Blear vs Obscura
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Blear
Create unique blurry wallpapers from your own photos or pre-loaded images. Easily adjust blurriness and crop to personalize your device's home and lock screens. Share your creations directly from the app.
- Transform photos into blurry wallpapers
- Adjust crop and blurriness
- Use pre-loaded images
- Action Extension for quick editing
- Save and set as wallpaper
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Transform your photos into stunning blurry wallpapers. Make your Home/Lock screen shine! Drag the image horizontally to change the crop. You get the best result with bright colorful photos, like a handful of jellybeans or unicorns. The app comes bundled with some beautiful photos to get you started. Just shake to get another one. When you have swiped your preferred blurriness, tap the save button on the right. In the Photos app, go to the image you just saved, tap the action button, and choose “Use as Wallpaper”. The app also comes with an Action Extension. So instead of opening the app, you can start by finding a photo in the Photos app, tap the action button, and then choose “Make Blurry Wallpaper”. Blear is open source: https://github.com/sindresorhus/blear
Obscura
This app offers a powerful yet intuitive photo editing experience. It provides a range of pre-set filters and advanced tools for creative adjustments. Unlock full functionality to save and export your masterpieces.
- Gorgeous pre-set filters
- Custom filter creation
- Pro editing tools
- Exposure, curves, white balance
- Grain and vignette adjustments
- Hue/saturation/lightness controls
- Edits saved between sessions
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Obscura Studio is a brand new image editor that’s intuitive to use, but allows for a lot of creativity. Obscura Studio evolved from working on Obscura, an award-winning, pro camera app. Now Obscura and Obscura Studio are deeply integrated, sharing edits and filters between them. This means that you can edit a photo, save your edits as a custom filter, and then use that filter in Obscura’s camera. Library Obscura Studio integrates with the system Photo Library, so you have access to all your images. It has smart filters to help reduce the clutter and by default, just shows you the photos you care about. You can browse all your albums too, for easy organisation and navigation. Organisation Obscura Studio lets you rate images with star ratings, or mark them as flagged or rejected, to help you stay organised. Editing Obscura Studio has a variety of pro editing tools that let you bring your own taste to your photos. Everything from the basics like Exposure and Contrast, to a Curves Editor, HSL tools, and so much more. Filters In addition to the range of built in filters, you can save any edits as a custom filter if you want to reuse it regularly. Custom Filters are shared with Obscura so you can use them live in-camera. ———— Privacy: https://benricemccarthy.com/apps/obscura-studio/privacy.html Terms: https://benricemccarthy.com/apps/obscura-studio/terms.html
Screenshots
Verdict
Blear and Obscura both sit at 4.8 stars, but that hides the real split: 87% of Blear's written reviews are positive against 0% of Obscura's. Blear also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 5) and ratings volume (77 vs 4). Obscura's advantage is update cadence (every 5 weeks vs every 3 months) and iOS requirement (18.0 vs 26.0). On price, rating, ads and device support 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
Both are free to download. Obscura sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Blear asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for Blear against 4.8 for Obscura. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Blear has 77 ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 87% of Blear's written reviews are positive against 0% of Obscura's.
Blear ships an update every 3 months, Obscura every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and October 18, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Blear | Obscura |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (77 ratings) | 4.8 (4 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 86.7% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 77 — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 5 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 18.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 13 MB | 108 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Sindre Sorhus | Ben McCarthy |
Customer experience
Blear
Obscura
In-app purchases
Blear
No in-app purchases
Obscura
- Obscura Studio+ Monthly3 Days trial$1.991 Month
- Obscura Ultra - One Month7 Days trial$3.991 Month
- Obscura Studio+ Annual7 Days trial$11.991 Year
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- Obscura Ultra - Annual7 Days trial$24.991 Year
- Obscura Ultra - One Time$64.99
