Bing My Lockscreen

Introduction

Bing has the greatest images & now you can get use them for your lock screen!

Bing My Lockscreen allows you to select from the eight most recent Bing images and quickly select which of them to set your lock screen to use.

In addition Bing My Lockscreen allows you to automatically have your lockscreen updated daily with the latest image from Bing - thus ensuring a constant supply of inspiring and interesting new content for you!

Developer perspective

This application is a C#/XAML based Windows Store app which implements the MVVM pattern using AtomicMVVM. The application works by getting a RSS from Microsoft of the latest Bing images and then pulls displays them in the application using the standard image & gridview controls.

The daily updates happen with a background task that pulls the RSS feed, gets the first image and sets the lockscreen to that image. Since the bulk of time is I/O it falls within the 1 to 2 CPU seconds allocated. This was really the toughest part of the app to build since it needed to be a Windows Component and not an assembly which meant all the constraints of WinRT were applied.

Videos

Screenshots

Comments

1
Abhinandy Oct 27 at 18:01
This is a wonderful idea and a presented in a simple way
1
StarlitSkies Oct 25 at 13:44
The latest update just closes/crashes every time I try to set my lock screen image with it or turn on the automatic updates :o( Have I done something wrong? Is it working for everyone else still?
Robert MacLean Oct 26 at 10:15
Just discovered an issue yesterday where some locations (Bing offers different images to different locations) do not support the HD images. Working on solving it right now and will be fixed in a future update.
1
Rinkalkumar Oct 23 at 12:21
Instead of setting image manually if we get an option to make daily home page as my lock screen image then it would be great, Just like we have it on Bing desktop search toolbar.
Robert MacLean Oct 24 at 18:38
It does do that!
Rinkalkumar Oct 25 at 5:18
ohhh...really then thats great i couldn't find it in Video that you have uploaded.
1
KronoS Oct 11 at 15:18
After using this for a while, it'd be nice to have this automatically update my lockscreen.
Robert MacLean Oct 11 at 18:15
Upgrade to the latest version and you will get the prompts to enabled the automatic updates when you run it, and if you are using the older version you can enable it manually by adding it to the lockscreen manually.
2
KevinM1 Oct 6 at 20:44
Is there a way to customize it so, say, 4 larger images are shown? Or for it to pick just the latest daily image?
Robert MacLean Oct 7 at 7:35
The next release has it, so that if you start it and there are new images it will prompt you to update.
1
StarlitSkies Oct 5 at 9:55
It looks like you tried to include your own "Rate and Review" button on the settings screen which isn't necessary and doesn't work - it's added automatically when your app is in the store :) Otherwise, it's a very nice app - looking forward to having my lock screen update to pretty pictures each day :)
Robert MacLean Oct 5 at 16:27
Thanks :) Yeah - I know about the duplicate rate & review will be fixed when the next release arrives!
1
Senthil Kumar B Oct 4 at 6:27
Good work Robert MacLean ...
Robert MacLean Oct 4 at 20:53
Thanks you very much!
4
subkamran Oct 3 at 18:33
I am not on a Windows 8 machine at the moment. How high-res can this get? I love the Bing photos but have a 1920x1080 screen.
Robert MacLean Oct 3 at 19:45
Release 3 will increase the resolution to 1366x768 - the highest I have been able to get from Bing. I run at 1920x1200 and they look good on the lock screen :)
KronoS Oct 4 at 21:45
I run 1920x1080 and they do look ok but not with the crispness that I like.
Robert MacLean Oct 5 at 6:53
Current release is a lower resolution so maybe it is that - soon as the next update comes out you'll see a nice boost. Limitation here is what we can get from Bing and I am trying for higher resolutions but so far, no lock :(
KronoS Oct 5 at 6:57
that's interesting that they don't release higher res pics. This is a great app, but limited by the source :( Hopefully they can get higher res pics for you.
Robert MacLean Oct 5 at 17:26
I have found a way to get 1920x1200 images :) Code done as well, so just need to get release 3 published and then I will submit this for release 4.
KronoS Oct 5 at 19:18
Saweet!!! Looking forward to the update.
3
Louis Sep 29 at 2:28
Some sort of file corruption: imgur.com/MueMk
Robert MacLean Sep 29 at 13:14
Noticed it as well on some downloads. I have just submitted release 3 (so hopefully up during next week) which uses a different source (also means a higher resolution) that doesn't seem to have that problem.
Louis Sep 29 at 21:08
Great, looking forward to the update.
Louis Oct 22 at 7:42
Happy to see the frequent updates. This problem appears to have been solved.
2
Ranjan Dailata Sep 28 at 19:25
Works Perfect, Great Idea :)
1
Dreambeats Sep 28 at 14:50
When I apply an Image I get a green gradient at the bottom overlapping the image. Or the image did not download correctly.
Robert MacLean Sep 29 at 13:14
Noticed it as well on some downloads. I have just submitted release 3 (so hopefully up during next week) which uses a different source (also means a higher resolution) that doesn't seem to have that problem.
1
Mamta Dalal Sep 27 at 11:38
Excellent response to my comment! Just what was needed, thanks.
Robert MacLean Sep 29 at 13:15
No - thank you for your insightful comment! If you get a chance would love to hear from you on my other apps: apptivate.ms/apps/21/lab-rat & apptivate.ms/apps/23/south-african-postal-codes
6
Mamta Dalal Sep 27 at 8:38
Need to know more about this app from a developer point of view. All that you have included here is from the end-user point of view.
Robert MacLean Sep 27 at 11:10
Great feedback! I have updated the description with more information that should answer that. If there are specifics not answered let me know :)