#marblesofig iPhone Wallpaper
I've had the same phone wallpaper for 7 years, across multiple phones. I've wanted to change it up, more frequently, but didn't want the task to become distracting. I had stumbled upon a thread on Reddit which provided a method to automatically change iPhone background to the top posts of a desired subreddit and thought it would be fun to use with the /r/marbles subreddit. Although the users of that forum do post some fantastic photos, they also submit text-only posts rather frequently - which results in a boring black wallpaper when selected by the script.
I figured, "Hey, why not just use this same Shortcut to collect the images from the #marblesofig Instagram feed". Little did I realize how difficult this would be... To achieve my desired result of an automatically updating wallpaper through the Shortcuts app I decided to lean on the bits I learned creating last month's RNG contest. I found a free online tool to scrape Instagram for the posts using #marblesofig for their images and related data for crediting, then created my first Python script to crop the photos to a uniform aspect ratio and overlay the poster's username and posting date. I then created a fresh S3 bucket to hold these images and organized them into a tidy JSON file for referencing via Shortcuts. Definitely not as simple as I initially imagined, and it may not scale well, but it works!
Currently it only hosts 132 images from the past month and does not automatically update, but it only takes me about 5 minutes to collect and upload the newest posts and it will require no changes on your end to begin seeing those new wallpapers!
Step 1
Install "Shortcuts" App
This app comes pre-installed on new iPhones, but you may have deleted it. If so, it can be redownloaded from the iOS app store.
Step 2
Add the "#marblesofig Wallpaper" shortcut to your app
3.) Tap the "#marblesofig Wallpaper" tile that appears in the Shortcuts app
4.) Select "Allow" for the 3 privacy pop-ups
What you're allowing your device to do:
- Access Amazon Web Services (AWS) bucket which holds the processed images (https://marblesofig.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com)
- Access the AWS to view the list of image URLs: https://marblesofig.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/json_urls_1.1.json
- Temporarily download the randomly selected image to your phone's cache and apply it as your wallpaper
The images will not be saved to your Camera Roll)
5.) Anytime you want to change the wallpaper, just tap that same tile in the Shortcuts app. Or follow the next steps for a quicker method.
6.) Go to Settings>Accessibility
7.) Select "Touch"
8.) Scroll to the bottom and select "Back Tap"
9.) Select either 2 or 3 taps, and then scroll to the bottom and select the "#marblesofig Wallpaper"
10.) You can now tap the back of your phone the corresponding amount of times to change your wallpaper on a whim!
If you have any issues, feel free to contact me :)