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Basic Apple Guy

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on Basic Apple Guy:

Basic Apple Guy ranks 2024 Apple gear, from ‘flawless’ to ‘failing’

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Basic Apple Guy 2024 Apple product rankings
In the letter grades, A is second best, after S. And F is the worst, as you might expect.
Photo: Basic Apple Guy

Designer Basic Apple Guy, known for nifty wallpapers for Mac, iPhone and iPad screens, dropped his annual Apple Product Tier List Monday. The Apple product rankings give letter grades to everything the iPhone giant released in 2024. He considers M4/M4 Pro Mac mini the best of the best, by the way.

“For the third year in a row, I am once again painting a target on my head and releasing my tier rankings of the products Apple released in the 2024 calendar year,” he wrote. Undoubtedly, not everyone will love his choices, particularly those he grades in the low D and F tiers, but he takes care to explain them.

Refresh your screens with these vibrant, cubist wallpapers

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best new wallpapers
Never mind the holiday themes, let's have some colorful cubism.
Photo: Basic Apple Guy

Designer Basic Apple Guy started the last month of 2024 by releasing yet another fresh and interesting set of wallpapers for your Apple devices. They’re the “vibrant and minimal cubist-inspired” Liminal Spaces series, released December 2. They might be the best new wallpapers I’ve seen this month.

And they’re certainly an interesting alternative to holiday themes. For me, the light, colors and shapes composed in the wallpapers brought to mind not only cubist art, but abstract expressionist Richard Diebenkorn’s landscape paintings.

Put Apple Park right on your Mac or iPad display [Apple wallpapers]

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Apple Park wallpapers
This is just one of several striking Apple Park shots Basic Apple Guy turned into wallpaper for Mac or iPad.
Photo: Basic Apple Guy/Apple

Designer Basic Apple Guy, purveyor of fine wallpapers for your devices, found a way to blow up a bunch of tiny background shots of Apple Park in Cupertino into fine wallpapers for Mac and iPad displays. The background shots are included in macOS Sequoia for small-scale uses in apps like FaceTime and Photo Booth, so they had to be majorly upscaled. BAG dropped the wallpaper versions online Thursday for your downloading pleasure (see below).

Download cozy new Autumn Gradients wallpapers

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This is the BOP (blue, orange and pink) Autumn Gradient variation.
This is the BOP (blue, orange and pink) Autumn Gradient variation.
Photo: Basic Apple Guy

Designer and Apple fan Basic Apple Guy put out four pretty new wallpapers for Apple devices Monday, his Autumn Gradients lineup.

“It’s been a minute, but I wanted to reappear from my hideyhole and share four colourful, Autumn-inspired gradient wallpapers for your Apple devices,” he wrote.

Get ready to play Wonderlust event bingo

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Basic Apple Guy's richly designed Wonderlust Apple Event Bingo card covers most likely announcements.
Basic Apple Guy's richly designed Wonderlust Apple Event Bingo card covers most likely announcements.
Photo: Basic Apple Guy
Wonderlust 2023

If Apple’s holding a major event, then it’s a good bet someone’s preparing bingo cards for it. Ahead of Tuesday’s Wonderlust event, we found a few options for you to play along while Cupertino’s rumored announcements unfold.

Roguish Tim Cook stars in ‘Grand Theft Auto Cupertino’ wallpaper

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Oh, if we could just play this version.
Oh, if we could just play this version.
Photo: Basic Apple Guy

Designer Basic Apple Guy has appeared on Cult of Mac a lot lately, but with new wallpaper coming out that makes it looks like Apple CEO Tim Cook and other execs are in a new version of classic game Grand Theft Auto, how can we slam on the brakes now?

Released Friday, “Grand Theft Auto Cupertino” wallpapers are available for free download!

Download pretty wallpaper inspired by … cable management?!?

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The new
The new "Flow" got inspiration from cable management, of all places.
Photo: Basic Apple Guy

Mac maven and designer Basic Apple Guy pumps out intriguing desktop wallpaper you can put on your Apple devices like Mac, iPad and iPhone.

But the latest one, “Flow,” which he put out Wednesday, came from a truly surprising place — his obsession with cable management in his home office and computer setup.

3 cool new wallpapers you won’t regret downloading

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Basic Apple Guy's
Basic Apple Guy's "Trip Around the Sun" wallpaper puts things in perspective.
Photo: Basic Apple Guy

Mac maven Basic Apple Guy seemingly never stops creating gorgeous wallpapers you can download and put on your Apple screens — Mac, iPad and iPhone. Just in the past couple of weeks he’s made three beauties for you to try out.

Check out the images and see descriptions and links below.

Download colorful iPhone schematic wallpapers celebrating WWDC23

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iPhone 14 Pro Max gradient schematic wallpaper WWDC23
Here's the look for iPhone 14 Pro Max.
Photo: Basic Apple Guy
WWDC23

On Thursday, noted Apple enthusiast Basic Apple Guy put out colorful new versions of his iPhone 14 schematics iOS wallpaper. They show the handsets’ innards in startling detail.

The new versions’ beautiful gradient colors match Apple marketing for WWDC23, coming up on Monday, he said.

Dress up Mac, iPad and iPhone with ‘Big Starry Sur’ wallpapers

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Check out the
Check out the "Big Starry Sur" wallpapers from Basic Apple Guy.
Photo: Basic Apple Guy

Basic Apple Guy is out with another striking set of wallpapers you can download for free. He calls them “Big Starry Sur.” It’s “Apple’s Big Sur meets Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night,” he said.

You can download the wallpapers for Mac, iPad and iPhone for free below. And it’s nice if you leave him a tip for his effort, too. If you’re looking for ways to use a laptop as a second monitor, check out this deal on the Duex Plus DS Laptop Screen Extender.

Show your iPhone 14’s guts with bold new schematic wallpaper

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Show off your iPhone 14's innards in the form of a schematic wallpaper.
Show off your iPhone 14's innards in the form of a schematic wallpaper.
Photo: Basic Apple Guy

Mac maven Basic Apple Guy just rolled out a project he said he’s been slaving over since late September — a set of detailed and layered iPhone 14 schematics you can download and use as display wallpaper in your choice of colors on your handset.

It’s kind of like displaying an X-Ray of your iPhone on the device itself. The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus schematics are out Tuesday with the ones for iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max following on Wednesday.

And the winner of the best-macOS-wallpaper-ever tournament is …

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Is this your favorite macOS wallpaper?
Is this your favorite macOS wallpaper?
Photo: Apple

Apple aficionado Basic Apple Guy ran a “bracket” polling competition — think March Madness basketball, but without any perspiration — to determine the greatest macOS wallpaper ever. And users have spoken, according to a tweet pointing to final results Wednesday.

In a field of 18 competitors, macOS Catalina wallpaper emerged the champion (pictured above).