What should my idle phone be showing me?

February 14, 2013 11:53 AM

While I am working, my phone is sitting idle on my desk, but within my field of vision. What are some interesting things it could be doing or displaying?
posted by mulligan to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

What kind of phone/OS?
posted by payoto at 12:11 PM on February 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

You could have a nice animated wallpaper, but unless your phone is plugged in all the time, it's going to eat up battery power like Valentine's candy.

They have this on Android phones, built into the OS. No idea about iPhone.
posted by spinifex23 at 12:44 PM on February 14, 2013

Anything like that is going to affect battery life. However: a lot of this is porn, but some isn't.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:51 PM on February 14, 2013

Get some generative music (plus visuals) from Eno.

Scape YouTube demo

Bloom YouTube demo

Trope YouTube demo

Air YouTube demo
posted by maudlin at 1:51 PM on February 14, 2013

Response by poster: It is an iPhone and it is plugged in.
posted by mulligan at 3:22 PM on February 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

I realize this is dull but I love looking at my Droid X2 in its desk dock. It is charging, showing me a background of swimming fish, and displaying the time. Any alarm app for Iphone will do something similar for you.
posted by bearwife at 3:42 PM on February 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

If you use Twitter, there's an app called Trickle that displays tweets one at a time, like a minimalist slideshow. Haven't really used it, but I remember thinking it was quite pretty.
posted by ella wren at 4:12 PM on February 14, 2013

I've been thinking about getting a digital photo frame that displays hilarious gifs instead of photos to keep on my desk. Can you do something like that with the iPhone?
posted by bendy at 2:52 PM on February 15, 2013