MKBHD wallpaper app Panels has ended

Technology YouTuber Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) announced on Monday that he is shutting down his mobile phone wallpaper app Panels.

Given Brownlee’s more than 20 million followers on YouTube and his reputation as an insightful technology critic, fans had high hopes for Brownlee’s foray into app development. His influence has been so great that some have blamed his commentary on Humane AI and Fisker for the ultimate failure of those companies. (We think the real issue is why you shouldn’t raise $230 million if you don’t have a product.) But since Brownlee launched Panels in September 2024, the app has struggled to find its own audience.

“I knew it was a niche thing, but I made a mistake creating the first app and ultimately didn’t realize the vision I had,” Brownlee said in a private YouTube video. In a blog post, he added that due to “a change in the composition of our development team,” he was unable to find the right collaborators to grow the app.

Brownlee was inspired to create the panel because whenever he posts video reviews of phones, tablets, and computers, fans always point out how great his wallpapers and lock screens are. When he first announced the app, he pointed out that if you type “where mkbhd…” into Google, one of the first suggestions is “…get his wallpaper.”

The panel partnered with artists to sell unique, high-resolution wallpapers that users could access for $50 a year, or $12 a month (the artists received a cut of that payment). But Brownlee couldn’t overcome the challenge of creating a paid market for something consumers weren’t used to paying for. It’s easier to pull an image from the internet or take a cute photo of your dog.

Thanks to Brownlee’s name recognition, Panels ranked No. 1 on the iOS and Google Play photo app charts in its launch month. The app failed to maintain its momentum.

According to app intelligence company Appfigures, Panels has generated approximately 900,000 lifetime downloads across iOS and Android and $95,000 in consumer spending. Last month, the app had just 3,000 downloads and $500 in consumer spending, far too low to rank in U.S. app stores.

According to Panels’ own disclosures, users have downloaded more than 2 million wallpapers from the app.

Panels will begin refunding users with active annual subscriptions once the app officially closes on December 31, 2025. However, Panels’ blog post outlines how customers can receive refunds faster. Panels said all user data will be deleted after the app is shut down, and the app’s code will be open sourced so other developers can build on top of it if they wish.