[APP][2.2+] Gainos Fresh Wallpapers / DayDream - Auto-changing images from Flickr

alinium_ · Feb 25, 2013

OVERVIEW

When I got my Nexus 4 phone, I wanted to take full advantage of the high quality screen and set a gorgeous wallpaper on it. But I realized that no matter what wallpaper I set, I always get tired of looking at it quite quickly. What I really wanted was a new beautiful wallpaper every time I would pick up my phone. And that's why I created the app Gainos Fresh Wallpapers. It selects a random photo from Flickr's Explore stream and sets that as your wallpaper at regular intervals. I have mine set to change every hour.

APP HIGHLIGHTS

Images are selected at random from the 'Explore' stream at Flickr. This app is not affiliated with Flickr in any way.
Remembers last 10 wallpapers so you can go back and choose one you previously liked.
Choose to change the wallpaper as frequently as 10 minute to as slow as once every week.
Enable Daydream mode on JellyBean+ devices to start screensaver when device is docked.
Share images with your social networks.
Works well with tablets and phones. For high resolution displays a higher quality image is downloaded.
Choose to download new wallpapers only over wifi to save cellular bandwidth.
Minimal interface that stays out of your way. Just start the service once and forgot about the app.

HOW TO GET

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=li.muhammada.gainos&referrer=utm_source%3Dxdadevelopers
Amazon AppStore: https://amazon.com/gp/mas/dl/android?p=li.muhammada.gainos

OTHER

I'll really appreciate your feedback and suggestions!

Thanks!!

alinium_ · Feb 28, 2013

Hi guys, any issues to report?

the_scotsman · Mar 9, 2013

Just installed it. Interface is clean and simple, very nice!

I don't know much about Flickr, but would it be possible to choose different "genres"? Such as scenery shots, cities, beaches etc..? That would be be a fantastic addition.

Apart from that, it seems to work exactly as described! I'll see how battery life is affected over the coming days but I don't think it'll be an issue

Great work! :good:

P.S. Check the XDA Portal in a few days

alinium_ · Mar 10, 2013

Glad you liked it!

the_scotsman said:
I don't know much about Flickr, but would it be possible to choose different "genres"? Such as scenery shots, cities, beaches etc..? That would be be a fantastic addition.

I'm planning on adding some functionality like this in the next update or so. It will select photos by keywords or tags.

the_scotsman said:
P.S. Check the XDA Portal in a few days

I'll keep an eye out

the_scotsman · Mar 10, 2013

alinium_ said:
Glad you liked it!

I'm planning on adding some functionality like this in the next update or so. It will select photos by keywords or tags.

Ahh excellent! I'm still using the app, looking forward to the update!

Chaoticaa · Mar 11, 2013

First of all, thanks a lot for the app! It's a great idea. I just have a couple of requests:

Let's say I have the app refresh every 10 minutes and I leave my phone idle for an hour. It downloads all 6 wallpapers and wastes bandwidth for no reason rather than waiting for me to see the wallpaper before going to the next one. Could you change the app to prevent these useless downloads?

If I don't like a wallpaper, is there a way in the app to skip this wallpaper? Could you make a widget to skip the current wallpaper?

myhayserano · Mar 11, 2013

Hello great app, a save option for saving wallpapers to phone will be great!

kenkiller · Mar 11, 2013

The auto download on wifi only toggle is missing on the Nexus 7 with 3G (tilapia).

And it seems to get pretty low res pictures for the Nexus 7 as well, not sure if it's better on the N4 because the screen is so much smaller, and my eyes ain't perfect.

vineetjoseph · Mar 11, 2013

Awesome

hi alinium, awesome app bro. just downloaded. works great on my S2. Thanks and good luck.:good:

BlowingNose · Mar 11, 2013

for oficze

well this is nice

IvanAugustoBD · Mar 11, 2013

Thaaaaaaanks, but..

