iPhone wallpaper missing from notification center or lockscreen in landscape mode on iOS 16? Here's a potential explanation

iPhone users who have updated to iOS 16 may have noticed some changes in the notification center and missing or bland wallpaper lock screen in landscape mode.

This change was first noticed during the beta testing phase and has remained in place since the official release.

Bland iPhone wallpaper in landscape mode

Users have been reporting (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8) their curiosity as to why Apple chose to remove the wallpaper in landscape mode and replace it with a dark gray background.

Anyone else think that the latest update (iphone) is kinda garbage? This is what shows up when I swipe down from the top in landscape mode. No background and (more importantly) no battery %. Plus the way notifs show up now is worse 🙁
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Wallpaper not showing when swiping down notifications when orientation is landscape
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The reason for this change may be that iOS 16 was designed with portrait mode as the priority. When a portrait wallpaper is stretched or zoomed in to fit a horizontal canvas, it may not look aesthetically pleasing.

To avoid visual glitches and maintain a clean design, Apple might have chosen to remove the wallpaper from landscape mode and replace it with a dark gray background, at least according to a Redditor.

While this change may make sense from a design standpoint, we didn’t see any major concerns on previous iOS versions that did display the wallpaper in landscape mode.

Apart from it being ugly, it is also inconveniencing some by overlapping widgets. The image above shows how Focus and alarm time are written one over another making it difficult to use.

While some users may not be happy with this change, it is ultimately up to Apple to decide how to design and implement its software.

You can only provide feedback through official channels and hope that your suggestions will be taken into consideration in future updates.

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