CAPlayground is a powerful web-based editor that enables you to design animated wallpapers for iOS and iPadOS from your desktop computer. It integrates with Apple’s “PosterBoard” system (introduced in iOS 17) to support layered, state based wallpapers with animations and transitions. According to the GitHub repository, CAPlayground lets you create beautiful animated wallpapers for iOS and iPadOS using a desktop workflow.

Once you’ve built your design in CAPlayground, you can animate elements by moving layers, rotating them, adjusting opacity, bounds, and other Core Animation properties. You can also define different states, such as lock screen, home screen, and sleep/AOD that change how the wallpaper behaves in each situation.

When it’s time to apply your creation, you export your project from CAPlayground (as a .tendies file) which is compatible with the PosterBoard subsystem. At this point you use companion tools like Nugget (on your computer) and Pocket Poster (on your iOS device) to install and apply the custom animated wallpaper. Pocket Poster enables users on iOS 17+ to apply community made or your own animated PosterBoard wallpapers without a jailbreak.

Nugget serves as the initial setup tool: you connect your device to your computer, launch Nugget, use its “App Hash/UUID” functionality under the Pocket Poster helper section, then switch to Pocket Poster on the iPhone to import the exported file and set it as wallpaper. The community site Cowabunga hosts shared .tendies wallpaper files created by users.