImlFY2hqYStNSno4Z0dBcGY...
       | 
       | https://wallpapertag.com/img/eyJpdiI6IlZ2N1R4bVpXYm9DVTRPS3l...
        
         | post_break wrote:
         | The fish one on my 2006 white plastic macbook takes me back.
        
           | alltrue1 wrote:
           | Still have mine and that is definitely my wallpaper
        
         | xanderlewis wrote:
         | The second one. Yes!
        
           | xattt wrote:
           | The lore behind the second one was that it was taken by Steve
           | Jobs.
           | 
           | I remember seeing it on the Leopard keynote. It was glorious
           | with the translucent menubar that ditched the rounded
           | corners.
        
         | Sunspark wrote:
         | Debatable. They're visually too busy and noisy to see all the
         | time.
        
           | Someone wrote:
           | I think laptop users rarely see much of their wallpaper, and
           | that's a significant fraction of users.
           | 
           | You could even argue that, if you see your wallpaper close to
           | "all the time", your monitors are larger than you need most
           | of the time.
        
             | MSFT_Edging wrote:
             | Jokes on you, I give my terminals a slight opacity so I can
             | see the wallpaper all the time.
             | 
             | Sometimes I'll keep an empty workspace up just to declutter
             | and focus on something on the other monitor.
        
         | marpstar wrote:
         | I worked at Best Buy circa 2005 and we had a single Mac Mini on
         | the floor that had the fish wallpaper and it always drew me in.
         | I had no interest in Macs at the time, but there was something
         | alluring behind that wallpaper.
        
       | danans wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | nullhole wrote:
         | > the static desktop OS background
         | 
         | Eons ago, there was a (paid) 3rd-party program for MacOS
         | Classic that would give you a slideshow desktop background. The
         | images were of the Golden Gate bridge, and were a timelapse
         | over the course of a day. The changes were (afair) synced to
         | your local solar time, so 'sunset' in the desktop background
         | would line up with your local sunset.
         | 
         | I'd have to search to find the name of the program, but I kind
         | of wish I had it back.
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | In classic Apple fashion, that's built in to the OS now.
        
           | lgl wrote:
           | Well, it's not for MacOS, but software to run animated
           | wallpapers exist for Windows.
           | 
           | One example is the very popular WallpaperEngine [0]. Another
           | cool one (and open source) is Lively Wallpaper [1].
           | 
           | Selfless plug: I've also developed and released LumoTray [2]
           | which is a wallpaper/screensaver manager for windows with
           | some other extra features but without any animated wallpapers
           | except slideshows as I still find it a bit of a resource
           | waste for something that I rarely see.
           | 
           | [0] https://www.wallpaperengine.io
           | 
           | [1] https://www.rocksdanister.com/lively/
           | 
           | [2] https://lumotray.com/
        
             | p_l wrote:
             | I think ActiveDesktop still works, too
        
           | cwizou wrote:
           | To be fair, most built in wallpapers in macOS do have a
           | day/night version (for example Sonoma), or multiple versions
           | with sunrise/day/sunset/night (Ventura, Monterey, Big sur).
           | Apple does call them Dynamic backgrounds and they will switch
           | automatically during the day.
           | 
           | Also, I hate to do this but if I'm allowed, tinniest plug, I
           | do maintain a screensaver project for macOS that does video
           | both screensaver and wallpaper integration with solar time
           | adaptation : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io (the default
           | download will give you the app that does the wallpaper
           | integration).
        
           | jwells89 wrote:
           | There was one of these apps for early versions of OS X too.
           | 
           | I've searched for it several times, but as far as the web is
           | concerned it never existed. Would really like to find it
           | because its default desktop picture was pleasant (during the
           | day, a blue sky over a field of flowers if I recall
           | correctly) and it would be nice to see it again.
           | 
           | Sadly a lot of early-mid-00s Mac shareware like that has
           | seemingly vanished.
        
           | squiffsquiff wrote:
           | Current versions of MacOS allow you to have a slideshow for
           | your wallpaper
        
         | jwells89 wrote:
         | I leave at least a few pixels around the edges of windows to
         | let my desktop picture show through, partially because that's
         | some of the little remaining customization but also because
         | having my screens filled to the brim with windows negatively
         | impacts my mood, as silly as that sounds. The desktops I choose
         | usually carry a positive and/or calming vibe and that's felt
         | during my workday if some of it can show through.
        
       | BizarreByte wrote:
       | 10.3 and 10.4 were the best ones and I still use one of those two
       | to this day.
        
       | JoshGlazebrook wrote:
       | 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.
        
       | nrabulinski wrote:
       | 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 :-)
        
         | kccqzy wrote:
         | To me the default wallpaper on Tiger is the most iconic. I'm
         | probably biased because Tiger is the first version I used (on a
         | borrowed computer!).
        
         | nlunbeck wrote:
         | Agreed, it felt like such a major leap in modernity from the
         | Aqua wallpapers. I still think of it as the definitive 2000s
         | Mac OS X wallpaper, it really was everywhere in no way any of
         | their wallpapers have been since. It was like the _Bliss_
         | counterpart to Mac OS X
        
       | dbtc wrote:
       | A change from abstract to space after 2005.
       | 
       | A change from space to earth after 2012.
       | 
       | And back to abstract in 2021.
        
       | Kehvarl wrote:
       | 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.
        
       | concinds wrote:
       | 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.
        
       | BjoernKW wrote:
       | 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...
        
       | rezmason wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | djhn wrote:
         | Wow, I always thought there was something strange about those
         | gradients, and you're right! The distinct lack of banding
         | despite the limited variation in hue!
        
       | geon wrote:
       | I kind of miss the original aqua white striped theme:
       | https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:720/format:webp/1*Xwuj...
        
       | Yhippa wrote:
       | I can remember eras of my life gone by with these wallpapers.
        
       | divbzero wrote:
       | This is the analogous website with every Apple TV aerial
       | screensaver:
       | 
       | https://bzamayo.com/watch-all-the-apple-tv-aerial-video-scre...
        
       | Sunspark wrote:
       | 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.
        
       | uticus wrote:
       | What was the one with rotating windmill-like propeller geometric
       | shapes? Or maybe that is a screensaver I'm thinking of...
        
       | lizardking wrote:
       | 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.
        
       | Lammy wrote:
       | See also, for the other (non-default) Mac OS X walls:
       | https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/macos-desktop-pictures
        
       | marsissippi wrote:
       | 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...
        
       | freitzkriesler2 wrote:
       | I forgot how much I missed those blue cones.
       | 
       | This and bliss put me in a wicked nostalgic mood.
        
       | jsz0 wrote:
       | 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.
        
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       (page generated 2024-02-15 23:00 UTC)