Phosphene is an open-source macOS Tahoe video wallpaper engine that integrates with the system's native wallpaper picker via Apple's private WallpaperExtensionKit framework. It plays user-provided MP4/MOV files as desktop and lock-screen wallpapers, appearing alongside Apple's built-in Aerials in System Settings. Key features include gapless looping via PTS/DTS offset management, multi-display support, power-aware playback policies based on thermal state and battery level, and adaptive resolution variants. The architecture splits into a SwiftUI menu bar app and a wallpaper extension running inside WallpaperAgent, communicating via Darwin notifications and a shared app group container. Notable implementation challenges include Mirror-based XPC type introspection for private Apple APIs and a runtime swizzle to fix snapshot encoding. Originally a commercial project, it was open-sourced after finding the market too competitive.
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