Windows Phone 8.1 has introduced transparent tiles, which means that you can now finally set a background image, a wallpaper if you will, that floated under the tiles on your Windows Phone start screen. The best part about this implementation is that even if you scroll, the image continues to float under the tiles giving off a really nice parallax effect.

There’s one problem though, not all app developers have implemented this functionality in their app yet. Which means that despite your best intentions, your Start Screen ends up having a few ugly spots. Enter a free app called Transparency Tiles that lets you replace a lot of the third party app tiles with transparent ones. Some of the supported apps are Nokia Mix Radio, Here Maps, Here Drive, Twitter, Facebook and more. While the list isn’t very long as yet, I spoke to the developer earlier in the day and he’s informed me that an update is coming later today that will add another 20 apps into the fray. What’s more, he is even taking requests for your favorite apps that don’t support transparent tiles yet.

One drawback of this approach is that the notifications that exist on the tiles cannot be seem anymore. But with Action Center more than taking care of notifications, that shouldn’t be a problem anymore.

You can download Transparency Tiles for free from the Windows Phone Store.