iPhone & iPad Guide

Rando for iPhone and iPad brings random photo discovery to your Photos library and Files folders, and adds two things a phone does better than a desktop: it can play your slideshow on the TV, and it can put a forgotten photo on your Home Screen every morning.

System Requirements

iOS 17 or later (iPhone) / iPadOS 17 or later (iPad). Rando 2.0 raised the minimum from iOS 16 so that the Rando Memory widget can be interactive and appear in StandBy.
An Apple TV, AirPlay-capable TV, or a Lightning / USB-C to HDMI adapter for TV Mode (optional).

Slideshow Transitions

Choose how each photo arrives: None, Cross-fade, Ken Burns (a slow drift and zoom across the whole photo), Slide, Zoom, Flip, or Random (a different motion on every photo). Pick a speed: Slow, Normal, or Fast.

Where to change it:

Settings → Slideshow - Transition, Speed, and Image Filter.
During a slideshow - tap the style button on the controls to open the same picker without leaving the show. Your choice is saved immediately and applies on the next photo.

Videos and Live Photos always cut straight in; transitions apply to still photos only. See Transitions for a description of each motion.

Image Filters

Black & White, Sepia, and Vintage, the same presets as the Mac and Windows apps, are now on iPhone and iPad. Change the filter in Settings → Slideshow or from the style button during a slideshow. The filter applies live to the slideshow and to TV Mode, and your photos are never modified. Image Filters are a Rando Mobile / Rando Pro feature on iOS, with a free 10-minute daily preview - see "What's free and what's Pro" below.

Can I show my slideshow on my TV?

Yes. Rando's TV Mode fills the TV with a full-screen slideshow and turns your iPhone or iPad into the remote.

Using AirPlay (Apple TV or an AirPlay-capable TV)

Open Control Center (swipe down from the top-right corner).
Tap Screen Mirroring and pick your Apple TV.
Open Rando, choose any album or folder, and start a slideshow.
Rando detects the TV and offers Play on TV. Tap it (or tap the Play on TV pill on the slideshow, or the TV button in the toolbar).

The TV shows the slideshow full screen. Tall photos get a soft, blurred version of themselves as the backdrop instead of black bars, and Rando keeps a small safe margin so TVs that overscan do not crop the edges.

Using an HDMI adapter

Plug a Lightning or USB-C to HDMI adapter into your device and connect it to the TV, then start any slideshow. The rest is the same as AirPlay.

The remote

While TV Mode is running, your phone or iPad shows the remote: the current photo, play/pause, previous/next, the slide interval, shuffle, and a large Stop TV Mode button. The remote never hides itself, and your device stays awake for as long as the show runs.

Keep Rando in front

Under AirPlay mirroring, iOS only gives Rando the TV while Rando is the app on screen. If you switch to another app, take a call, or lock the phone, the TV goes back to mirroring your screen. Come back to Rando and the slideshow picks up where it left off.

The same instructions are in the app under Settings → TV.

A forgotten photo on your Home Screen, on your iPad Lock Screen, or on your nightstand in StandBy, without opening the app.

Open Rando once and grant photo access so it can prepare a queue of photos for the widget.
On the Home Screen, touch and hold an empty area until the apps jiggle, then tap + (or Edit → Add Widget).
Search for Rando, choose Rando Memory, pick a size (small, medium, or large), and tap Add Widget.

StandBy: put your iPhone on its side while charging and swipe to the widget pages; Rando Memory appears there automatically. iPad Lock Screen: touch and hold the Lock Screen, tap Customize, and add the widget to the Lock Screen widget area.

Tap the widget at any time to open that exact photo in Rando.

Choosing the album and caption

Touch and hold the widget and choose Edit Widget to pick the album it draws from and to turn the caption (date and album name) on or off. You can add as many Rando Memory widgets as you like, each with its own album.

That is the free tier: one new memory every morning at 7:00. The widget is designed to always have a photo ready, even if you have not opened Rando for a few days.