:highfive:Please give as the opition to choose wallpapers from galery:highfive:

elfaure · Mar 12, 2013

Great app and nice job! Simple, clean and compact. I had been using foxsaver for years before they changed it all for the worst. It used to work like this and now its been whittled down to about 10 pics per week. At a point it updated pics every 3 minutes and rarely repeated itself. I still have a foxsaver cache of over 1000 pics that I use with other wallpaper switchers but I am sick of those pics already.

Yes, after looking at the same 1K pics for over a year you will get bored of them too. Kinda explains marrage and divorse, or getting bored of your favorite foods and past times, if you think about it. The human brain needs changing stimulii to keep it satisfied. I feel like I got back the old foxsaver here. Very nice. I missed the "fresh" new feel of constantly changing wallpaper and now its back on the stack.

*****************************************************************************

I found one problem and have another request. First problem is when you upload a pic to your dropbox, it has the SAME NAME as previously uploaded pics. In order to upload one pic you have to overwrite another you've already uploaded. Each pic should have a unique name, every time, every day, every week, etc. I should never have to overwrite a pic with another pic. And there is no way in your app to name the pics. They are named whatever flicker calls them so you will probably have to change this.

My request is to be able to save pics to local SD (or internal memory if I choose). There is no option for that in the share function.

guibleme · Mar 12, 2013

Thank you for the initiative!!

alinium_ · Mar 12, 2013

Chaoticaa said:
First of all, thanks a lot for the app! It's a great idea.

Hi Chaoticaa, thanks for your interest in the app!

Let's say I have the app refresh every 10 minutes and I leave my phone idle for an hour. It downloads all 6 wallpapers and wastes bandwidth for no reason rather than waiting for me to see the wallpaper before going to the next one. Could you change the app to prevent these useless downloads?

It's designed this way so that you can see a new wallpaper whenever you go back to the home screen. If it waited till you were on the home screen before downloading a wallpaper, you would have to wait a while to see the actual results. Its very likely that you would have actually navigated away from the home screen by the time the wallpaper changed.
If you are concerned about bandwidth, you can use the option that only auto downloads new wallpapers over WiFi, or use a longer interval. I have mine set to 1 hour and I find it pretty good as I get to see a new wallpaper almost every time I pick up my phone.

If I don't like a wallpaper, is there a way in the app to skip this wallpaper? Could you make a widget to skip the current wallpaper?

You can go into the app and press the big green button to get a new wallpaper. You can also re-select any wallpaper from the last 10 you had. I have plans to add either a widget or a low priority notification (or maybe both) which will let you do the same without having to go into the app in a future update. Also, in case you get some embarrassing wallpaper, you can long-tap it in the app and select 'Remove from History'.

Jonnyredcorn · Mar 12, 2013

When I first downloaded it I was using my Galaxy S3 which is running an AOSP AOKP ROM, however when I downloaded and tried it out on my Galaxy Note 2 which is running a Touchwiz ROM I don't see how to set the app to set both the Lockscreen and homescreen wallpaper. The app just sets the homescreen wallpaper.

alinium_ · Mar 12, 2013

myhayserano said:
Hello great app, a save option for saving wallpapers to phone will be great!

You can use the share button in the app (turquoise colored button), to export the currently selected wallpaper to other apps on your device. This way you can save the picture somewhere on your phone.

You can also long-tap on a wallpaper thumbnail and then tap 'View Wallpaper' to see the original image on Flickr. You can then save the image from that website. Please be mindful of the image owner's copyright though - however its usually ok to keep the images for personal (non-commercial, non-promotional) use.

alinium_ · Mar 12, 2013

kenkiller said:
The auto download on wifi only toggle is missing on the Nexus 7 with 3G (tilapia).

