MKBHD’s Panels Is A Masterclass In How Not To Make A Wallpaper App

Ever since Marques Brownlee, aka MKBHD, dropped his review of the new iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, Panels has been the talk of the town. For those unaware, MKBHD kicked off the video by talking about how he has been working on a new wallpaper app for the past year, and that it’s finally up for download.

As someone who takes to apps like Zedge and Backdrops for free wallpapers, I was honestly excited to have a third option available, that too for both Android and iOS users. Got to make that phone look pretty now, don’t we?

But, as soon as I installed Panels (Download) and started using it, I realized that this was not the right wallpaper app for me. In fact, it may not be so for most other people, given how people were venting out their frustrations in the comments of Marques’ latest video. Well, turns out, there are some big problems with the app.

Watch Two Ads for One SD Wallpaper

The app interface is pretty simple and I liked that there are no distractions whatsoever. After selecting five different artists that bring different art styles to your lockscreen, you are instantly taken to the homepage of the app. Signing in to Google is not mandatory and that’s great. However, that’s about where the good ends.

Before even taking a look at the subscription, as someone who relies heavily on free wallpapers, that’s where I headed instantly. Wallpapers that don’t have the premium ‘crown’ attached to them are free. The usual drill. However, there’s a catch. You will need to “Watch 2 ads to unlock SD”. Hmm, convenient.

So SD, aka Standard Quality, limits you to 1080p wallpapers. After a minute of ads, you can basically download wallpapers that look like you have just stolen them from Google Images. Since I’m so used to having 4K wallpapers on my phone, the instant quality degradation was shocking. So, what if I want full resolutions for these images?

Is MKBHD Going Broke Because That Pricing Is Absurd

Well, to access 4K or full-resolution wallpapers, you will need to pay $50 (discounted) a year. In India, I’m looking at either Rs 999 a month or a discounted Rs 1,999 a year, which is absolutely nuts for a wallpaper app. In comparison, contemporary wallpaper apps like Zedge and Backdrops offer a one-time purchase option and even the monthly plans start at $2 or $5, which is much better than Panels’ $12/month subscription.

The lack of a one-time payment option is equally disappointing. Given the pricing of the annual subscription, I wouldn’t even want to guess that price for a one-time payment of the app if Marques ever decides to add one.

In Marques’ exact words,

“We have a bunch of awesome artists over there that we are splitting profits with 50/50 and there’s already a ton of great collections of art and much more incoming and we have some pretty big plans for this thing so it’s starting off as a wallpaper app now, I don’t want to overpromise too much but it’s going to be pretty consistently improving over time which is part of the reason why we’re offering a subscription to support it..”

Didn’t Take Me “Over Two Weeks” to Review and Uninstall

So, after watching almost 15 minutes of ads to get just 15 not-so-sharp wallpapers, I decided to uninstall the app. There’s another core problem here. When browsing through Panels, some of the wallpapers seemed AI-generated.

And, to my surprise, when someone asked “What’s stopping me from asking AI to create a unique, high-quality wallpaper that no one else will have?” Marques said, “These are all made by artists who can choose to involve AI or not in their creation process – it’ll be up to you how much you value the human touch.” So, you’re telling me that instead of asking Gemini or Copilot to generate free AI-generated images myself, I will be paying a hefty sum for someone else’s AI generations?

Moreover, on iOS, as soon as you install the app, it asks for permission “to track your activity across other companies and websites.” A wallpaper app honestly has no business doing so. Meanwhile, on Android, you don’t see such a permission window, which is strange. However, a glance over the app page on PlayStore or App Store reveals how much information the app demands from users.

Panels Is Far From Being Rock Solid

While I do understand that paying for art and supporting the artist is an honorable thing to do, in this day and age, Marques’ approach toward this very initiative seems quite off. While I do understand folks who are willing to go all the way and even pay for the app, I don’t see myself doing so in my right senses.

Moreover, turns out, it’s an old wallpaper app launched way back in 2021, as AppleLeaker noted on X. So, Panels is ultimately just a repackaged wallpaper app with Marques’ name on it, quite literally.

As MKBHD suggested in his video itself (about the new iPhones), “Buy it for what it is today and not for what it could be tomorrow.” Well, you can count me out “today” as Panels is far from being the app you’d expect from MKBHD or in general a wallpaper app.

I feel if Marques himself were to review his own app for a video, its fate would not be much better than the Rabbit R1 or Fischer.

What about you? What do you think about MKBHD’s new Panels wallpaper app? Cry your heart out in the comments down below!