Find out how to stop your iPhone from automatically blurring the Lock Screen wallpaper during Always On Display (AOD) mode.
iOS 26 and later change iPhone’s Always On Display settings by automatically applying a blur to your Lock Screen wallpaper when the screen is dimmed.
Blurring Always On Lock Screen wallpaper increases text legibility and makes your widgets stand out. But you can revert it.
Stop your iPhone from applying a blur effect to Lock Screen wallpaper
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Tap Display & Brightness.
- Select Always On Display.
- Turn off Blur Wallpaper Photo, and the wallpaper will no longer be blurred out when the Always On Display is active.
With “Blur Wallpaper Photo” turned on, the Lock Screen wallpaper will be blurred when the display is dimmed, which happens when there’s no activity, such as incoming notifications. As soon as a notification arrives or there’s other activity going on, the display becomes brighter and the Lock Screen wallpaper becomes crisp again, without a blur effect.
Other activities that prompt the AlwaysOn feature to dim the Lock Screen wallpaper include laying the phone facedown, covering the display, moving the phone outside the range of its paired Apple Watch, using CarPlay or Continuity Camera, while in Low Power Mode or Sleep Focus, and at bedtime.
iOS also automatically dims the wallpaper when you start scrolling on the Lock Screen to improve the legibility of text; this happens whether or not the option to blur the wallpaper photo is turned on or off. Unfortunately, there’s no toggle to turn off automatic dimming of the Lock Screen wallpaper when scrolling.
iPhones with Always On Displays
The Always On feature is available on the iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone Air, the entire iPhone 17 series, including the base iPhone 17, iPhone 18 Pro, 18 Pro Max, and iPhone Duo.
It enables the device to show a dimmed version of the Lock Screen when the phone is locked while consuming a fraction of battery power. This lets you glance at your notifications, widgets, date and time without tapping to wake the screen. Apple says the feature is turned on by default on compatible iPhones.