That's a good catch! I am hiding the option for devices that didn't support 3G. But Android doesn't provide a good way to detect these devices. So I was checking if the device supports phone functionality. However, it looks like tablets like yours will fail this test even though they support 3G functionality. I'll look into finding some better way to detect which devices have 3G capability. Look out for it in the next update

kenkiller said:
And it seems to get pretty low res pictures for the Nexus 7 as well, not sure if it's better on the N4 because the screen is so much smaller, and my eyes ain't perfect.

As for the resolution, the size of the images downloaded is related to the display size. The image size picked is always one that's larger than the screen's dimensions. However, care is taken not too choose something ridiculously larger as that would just be a bandwidth hog. Sometimes Flickr might not have the correct sized image, in which case a smaller resolution image has to be downloaded. But most of the time, you should be getting a high-res, crisp image.

alinium_ · Mar 12, 2013

IvanAugustoBD said:
:highfivelease give as the opition to choose wallpapers from galery:highfive:

Thanks for trying out the app IvanAugustoBD! But I wonder if you're missing out on the point of the app. As elfaure mentions in his post, the idea of the app is to keep providing a fresh stream of images to keep your visual senses stimulated at all time. This is hard to do if you keep seeing images from a pre-determined set. The advantage of using Flickr is that you get an endless stream of new gorgeous images.

Having said that, I realize that some people might prefer seeing the same set of images e.g. if it is pictures of their loved ones. But truthfully, this sort of feature is very low on my list.

If this is truly what you want, you might be able to find other apps in the store that cycle through images in your own photo gallery. But I believe you will have a better experience using Gainos than those apps.

alinium_ · Mar 12, 2013

elfaure said:
Great app and nice job! Simple, clean and compact. I had been using foxsaver for years before they changed it all for the worst. It used to work like this and now its been whittled down to about 10 pics per week. At a point it updated pics every 3 minutes and rarely repeated itself. I still have a foxsaver cache of over 1000 pics that I use with other wallpaper switchers but I am sick of those pics already.

Yes, after looking at the same 1K pics for over a year you will get bored of them too. Kinda explains marrage and divorse, or getting bored of your favorite foods and past times, if you think about it. The human brain needs changing stimulii to keep it satisfied. I feel like I got back the old foxsaver here. Very nice. I missed the "fresh" new feel of constantly changing wallpaper and now its back on the stack.

Right on! This was my main motivation for making this app.

elfaure said:
I found one problem and have another request. First problem is when you upload a pic to your dropbox, it has the SAME NAME as previously uploaded pics. In order to upload one pic you have to overwrite another you've already uploaded. Each pic should have a unique name, every time, every day, every week, etc. I should never have to overwrite a pic with another pic. And there is no way in your app to name the pics. They are named whatever flicker calls them so you will probably have to change this.

This should be pretty easy to do. In my next update I'll make it so that the images have unique names. I'll probably use the current date/time for the image name.

elfaure said:
My request is to be able to save pics to local SD (or internal memory if I choose). There is no option for that in the share function.

The share function is handled by the Android system itself. It does looks like they don't provide any functionality to save images directly to sd card. I'll take a look at what other possibilities exist. For the time being, you're best off saving them to some other app like Dropbox or Google Drive.

alinium_ · Mar 12, 2013

Jonnyredcorn said:
When I first downloaded it I was using my Galaxy S3 which is running an AOSP AOKP ROM, however when I downloaded and tried it out on my Galaxy Note 2 which is running a Touchwiz ROM I don't see how to set the app to set both the Lockscreen and homescreen wallpaper. The app just sets the homescreen wallpaper.

I've had a few Galaxy Note 2 users complain about this issue. They all seem to be using Samsung's TouchWiz. I looked into it and found out that Samsung has modified the Android API functionality in Touchwiz so that the wallpaper changing function only changes the home screen wallpaper. In all likelihood they have a separate function for setting the lock screen wallpaper, but it is not documented any where and Samsung has said that they do not make it public either. So the way it stands right now, there is no way I can fix this issue.

[APP][2.2+] Gainos Fresh Wallpapers / DayDream - Auto-changing images from Flickr

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