Rando Pro refreshes the widget up to hourly, adds a Shuffle button on the widget itself for a new photo on demand, and unlocks per-widget album choice. "Up to hourly" because iOS decides exactly when widgets refresh, and it may stretch the interval on days you rarely look at it.

If the widget shows "Open Rando to pick an album", open the app and view any album once; that becomes the widget's source until you choose one in Edit Widget.

Reduce Motion

If Settings → Accessibility → Motion → Reduce Motion is on, every moving transition (Ken Burns, Slide, Zoom, Flip, Random) quietly becomes a cross-fade. None stays a plain cut. Nothing else changes.

What's free and what's Pro

Everything Rando for iOS has ever offered stays free and unlimited: random picks, standard slideshows with every control, Cross-fade, videos and Live Photos, and multiple sources.

Rando Mobile or Rando Pro on iPhone and iPad covers four features:

Premium transitions - Ken Burns, Slide, Zoom, Flip, and Random
Image Filters - Black & White, Sepia, and Vintage
TV Mode - full-screen slideshows on your TV or external display
Memory Widgets - up to hourly refresh, your choice of album per widget, and Shuffle on demand

Each Pro feature can be previewed free for 10 minutes a day (one shared allowance across all four).

Two ways to unlock those features on iPhone and iPad:

Rando Mobile — the cheaper, iPhone/iPad-only plan. It unlocks the exact same three features as Pro; it just doesn't cover the Mac.
Rando Pro — the same plan that unlocks the Mac app. If you already subscribe to Pro on your Mac with the same Apple Account, you're Pro on iOS too, automatically.

Both tiers unlock the identical iOS feature set — Rando Mobile isn't a lesser version, it's simply the cheaper way to buy these three features if you don't own a Mac. When the day's preview is used up, a Pro transition quietly falls back to Cross-fade and TV Mode stops, with a small note offering the upgrade; nothing interrupts a running slideshow. Pricing and the free trial are shown in the app.

Your Settings badge shows which of these you have: Free (no subscription), Mobile Trial, Mobile (active or lifetime), Pro Trial, Pro, Pro Lifetime, or Expired. A Mobile Lifetime purchase shows the plain Mobile badge, with no renewal date since there's nothing to renew.

Upgrading from Mobile to Pro

If you're on a Rando Mobile subscription, Apple prorates the switch to Pro — you only pay the difference for the rest of your billing period. A Rando Mobile Lifetime purchase doesn't carry any credit toward Pro; Apple doesn't offer trade-in credit from a one-time purchase toward a subscription.

Keeping Rando Updated

Rando checks once a day, on launch or when you switch back to it, whether a newer version is on the App Store. If one is available, a slim banner appears with an Update button; dismissing it hides the notice until a version newer than the one you dismissed comes out.

Privacy and usage data

Your photos never leave your device. Rando for iOS has an optional Share Anonymous Usage Data switch under Settings → App; it is off by default. When on, Rando sends a handful of anonymous events about the upgrade flow (a preview started, the upgrade screen shown, a purchase completed), never anything about your photos. The widget sends nothing.

Troubleshooting

The TV still mirrors my phone

Make sure the slideshow is actually running in Rando; TV Mode starts when you tap Play on TV.
Keep Rando in the foreground. Switching apps or locking the phone hands the TV back to mirroring.
Stop and restart Screen Mirroring from Control Center, then start the slideshow again.

Play on TV does not appear

Confirm Screen Mirroring is connected in Control Center (the icon is highlighted).
With an HDMI adapter, check the cable and that the TV is on the right input.
Force-quit Rando and reopen it while mirroring is already on.

Open Rando, grant photo access, and view any album once.
Give iOS a few minutes; widgets refresh on the system's schedule.
If it stays empty, remove the widget and add it again.

Transitions look like a plain cross-fade

Check Settings → Accessibility → Motion → Reduce Motion. When it is on, Rando deliberately uses cross-fade for every motion.

Next Steps

Slideshow Mode - transitions, timing, and controls in detail
Image Filters
macOS Guide - the Mac app, where the same subscription unlocks Collage and multi-monitor slideshows