Since the last few days, there has been a thread that is being shared from one of the biggest tech reviewers and a big-time tech enthusiast named Ice Universe, where the user has been warning everyone using an android phone not to apply a very particular android wallpaper that has been linked on his tweet.
Now thinking about it many tried to apply the wallpaper to prove that nothing was wrong and were pulled into the trench of being the unlucky one who had a dead phone or had to reset their android phones completely, losing all the unsaved data and also gaining the title of a fool for not following warning given to them.
Today we try to see the cause behind the sad demise of all the android smartphones which were not smart enough to handle the Android wallpaper crash problem.
And if anyone of you is brave enough, you are very welcome to try this dangerous wallpaper on your mobile at your own risk and be aware to backup your data before you try anything like this.
Where Did The Popularity Of This Dangerous Android Wallpaper Start From?
A famous tech enthusiast going by the name handle Ice universe on twitter put the following post online and after that, the world went mad when they found that adding a simple wallpaper on their mobile phones made the android phone go crazy.
The post in particular was made to make a point, which was to make people aware of the deal and not install the wallpaper on their own mobile phones.
However, as evident from the past, there were many who did not pay any heed to the advice and went on to download the particular wallpaper on their mobile phones and the latter results on the twitter were just a mind-boggling chain of thread on the post of Ice universe where several videos came up were all the android phones went crazy.
Now the question as to what was causing it was uncertain and many wanted to know the reason behind the phone acting strange when applied with the specific android wallpaper and the reason for the crash.
Deep diving into the sea of problems being faced by the people after applying the cursed android wallpaper, many came up with several theories as to why all the phones were behaving this way and were there any turnaround for the people who wanted to apply this wallpaper.
The Upcoming research and methods were however been debunked by Mrwhosetheboss over youtube and everybody to watch what he came up with.
Wallpaper Being A Malware Application
The biggest allegation on the wallpaper after being recognized as the android phone killer was that it was a part of a Malware application and that, applying the wallpaper on your phone leads to breaking down the code embedded in the android wallpaper.
Sometimes the Images on some creepy websites are embedded with the codes to be run when downloaded or installed onto a particular device. The same was been considered for the android wallpaper we are seeing here.
But when researched upon and looked closer in the image there were no traces of any malware or any secretly embedded coding in the image making it even more suspicious than ever before, so the quest to find the answer began.
Origin Of The Android Wallpaper
From the time Google has brought the feature of reverse image search where just by adding the image to the Google image webpage, it lets you backtrack the image to its origin, this technology helps us to be the great detectives just sitting on our couch.
On backtracking the image it was found that the image is actually a part of another image which was meant to be for laptops and desktop background at hdqwalls.com and was trimmed down to the size of 1140 X 2560 which is, however, the most used and standard dimensions for an Android Wallpaper.
Now since we have backtracked the image and want to know more about the image we come to know that the wallpaper was not being put up at any site, having connections with the malware.
Since the aspect of being a part of malware or having embedded codes in it, is out of the window we move onto the next reason why the image is seemed to have the catastrophic effects on our android phones.
Image Profile Of The Android Wallpaper
Now the next thing to notice upon was the image quality and formatting of the image. Many suspected to have the image format that was not being supported by the android phones, and hence the cursed wallpaper was making the phone die as soon as we applied them as the wallpaper.
The most famous theories included the image of being in the formats of “Google Skia” which is not supported by the android phones and on the latter investigation was found to be a hoax.
On later research, it was found that the image was taken from a Nikon D850 camera and was not taken in the format of Google Skia.
Now the curiosity strikes in about the suspicious nature of the wallpaper on our Android phones and hence looking further into it the question if not this then what is the reason behind the phones crashing?
The Real Deal With The Android Wallpaper
Now since we know the crash is not due to Google Skia we look for the other reasons and the answer lies in the very first image – the original image from the website hdqwall.com and the reason for that was the color profile of the image.
The theories not being completely true were very close to the solution and the answer was in the color profile of the image which was encoded in the Prophoto RGB.
Now understanding the reason why this format leads to the chaos we must understand the color spectrum and how it works in our cellphones.
All major devices in the present world have the sRGB format in their displays and photo presentations to maintain a continued consistency across the devices and make them more photorealistic on a display as well as on a printout.
But, when you follow the image given below, we understand that there are more than one RGB formats and with varying type of formats when we try to change the format from lower to higher range RGB formats, the color points increases in a graph and thus makes the image more vibrant than before.
Similarly, the image in this photo was made to change the normal sRGB in Prophoto RGB format. So how does this shift makes our phones go crazy?
The answer lies in the conversion of Prophoto RGB into sRGB in our Android mobile phones and the conversion of one particular pixel in general. The luminance of a pixel is how much the particular pixel is bright enough for us to view however when programming such images in the Android Phones we come across a very specific formula which is-
0.2126X(RED)+0.7152X(GREEN)+0.0722(BLUE)
Now the individual maximum of all three colors that are red, blue, and green in 255 and the maximum of all combined is equated to be under 255 and nor surpass it at any cost.
Now talking about the faulty pixel of the image, we have the values of red, green, and blue at 255,255, and 243 respectively. However, the value weights of the equation are 54.213 + 182.376 + 17.5446 making the value to be around 254 which is less than 255 but the values in android are rounded off to the nearest integer making the values here to be 55 + 183 + 18 which sums up to 256.
Now we have come to the point where we know the cause of the problem is just the one single-digit number change in the values of the pixel. So the question arises what makes our phone die in this fashion with this image?
If the image is loaded in android it may probably shutdown and restart your device again, but in the chances of setting the image as your wallpaper makes the image to be loaded again and thus create the scenario where the phone goes crazy and you may have to reset the phone to bring it back to the glory losing all your data.
So why do all phones face this problem? Because all photos are run by the Google engine and have the same image processing. So there are high chances that all the android phones may be affected by this image at the end.
How Can This Android Wallpaper Be Used Without Crashing The Phone?
The solution of using this image in your phone as wallpaper without even breaking the image is by taking the screenshot of the image and then applying it to the phone.
Since taking the screenshot on an Android phone converts the format of Prophoto RGB to regular RGB without any problem and makes the image suitable for applying the image as your wallpaper and thus not compromising on the quality of the image.
You must also take care that the screenshot must be taken from a webpage or the phone may get into the restart or reboot mode after downloading and opening the image on your phone.
Conclusion
The android wallpaper creating chaos all around, making the phones go crazy, and sometimes even to the extent that they needed to be formatted is not because they are a part of malware or have embedded code in them.
The main reasons behind such a problem are the color format of the image Prophoto RGB and one faulty pixel having the value above the normal android value by one single digit and making them the wallpaper. These confuse the system and force them to act crazy and go to format the data.
The solution to this problem is by taking the screenshot of the image and using it as the wallpaper.
If you enjoyed reading this article and want to have more such interesting knowledge about tech then check out SocialMirror and if you want to know more about Android Security, check our article on Unlocking Android Phones without getting formatted.
