Desktoptopia is a desktop background manager for the Mac that automatically loads and displays designer desktops on your monitor, as often as you wish.
Made for designers/by designers to keep you inspired with the freshest desktops. Our master collection grows everyday, so you're sure to to be inspired with the freshest and latest designs. Why hunt through all the landscapes and Hello Kitty desktops out there? Let us bring the best to you.
What's New
Version 1.5: Release notes were unavailable when this listing was updated.
Is Desktoptopia gone? I certainly hope not, however, their website has been down this month. I miss the art so much. Yes, there have been glitches with incorrect names being displayed, but this has been one of my favorite 3rd-party apps. My absolute favorite of the non-utilitarian, purely aesthetic.
This app has some really nice background pictures in it's online library.
The app, however, does have some very annoying problems. I have set this app to "Start at Login" and change images every 10 minutes. Most of the time, the app doesn't show the current image name or the rating sub-menu items. I have to stop and restart the app several times using the preference pane for it to launch properly. It's a crap shoot until it launches properly. I can navigate back and forth between backgrounds even without the name and rating menu items. However, when I click on Previous Background, the image name and rating don't get updated as it continues to show the previous image name and rating details.
Once I to stop Desktoptopia via the System Preference pane, I cannot realunch it without first relaunching the System Preferences app. Clicking on the "Start Desktoptopia" button does nothing.
I hope the developer fixes these problems and keeps expanding the image library.
[Version 1.5]
Anonymousreviewed on 03 Apr 2008
Crashed in 10.4.11. Preferences won't load? I'll have to restart and see if that helps.
I LOVE THIS SOFTWARE! And my wife does, too. I highly recommend trying it.
All the images are vetted by the developer and there's a little something for everyone.
What I like best is the sense of expectation and surprise. You never know what the next image will be. That sense of playfulness helps the work day go by faster. (I rotate every 10 minutes.)
Some other reviewers question the cost, but I feel like I get my money's worth every day. Sure, I could spend an hour looking around online for new desktops every week and have the OS cycle through them for me, but who's got that much free time? And it's much more FUN when you don't know what will be coming up next! Seriously!
I'm happy to buy into Desktotopia on the grand floor, because I think it's just going to get better as they increase the quantity and variety of images in rotation. I hope that's where they're putting their development energy right now. (If you're an artist/photographer, you can submit desktops, too!)
I'm in a proxy server environment, and I had to tweak my Mac's network settings to get things rolling, but it works fine now.
I agree with Leo. It does seem a lot to pay for a desktop changer. It is really well done and the desktop images are well designed but why would you pay for this?
A better revenue model would be to offer the app for free and to insert discrete paid advertising on 1 out of 10 desktops or something like that.
The service is moderately interesting - something like the old WebShots but with desktops made by graphic artists more than photographs. Bought it a discounted copy for my wife who likes this kind of thing and got a license right away. Interestingly, there's no way to enter the license number - the text box can't be edited and more than 24 hours later I've still not heard back from them. Go to their website and take a look at the webart they have.
Same problem here, the preference pane won't open (actually it does from time to time, but not very predictably...) and I also feel that the wallpaper doesn't change automatically when it's supposed to...
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Desktoptopia is a desktop background manager for the Mac that automatically loads and displays designer desktops on your monitor, as often as you wish.
Made for designers/by designers to keep you inspired with the freshest desktops. Our master collection grows everyday, so you're sure to to be inspired with the freshest and latest designs. Why hunt through all the landscapes and Hello Kitty desktops out there? Let us bring the best to you.
+1
cyannah reviewed on 15 May 2009
+4
brock samson reviewed on 09 Jun 2008
It's very reliably buggy to the point of being completely useless.
Do yourself a favor, if you manage to get it to work, save all of the wallpapers you like and then ditch this POS.
+4
brock samson reviewed on 06 Jun 2008
"Crap shoot" is the right term.
+3
The app, however, does have some very annoying problems. I have set this app to "Start at Login" and change images every 10 minutes. Most of the time, the app doesn't show the current image name or the rating sub-menu items. I have to stop and restart the app several times using the preference pane for it to launch properly. It's a crap shoot until it launches properly. I can navigate back and forth between backgrounds even without the name and rating menu items. However, when I click on Previous Background, the image name and rating don't get updated as it continues to show the previous image name and rating details.
Once I to stop Desktoptopia via the System Preference pane, I cannot realunch it without first relaunching the System Preferences app. Clicking on the "Start Desktoptopia" button does nothing.
I hope the developer fixes these problems and keeps expanding the image library.
Anonymous reviewed on 03 Apr 2008
+98
dlwhite reviewed on 07 Nov 2007
All the images are vetted by the developer and there's a little something for everyone.
What I like best is the sense of expectation and surprise. You never know what the next image will be. That sense of playfulness helps the work day go by faster. (I rotate every 10 minutes.)
Some other reviewers question the cost, but I feel like I get my money's worth every day. Sure, I could spend an hour looking around online for new desktops every week and have the OS cycle through them for me, but who's got that much free time? And it's much more FUN when you don't know what will be coming up next! Seriously!
I'm happy to buy into Desktotopia on the grand floor, because I think it's just going to get better as they increase the quantity and variety of images in rotation. I hope that's where they're putting their development energy right now. (If you're an artist/photographer, you can submit desktops, too!)
I'm in a proxy server environment, and I had to tweak my Mac's network settings to get things rolling, but it works fine now.
Try it. You won't regret it!
+3
frequency reviewed on 06 Sep 2007
A better revenue model would be to offer the app for free and to insert discrete paid advertising on 1 out of 10 desktops or something like that.
+165
Very 'nice' - 'Computer arts' magazine style wallpapers/desktop pics but twenty bucks ?
Buying desktops is like buying screensavers, a seriously weird phenomena and inexplicable - so I won't try.
+41
I've got used to having it on all my Macs and I'm not sure what I'll without it :(