What’s the Purpose of a Wallpaper?

Wallpapers certainly add colour, life and pizzazz to any screen. Some wallpapers comprise of repeating patterns. Others are photographs of famous places; buildings; cars or people. So naturally, I find it very miffing anytime I come across any person who has used a photograph of say, his child or famous landscape and then proceeds to have parts of or the whole photograph covered up with icons.

Of course, this might not always be the user’s fault. It’s just the way many GUIs (Graphical User Interface) are designed.  The purpose of using a photo as a wallpaper or even the photo itself is to enjoy the image or subject matter in all its resplendent glory or to remind you of a precious memory or perhaps, bring you closer to your dream car (a few inches closer anyway). So why cover it up?

Every GUI I can think of promotes or allows the defilement of the wallpaper. If you wish to place icons on your desktop or home screen, then use a plain coloured wallpaper. Or if you use Windows, the traditional PC version that is, then you can use a third party software such as Fences which allows you to switch between hiding and displaying all your desktop icons with a double click. Blackberry (or RIM as they were then called) made an effort to find some middle ground by literally placing specially sized wallpapers in the middle of the screen in BB OS 5 & 6. In today’s age, only one OS has eschewed wallpaper photograph abuse. – Windows Phone and to a limited extent, Windows 8 (as far as the Metro Modern UI is concerned anyway). Kudos to Microsoft.