Walls Creator

It’s no secret that I have a massive crush on the C@rds app series from Hot Chili Apps, and now they’re applying their skills to a slightly different kind of photo/text mashup with Walls Creator.

One of the first things you ever did with your iPhone was probably set the wallpaper image which is what shows up before you “Slide to Unlock” it. Wallpaper is cool, but without an app like Walls Creator you’re limited to using just one photo in that space, and if it doesn’t scale well with the clock and the slider then tough crap!

Walls Creator provides a bunch of templates, 29 to be exact, that include photo masks, multi-image templates for combining all kinds of junk into one image, and of course there’s also a text tool. It’s pretty sweet if your unlock screen is something you find yourself changing with any regularity.

The first template in the bunch is a basic photo mask that blocks out the top and bottom of your photo so that nothing is showing underneath the iPhone’s clock and slider bar. The masking area of this template, and all of the others as well, can be set to any color you want with the built-in color picker which is a really nice touch. Want your iPhone wallpaper to be framed in hot pink? A manly shade of blue? Obnoxious red? The choice is yours.

After you get past the most basic template and start paging through the rest, they get more complex and more artsy. There are a bunch that allow one or two images, and one of them even has room for 6 pics! Whoa. Very nice if you have 6 kids, 6 girlfriends, or just wanna stare at 6 naked ladies every time you push the Home button to unlock.

Adding photos and text is easy as Hot Chili seems to have this down to a science now. Just like in all of their C@rds apps, everything scales and rotates freely with two fingers and of course colors and shadow can be applied to the text. It’s exactly what I was expecting from these guys!

Tapping around the screen at first can be a little frustrating because you’ll find yourself accidentally putting your work-in-progress in “preview mode” which adds a simulated unlock screen over what you’re working on, but once you get it figured out it’s all pretty easy to navigate.

So should you buy this app? Well if you want it but miss out on the free codes Hot Chili Apps has provided then yeah, buy it! $2 isn’t a lot and, depending on how often you change your wallpaper, you could wind up getting a lot of mileage out of this app. 29 templates is a good start (although I’d like to see more), and this is a quality app that does exactly what it promises.

iTunes Link – Walls Creator
Version 1.3
Reviewed on iPhone 3G OS3.0