Android-Crashing Image Was Taken By Guy Who Wanted Photo Of A Beautiful Sunset

Previous reports talked about an image making its rounds on the internet and crashing Android smartphones when used as wallpaper. The image in question features a stunning view of nature, with varied terrain at the foreground, a lake at the middle, mountainous terrain behind the body of water, clouds above everything, and a beautiful sunset making everything look spectacular.

Noted tipster Ice_Universe brought the image to the world's attention, warning Android users everywhere not to use the photo as a wallpaper for their smartphones, particularly those using Google and Samsung handset, but also including Nokia, OnePlus and Xiaomi. This is because the image will likely break those handsets, throwing them into a continuous loop.

Some who looked into the issue discovered that the image was breaking Android phones due to its format. Android smartphones aren't capable of rendering the image's color profile, forcing them to restart over and over trying to render the image on the screen. Sadly, the stunned image didn't stun users with its beauty. Rather, it stunned users because they were forced to factory reset their devices.

Not meant to cause problems

Despite the problems that it caused, the man who took the photo said it wasn't meant to cause issues to everyone who tried using it as a wallpaper.

“I hoped my photography would have gone ‘viral’ for a good reason, but maybe that’s for another time,” Gaural Agrawal, the scientist and amateur photographer who took the photo, told BBC.

Agrawal took the photo on a trip to Glacier National Park in Montana last year. The scientist simply wanted to capture a photo of a beautiful sunset that day. He was able to take the photo just before planning to leave the place.

“It was gloomy and cloudy, and we thought there wasn’t going to be a great sunset,” Agrawal, whose work appeared in National Geographic, said of his trip. “We were about to leave when things started to change.”

Agrawal took the photo then edited it using Lightroom, and exported it using an extra-wide HDR color space. He didn't expect this format to cause problems because it worked fine on his computer. What's more, he didn't use the photo as a wallpaper for his phone:

“I have an iPhone, and my wallpaper is always a photo of my wife,” he said.

Agrawal was surprised to know that the photo would be causing a lot of havoc due to its format, adding that he will use “another format” for future photos.