Do you like really cool wallpapers for your phone? Of course you do. Everyone does. That’s why it seems like such an easy market to provide for, and why it was such a shock when Marques Brownlee — MKBHD — tripped over himself with the launch of the Panels app. Despite the YouTuber’s popularity, much of the internet quickly turned on him when he released his wallpaper app Panels and it asked for an unnecessary number of permissions alongside an absurdly high subscription cost.
Brownlee made the right move by responding calmly to the criticism and listening to what fans had to say. He released a 15-minute long video detailing what he planned to change and improve to address those concerns.
Brownlee says that the app should have always been free, and he’s right. There are far too many places to download wallpapers to count and next to none of them charge much. Panels might have attractive wallpapers, but they need to be more than aesthetically pleasing to ask such a high price point. Now the free tier of Panels will be loaded with 1080p wallpapers, but with none of the annoying advertisements from before. And if you want a higher-resolution version of a wallpaper you see there, you can unlock it by watching an ad.
Of course, if you want to avoid any ads at all (like most of us do), you can sign up for Panel’s new subscription tier: a mere $2 per month. You’ll also be able to purchase individual collections of wallpapers from artists for a one-time payment, or you can unlock all of them for your use if you sign up for the original $12 monthly/$50 annually plan.
Now, about the permissions — those are reportedly being fixed, and the initially broad scope was due to Brownlee and the Panels team providing incorrect information to the App Store.
The biggest takeaway from this whole debacle is that Brownlee geniunely does listen to his fans. In a time when the dollar drives every decision, that’s a nice thing to know.
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