I’ve given a lot of time and thought to the wallpapers on my phones. All along, there was a simple solution—no wallpaper at all. Black is the only background color a growing number of us actually need.
I’m seeing this look pop up in more places, from specialty phones to the iPhones of the vaguely famous and not-so-famous alike. What is it about all black? I think I get it. At least, here’s why it appeals to me.
One less thing to think about
All phones come with a default background, but most of us change it. We check to see what the other defaults are, or we dive into our existing folder of wallpapers we’ve accumulated. We place a photo of loved ones, or maybe a nature shot, or maybe an image from our favorite video game. There are countless apps devoted to helping us find the right one, like the Resplash app providing free options from the Unsplash catalog or the Panels app with its curated selection of artists. And then there are live wallpapers, with some providing vector-based imagery that changes with the weather.
It’s a lot. And even when I find one I love, that love is impermanent. It’s only a matter of time—sometimes months, sometimes days—before I’m ready to switch things up. There’s a recurring reason why I seek out change.
I want to keep the focus on app icons and text
Phone screens have a lot going on. Out of the box, they come filled with app icons and widgets. Even when I replace the original home screen with a minimalist alternative, I still have to be able to read the text. More often than not, I find background images clash with app icons and labels alike. This strikes me as a problem even when I check out a custom-made theme, but it’s one that an all-black background solves.
There’s a reason we read text on solid white or black backgrounds. We need the contrast. Our eyes have to work harder when it’s difficult to separate text from what’s in the background. Black makes words legible.
The same is true of app icons. While apps now come in standardized shapes on most phones, they still come in all colors. There’s no background image that suits all icons equally. Black isn’t an ideal match for every icon, but it’s as close as you can get.
My background fades into the background
In a way, choosing black feels less like making the simplest choice and more like removing the need to make a choice at all. Think of the interfaces whose backgrounds we can’t change—like the background in Android Auto or the interface on a smartwatch. The background is black. It’s the ideal way to fill the whitespace, so to speak, around the stuff we actually care about.
Black is a vacuum waiting to be filled. It’s not competing to be in the foreground the way a photo wishes to be. It’s not a work of art. It’s a blank slate for the rest of your phone interface to fill.
And that doesn’t mean you aren’t free to fill it. I asked colleagues to share some of their home screens with a black background, and theirs are noticeably more cluttered than mine. Yet they still see value to having a dark, unobstrusive background. If anything, a home screen filled with apps benefits even more from a black wallpaper than a relatively sparse layout like mine.
Saying goodbye to distractions
Many minimalist launchers feel right at home with a black background. Removing app icons entirely and sticking exclusively to white text is a vibe. It’s the look you get on a Light Phone 3. It’s something you can achieve on any Android phone with a minimalist launcher. iPhone users can do the same by installing an app like Dumb Phone.
Looking at our phones? A bunch of us are over it. Apps do a good enough job calling our attention throughout the day. Their icons are designed to be as enticing as possible. I don’t feel the need for my background image to also be eye-catching. If a solid wallpaper is one less thing to look at on my screen, all the better.
There are plenty of practical benefits to going with a black background. Black is easy on the eyes, especially on an OLED panel with deep blacks. Black can also reduce battery drain, which is why many devices go dark when they turn on their power-saving modes (again, OLED benefits more due to the way dark pixels don’t draw power). You can fully commit to using your phone in dark mode (one colleague has been using his iPhone in dark mode since 2019) or even using grayscale to help you cut back on phone usage.