Video: How to use Apple's new Night Shift mode in iOS 9.3

Posted:
in iPhone edited March 2016
Starting with the launch of iOS 9.3, newer Apple devices have gained a feature called Night Shift, which changes the color tones of your iPhone or iPad display to a warmer hue. In this video, AppleInsider goes hands on with the handy new addition.





The reason for this is backed by actual science: research has shown that lights with blue-ish hues help to keep you awake at night by suppressing the production of melatonin. By shifting to a color tone with more yellow and red, Night Shift can actually help you get a better night's sleep.

Manually turning Night Shift on or off on a device running iOS 9.3 is simple enough: Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to invoke Control Center, and you'll find a new Night Shift quick access button at the bottom, right in between access to the timer and calculator.

Power users may want more advanced control of Night Shift, however, and Apple has thankfully included customization options in iOS 9.3. Simply open the Settings app and choose "Display & Brightness," where the new Night Shift menu can be found. From there, users can schedule it to run at certain times, just like with Apple's Do Not Disturb feature.

The automated scheduling for Night Shift also allows users to have it turn on by default at sunset, and turn off when the sun rises. This uses localized sunrise and sunset times based on the user's location and time zone.

Apple also gives the ability to adjust the color temperature to a user's liking. With a slider setting, the display colors can be made more or less warm.

Night Shift is available on the iPhone 5s or later, iPad Pro, iPad Air or later, iPad mini 2 or later, and the sixth-generation iPod touch.

For more tips, tricks and breaking news, be sure to subscribe to AppleInsider on YouTube.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 13
    cornchipcornchip Posts: 1,950member
    Wish it worked on older devices.
  • Reply 2 of 13
    mike1mike1 Posts: 3,284member
    Wish they would add the battery low-power mode toggle to Control Center.
    dacloo
  • Reply 3 of 13
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    The thing that isn't being presented with Nightshift, either by Apple, or writers, is that as the time can be manually set, and even just turned on or off at will, is that with a proper color meter, white can be adjusted to exactly 6,500k. This is valuable when doing color work, and can't be done in any other easy way without a too complicated hardware and software solution for iOS which involves using either a Mac or Windows machine.
  • Reply 4 of 13
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    I didn't realize this was hard.

    how about writing some articles taking Apple to task over not fixing bugs? None of the bugs I've reported are fixed in 9.3. I don't understand why this is ok. New features, but not fixes for bad behavior. Brand new product that doesn't behave as it should and no one criticises it in the media. 

    No, it's not just me.
    roger wadeapplejeff
  • Reply 5 of 13
    icoco3icoco3 Posts: 1,474member
    dysamoria said:
    I didn't realize this was hard.

    how about writing some articles taking Apple to task over not fixing bugs? None of the bugs I've reported are fixed in 9.3. I don't understand why this is ok. New features, but not fixes for bad behavior. Brand new product that doesn't behave as it should and no one criticises it in the media. 

    No, it's not just me.
    A simple thing would be to put in alphabetical order the custom labels I created in the phone app for labeling individual phone numbers.
  • Reply 6 of 13
    zroger73zroger73 Posts: 787member
    At first, Night Shift wasn't showing a setting for "Sunset to sunrise" on my iPhone 6. I figured out it was because I still had "Setting Time Zone" turned off in Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services from a previous "time zone bug" in iOS.
  • Reply 7 of 13
    tenlytenly Posts: 710member
    So - assuming the normal color scheme to be "neutral", enabling night shift adjusts the color scheme to one that is scientifically proven to help someone fall asleep - great!  But what if the goal is the opposite?  Is there also a scientifically proven color scheme that can help someone stay awake when that is their desire?  (For example while cramming for exams...)

    And perhaps most important of all - is there a color scheme that helps promote arousal ?  :)
  • Reply 8 of 13
    wigginwiggin Posts: 2,265member
  • Reply 9 of 13
    dacloodacloo Posts: 890member
    mike1 said:
    Wish they would add the battery low-power mode toggle to Control Center.
    Yes, and I also wish they'd let me pick a wifi-network by tap-holding the wifi icon (or 3D touch it).
  • Reply 10 of 13
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    wiggin said:
    Right... You do know that this app was not using its own original research on this subject hmmm... That these kind of things have existed for the desktop hmmm.

    So, they wrote an app using someone else research and a concept that existed before on a computing device;
     well, hey, if its on a smart phone it MUST be worth some applause... (sic).

    Beyond tiresome.

  • Reply 11 of 13
    netroxnetrox Posts: 1,421member
    I have been using Night Shift and I can definitely say it did help me fall asleep faster!
  • Reply 12 of 13
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,727member
    OK tried it, love it.  Given I am still a die hard 'take my MBP to bed to use at night over my iPad'guy, it would be nice if there were a similar feature for OS X.  I've long used monitors with the ability to shift color temperature but to have OS X auto change at sun set and change back at dawn, with location awareness would be cool , or is that warm? (I'd add a wink but this stupid blog won't let me)


    edited March 2016
  • Reply 13 of 13
    gbdocgbdoc Posts: 83member
    I'll assume it works, so it's a good feature. (I never have a problem falling asleep, neither after computer work nor coffee, and I don't need a nightcap to help, so I can't test the difference.) As digitalclips just mentioned, computer screens, laptops and monitors, give off the same blue light, so it's curious that Apple and others haven't included this feature in their computer OS's. I wonder why.
    edited March 2016
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