Pixels on Android 13 might be able to turn your photos into 3D 'cinematic' wallpapers

Which might resemble Google Photos' 3D Cinematic Moments

Google is working on 3D wallpapers with a "cinematic" effect for Android 13, according to a bit of digging by Esper.io's Mishaal Rahman. This would make use of a new API just for wallpaper effects, and while it could offer multiple styles, at least one of the effects would "make your photo a 3D wallpaper that moves when your phone moves." However, it also sounds like it might be limited to Pixels.

Rahman wasn't able to get the 3D effect working — dependencies for it in other applications aren't present in public versions of the required apps — but he was able to wrangle a wallpaper dimming feature that's also being worked on into functioning. Spoiler: It does exactly what you'd expect it to.

Left: 0% dim. Right: 50% dim. Both images via Esper.io.

Though we can't see what the feature actually looks like, the description may be telling. Rahman has shown Android Police proof that the "cinematic" label for this 3D effect is part of the code for the feature itself. Importantly, that's not the first time Google's used that word to describe a 3D effect. It might look like Google Photos' improved 3D Cinematic Memories, which turn flat 2d images into 3D images with a motion effect, even filling in background details that weren't actually captured courtesy of machine learning. The new feature could look and work something like that — maybe based on the phone's motion with a parallax effect.

There's no proof, but the feature could look like Google Photos' 3D Cinematic Memories.

Other effects may also be coming, including the dimming effect we touched on before. Google is apparently giving a whole tab to the feature, so there be more effects to look forward to. However, the UI implementation of these features indicates they'll be proprietary to Google, which means they'll probably be exclusive to the Android Pixel skin (for a while, at least). But the API that drives these wallpaper effects seems to be open, so manufacturers can create their own version of these features — or entirely new ones.