It's simple, mostly effective, and doesn't intrude on other activities you do on your computer after dark.
It's a nice little addition to the Mac that can be set up once and then completely forgotten (in a good way), just like it works on the iPhone and iPad. Night Shift is the perfect feature for most Mac users - for those that don't even use their computer after sundown or before sunrise or don't stare at a screen for 10 or more hours every day.
Many people don't even know that there are software programs you can use to reduce blue light that shines from your computer and may not even care. The level of customization and detail that f.lux offers isn't for everyone.
A version of Movie mode on Night Shift would be invaluable. I would love to see Apple implement some additional screen adjusting filters that we can access quickly from Notification Center or a bedtime reminder that will give us a nudge when we've been sitting at the computer for too long. You can turn it on when you know you're working late to give you that gentle nudge that whatever you're doing can wait until tomorrow. When you have Movie mode set up, it will still work to reduce the blue light emitting from your screen but will keep the colors and shadow details bright to make the orange filter less obvious and won't affect the colors in the movie as much.įor people that have trouble prying themselves away from their computer, f.lux has a Backwards alarm clock that reminds you at the top of every hour that it's time to go to bed. Movie mode in f.lux is especially good for watching movies late at night when you're trying to get some sleep but just need something to distract your thoughts.
You can keep the blue light off your eyes while using your writing program but have it automatically switch off when you want to check something out in a different app, then switch back on when you're back writing. So, if it's getting late in the evening and you're still working, but you want to take a break to watch an episode of a television show via iTunes, f.lux will automatically disable as soon as you open iTunes and will re-enable whenever you select a different app. You can set f.lux to disable whenever you use a specific app.
With Dark Room mode enabled, you can use a computer in such an environment without risk of destroying what you are working on. Imagine working in an environment where you have to have the room very dark, like when developing film or burning a silkscreen graphic. f.lux goes beyond screen warming and dimmingį.lux also incorporates a couple of souped-up effects that are incredible under certain circumstances, like Dark Room, which turns all of the blacks red and all of the colors gray to black. I'd love to see Apple add some more color customization options for Night Shift, like the ability to dim and warm the screen even more than it currently does or multiple preset filter settings for different times of the day (like daytime, sunset, and bedtime). You can set it up to trigger later on the weekends or earlier in the evening for kids, and there is an expanded daytime setting that you can customize to match the lighting in your office.
You can manage f.lux's lighting effect with such things as fast transition, which quickly brightens or dims your screen instead of taking about an hour to get to the full effect. Human beings are affected by light in different ways and are more or less sensitive under different occasions, like changing seasons.įor this reason, some of us prefer the ability to customize the output of a blue light-restricting program with such things as different levels of effect during different times of the day and night or the ability to disable it only while using a specific app, or even just to set our Mac to a dark theme only after sunset. The larger the screen, the more blue light invades our space. The size of a Mac's screen means our eyes are covering more landscape than on an iPhone.