Palette Spin vs Aurora Live
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Palette Spin
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Palette Spin is a simple wallpaper maker for turning colors, photos, and text into custom iPhone wallpapers. Start with a palette, spin through color patterns, and preview how your wallpaper looks on an iPhone-style screen. You can add a photo, adjust blend effects, place text, tune colors, and save the result to Photos. Palette Spin is designed for quick visual experiments: ・Spin palettes and color patterns ・Create colorful gradient wallpapers ・Add photos as a background layer ・Adjust blend mode, opacity, scale, and position ・Add text with custom font, color, outline, shadow, and rotation ・Preview portrait and landscape wallpaper layouts ・Save full wallpapers or split designs into tiles Whether you want a bright lock screen, a soft gradient background, or a personal wallpaper with text and photos, Palette Spin helps you make it quickly.
Aurora Live
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Create flowing color studies with Aurora Live's interactive canvas, palettes and capture tools. NEW IN 4.0 Save a keyframe timeline on this device, export it as JSON, and import a validated timeline with a replacement preview. Scrub the playhead to sample intensity, motion and warmth; Apply Frame sends those settings to the canvas. Save fuller Moments with warmth, palette cycling and Wander settings. Export a portable Moment settings backup through Files, then restore it with confirmation. New data-preservation checks protect unreadable saved libraries. CREATE AND CAPTURE Choose built-in palettes or create five-stop palettes, including colors extracted from a selected photo. Explore scenes and Composition Lab recipes, adjust the live canvas, save Moments, capture images and create coordinated Frame Kits. Optional Sound mode reacts to microphone levels. Ambient display, guided breathing animation and the sleep timer remain available. WHAT TO KNOW Aurora creates generative art. It is not an aurora forecast, scientific instrument or health measurement. Recipe suggestions describe settings rather than rating image quality. Guide-cycle totals count animation cycles, not measured breathing. The keyframe editor stores parameter studies; Apply Frame applies one sampled frame rather than playing or recording the timeline. Matching endpoint settings do not guarantee a seamless video loop. Moment settings backups contain names, palette colors and look settings, not thumbnails, captured images, video or animation time. Restore replaces the saved Moment list. Files are limited to 1 MB and 30 Moments. Timeline files are limited to 1 MB and 32 keyframes. Export a copy before replacing a study or library. Made for iPhone and iPad.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Palette Spin at daily against Aurora Live's weekly. Palette Spin also leads on price ($1.39 vs $2.99). On ads, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Palette Spin costs $1.39 and Aurora Live $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Palette Spin ships an update daily, Aurora Live weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 9, 2026 and November 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Palette Spin | Aurora Live |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.39 — better | $2.99 |
| Update frequency | Daily — better | Weekly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 19 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Makoto Fukuoka | Robert Corbin |
In-app purchases
Palette Spin
No in-app purchases
Aurora Live
No in-app purchases









