This Beautiful Wallpaper Can Brick Your Android Phone

Choosing your smartphone’s background is one of the most basic ways to customize your smartphone. Turns out, Android smartphones can be soft-bricked by merely using this scenic image as your wallpaper.

(Don’t worry! This is a screenshot. You are safe.)

The issue came forward after Ice Universe, a famous tipster, warned people not to use the image. Although the image looks innocent with its serene view and is something that would make a nice wallpaper, it exceeds the bounds of the color profile Android can handle.

According to Android Authority, devices from Google, Samsung, OnePlus, Nokia, Xiaomi are affected, though not all models behave the same.

This video (courtesy: Android Authority) shows how a device malfunctions after using the image as wallpaper.

The image does not cause any problems while in Google Photos. Hence, it is not one of those images that can crash smartphones when sent via messages and emails. Moreover, Ice Universe, in a follow-up tweet, detailed that after uploading the image to Chinese social media website Weibo, the colors change and it no longer soft-bricks Android smartphones when set as a wallpaper.

This is not the first time an issue like this came forward. A similar issue was reported in Google’s Android issue tracker back in 2018. However, at that time, the developers were unable to reproduce the issue.

Note: Don’t try this using the image as wallpaper. Even hard reset may not fix the issue.



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