Apple iOS 9.3 Has A Nasty Surprise

Apple AAPL -0.56% iOS 9.3 is finally here after no less than seven betas. It’s jam packed with exciting new features, but arguably its biggest and most anticipated addition has left a bitter taste in the mouths of some users…  

In short: Night Shift is not all it is cracked up to be.

It turns out Apple’s long awaited Bluelight Filter has a number of frustrating limitations which the company failed to mention in its release notes. On top of this it is also being dismissed as not fit for purpose by one of the industry’s most respected display testers. Here are the facts as they stand:

Night Shift Doesn’t Work With Older Devices

Despite Night Shift requiring virtually no processing power it turns out anyone with an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch older than late 2013 is out of luck. This includes the iPhone 5, iPhone 5C, the first four generations of iPad and numerous generations of iPod touch.

Why? The reason is Apple coded Night Shift exclusively in 64bit code. This means a cut off point for any device not using the Apple A7 chipset or newer since it provided the first 64bit iOS-compatible CPU and GPU. As such all owners of 32bit devices are out of luck / have been given the classic Apple push to upgrade.

Apple iOS 9.3. Image credit: Gordon Kelly

Night Shift Doesn’t Work With Low Power Mode

Also causing heads to shake, is the discovery that Night Shift cannot be used when your iPhone or iPad is in low power mode. The reasoning behind this is unclear (I’ve asked the question) since with Night Shift enabled displays should actually use less power. The other obvious point is Night Shift is designed to be used at night which is when a device is mostly likely to be running low on power.

Industry Attack

Lastly Night Shift has also come under attack from none other than Ray Soneira, president of DisplayMate – a site which has become the industry benchmark for testing the displays of electronic devices and is often cited by manufacturers in their marketing materials. Soneira dismisses the implementation of Night Shift in iOS 9.3 saying it does little to no good. He argues:

“Night Shift, which turns down the amount of blue light produced by the display, won’t significantly affect the production of melatonin enough to influence the circadian rhythm and improve the user’s nighttime sleep cycle. I’ve looked into this before and it’s more of a placebo effect.”

Night Shift on Apple iOS 9.3 – note: the orange hue doesn’t show up in screenshots. Image credit: Gordon Kelly

Following up with me Soneira expanded on his findings saying:

“This is an effect that I have been following for many years. I am not a sleep researcher, but I am a theoretical physicist with extensive knowledge of the displays, light spectra, and human color vision. It is clear that many sleep researchers do not have a very good understanding of displays, light spectra, or human color vision, so many of their conclusions regarding displays are simply not correct.”

Soneira also points out that the removal of blue light from a display will turn it yellow and Night Shift in iOS 9.3 turns the display orange. This also asks questions about many popular Android bluelight filter apps which turn displays grey (BlueLight Filter) and red (Twilight).

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