How to use Night Shift in iOS 9.3

Night Shift is a handy new addition to iOS devices. The technology of reducing blue light in monitors has been around for a long time and desktop programs like f.lux are highly recommended by the community to reduce eye strain. Unfortunately, for iOS devices f.lux requires you to jailbreak, as it needs root permissions to adjust the screen’s colour tone. Read next: How to jailbreak an iPhone or iPad.
Thankfully, Apple has included the feature by default on all iOS devices running the latest 9.3 update.

How to use Night Shift in iOS 9.3: What is Night Shift?
Before diving into enabling and using Night Shift, you might be wondering what on earth is it? Don’t worry, you’re not the only one wondering, as that’s a good question!

Apple explains Night Shift being able to “automatically shift the colors in your display to the warmer end of the spectrum” as “bright blue light in the evening can affect your circadian rhythms and make it harder to fall asleep”.

In a nutshell, blue light exists in all screens due to them displaying a Red, Green and Blue (RGB) spectrums. Blue light can cause eye strain and fatigue, especially at night when lights seem brighter.

In order to counter this, Night Shift, reduces the blue light emission from your screen to make the colour tone warmer and make it easier to view at night. The effects of this make your screen lose its white point accuracy, as it will have a yellow-tint with Night Shift enabled. This is the only way Night Shift can work, so if you prefer having an accurate representation of your screen ensures Night Shift is fully disabled. Read next: Apple iPad Pro 9.7in first-look preview UK.

How to use Night Shift in iOS 9.3: Update to iOS 9.3

In order to see the Night Shift mode option, you’ll need to be on iOS 9.3. This is as simple as going into Settings > General > Software Update. Make sure you’ve got enough battery to perform the update and that you’ve backed up before jumping into iOS 9.3. For a full guide see: How to update to iOS 9 on iPhone & iPad, and how to install the iOS 9.3 update.

How to use Night Shift in iOS 9.3: Enable Night Shift

Note: “Night Shift is available on iPhone 5s or later, iPad Pro, iPad Air or later, iPad mini 2 or later, and iPod touch (6th generation).”

Once you’re on iOS 9.3, enabling Night Shift is extremely simple. Go into Settings > Display & Brightness > Night Shift.

From here you’ll be able to setup a schedule, where you’ll be able to add a custom time frame or have the iOS device automatically determine your location and have Night Shift enabled when its Sunset and Sunrise.

Some people have reported that this option is not being shown to them and this is because location services aren’t being picked up by your time zone. To fix this, go into: Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services and then find Setting Time Zone and ensure that’s toggled on.

Alternatively, you can manually enable Night Shift until tomorrow and also adjust the Colour Temperature through the slider.

If you wish to quickly enable it, Apple has conveniently added it to the Control Center which can be accessed in any app, homescreen or lockscreen by simply swiping up from the bottom of your screen. Simply tap the centre light icon to enable Night Shift. We do suggest going into the settings and manually adjusting the level of warmth you wish have, so that your device remembers the setting when you want to quickly toggle it on. Read next: iOS 9 features & update advice.

How to use Night Shift in iOS 9.3: Do you use Night Shift?

We would be interested to know if you use Night Shift yourself. Around the Macworld office, most of us are using the feature and find it useful when looking at our iOS devices at night. Our very own Lewis Painter has been using it for months through iOS 9.3 beta and we quote: “I absolutely love it, it’s one of the best new features!”