Hacker News Reader

Comment by mixmastamyk | Hacker News Reader

With both iOS and Android both going to white backgrounds I've got (seemingly) no where else to turn. These devices are really hard to use at night, and I despise them every time I use them after 7pm or so and have to squint.

Who decided that the world shall enforce white backgrounds for everything, while eliminating user control? Even Windows 3.1 had themes.

View on HN

For iOS, there's a hidden dimmed mode, which is great for nighttime. It's not obvious how to get to it, to say the least. Directions at http://lifehacker.com/toggle-your-iphones-brightness-with-a-...

There's another ios accessibility setting that inverts video on the whole screen, which is surprisingly good for dark settings. I don't want the blinding white background to be dimmer, I want it not to use a white background in the first place.

iOS 9 auto-brightness mode goes a lot dimmer than its predecessors.

Is this the case even with older iPhones? Haven't really noticed it myself, but haven't been paying attention, TBH.

If Android doesn't dim down far enough, you can try the night mode app:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pt.bbarao.nigh...

Yep, I have it, thanks.

Actually the Cyanogenmod port of Android has a feature called LiveDisplay which works like RedShift/f.lux. It makes the display warmer at night. Very cool feature and can't believe every phone doesn't have it...

You don't need to mod your phone to get that functionality -- there are apps for that, such as Twilight.

I always have a small amusement when I have to take a picture with the camera covered to get an image I can use as my background. Easy enough to do. Embarrassing that I have to.

On iOS you can enable the revert-colors option (three taps of the home button). This is what my wife does on her iPad at night and it works pretty well for reading.

It sort of works, except for the now white bar at top, and negative images, and when you come across the random dark app.

It's a limited, partial solution at best. If it reversed lightness instead of going negative it might be more helpful.

Join the Windows side. We have Dark mode.

Yeah, and actually Windows 10 Mobile feels even blacker than before.

I think that's because the fonts have become smaller and all the vector graphics now use a very thin stroke style, so there's less lighted pixels against the black background.

I would consider it if MS cared more about privacy.

Join the Dark side. We have Windows mode.

There are tools that can adjust screen colors and brightness automatically on rooted devices (e.g. I believe Twilight is one for Android; F.lux is available for most other platforms).

You don't need even root for these.

Uniformly white background is convenient on iOS as it has an invert color mode. Not the best but it works. Until you switch to an application with a normally dark background and then you lose all vision, that's inconvenient.

Lollipop and later have auto brightness. Make sure that's enabled, and just adjust the brightness when it's too bright or dim. It seems to remember your setting for a given approximate light level.

Even at minimum brightness my phone is still blindingly bright.

Having grown up with screens that never seemed bright enough, it's funny to me that in 2015 I'd be far more interested in one whose backlight is able to go particularly low.

> Who decided that the world shall enforce white backgrounds for everything, while eliminating user control?

You can trivially root many Android devices and do whatever you want.

you can get f.lux type apps for android.

I've been using an app called "Twilight" to help with my circadian rhythm. I cannot recommend it enough (no root required): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.urbandroid...

All the ones I've seen are different to f.lux. They seem to be additive - black becomes lighter, rather than just decreasing the blue percentage. I'd assumed it's a limitation of the filter API.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com