Hacker News Reader

Comment by Razengan | Hacker News Reader

I think Apple may have deliberately chosen to go for a less severe difference in colors, so as to get more people onboard the general idea of colors shifting through the day, at first. Expect it to evolve in a future macOS/iOS (hopefully along with the introduction of a true dark mode.)

f.lux, while more effective, may be off-putting to most people. The medicinal orangeness was a bit sickening to me when I first tried f.lux, to the point that I didn't want to use it, though I warmed up to it later.

View on HN

Exactly this. Apple is building this feature for the average user. If they presented a screen too different from normal, most people would turn it off, thinking that it looks ugly - precisely the opposite of what they want.

I was working a laaate shift (datacenter migration) at work one night and came back to my desk around 4am.. my screens were straight up dark burnt orange.

I thought something was broken, was checking cables, rebooted, etc, until I realized that I'd just never seen what f.lux did at 4 in the morning before. Felt pretty stupid.

You just needed some sleep. ;) It was 4am be easy on yourself.

You took Razengan's supposition and made it a certainty.

Maybe making it easier for new users is what they were aiming for but it's equally likely with the evidence we have (read: zero) that they fucked up because they don't know what they're doing.

> but it's equally likely with the evidence we have (read: zero) that they fucked up because they don't know what they're doing.

Is there evidence to support the f.lux team's claims at being objectively better in "helping people sleep" other than their word for it? Honest question. Edit: I see there's [0] but it's probably best to try out both f.lux and Night Shift on alternate days and decide for yourself what works better for you.

What stopped Apple from copying f.lux's exact behavior, if they wanted to?

We would have to assume that Apple did 0% testing, or received 0% feedback during the time Night Shift has been out on iOS, before bringing it to the Mac. After all they do have experience with researching health and human behavior from their time on the Apple Watch. They could even compare heart rate, movement and sleep data from Apple Watch users and see how it's affected by Night Shift.

[0] https://justgetflux.com/research.html

> but it's equally likely with the evidence we have (read: zero) that they fucked up because they don't know what they're doing

That's a pretty bold claim, and it seems far less likely than it being an intentional decision for whatever reason (and making things easier for new users certainly is a plausible reason).

Why? Apple has botched software before (mobileme, continually shipping old OpenGL, WiFi issues, etc).

Because Apple has a lot of experience with Night Shift on iOS, and it beggars belief that they'd ship Night Shift on macOS without at least looking at how it compares to f.lux. It's simply not reasonable to claim that behaving differently than f.lux is due to incompetence.

>but it's equally likely with the evidence we have (read: zero) that they fucked up because they don't know what they're doing.

We also have the evidence that they're a huge company, with huge resources, and lots of top talent, that can consult scientists, medical professionals etc for such a feature.

We have no evidence to suggest that they put huge resources and lots of top talent on this feature and no evidence to suggest that they used any research to back it up.

Just because Apple is a big company doesn't mean that all they do are big company things.

This. Most of my friends are like "wtf is your screen so yellow" like every time. I thought Night Shift on iOS will change that but nope. I guess it takes time.

Sure, I had the "what's up with your screen" comments too.

Then I'd turn off flux while they were watching & everybody said the same thing as the screen returned to blue-white: "ewwww."

I am still unable to get used to flux. It bothers me a lot, and I think my brain is trying to color correct or something; I swear it contributes to tension headaches. Could also just be getting them from too much screen time but the effect seems worse with flux on.

Have you tried setting it to a very mild color shift, and then perhaps working up slowly?

You start slow. I started from mild for few weeks then cranked it up. Slowly you get so used to it that the yellow tint doesn't bother you. And for me I now have a habit that as soon as I start Photoshop or Illustrator I turn flux off.

You can also disable f.lux for specific apps, just click on the menu icon when the app is open, and you'll find the option under Disable > for Photoshop.

I used to do that for a few programs but it was always so jarring seeing the transition happen back and forth when I would tab out of Photoshop to the Finder or another app. Now I just disable for an hour if I'm doing color sensitive work at night.

I end up just lowering the strength when I'm using certain apps - I wish that was an option rather than completely disabling.

Disable for 1hour works great most of the time.

Going straight from full-blown f.lux to "disabled", everything looks extremely blue and harsh to me, and still doesn't look natural, so I prefer a lighter touch of evening mode.

You're just overthinking it. The key is to forget about it.

And perhaps you've set it to some extreme setting.

How "orange" it gets depends on the color temperature you set. f.lux allows a very wide range of final-spectrum settings, from almost-no-effect to small-medieval-candle-light.

I had to change the default darkening amounts for f.lux because they're too orange, and I still end up disabling it every other night.

Sure, f.lux might reduce blue/green light more at it's default settings, but if it causes me to disable it, it's not actually blocking more light.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com