Apple AAPL +0.15% 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).
Needless to say I have also asked Apple to respond to Soneira’s claims and will update this article when/if it does.
In the meantime it is important to
stress that iOS 9.3 remains an excellent update. It is well tested and
the upgrade process has gone very smoothly for the vast majority (a very
small number proportionately have mentioned activation errors that are
fixed with a reset).
As such the fact Night Shift has
several unexpected limitations and faces allegations regarding its
overall effectiveness, does not change my overall recommendation that iOS 9.3 is an update you should install.