It probably also means it will be built-in to Andriod next and then probably Windows itself. That could negatively impact Flux the product, which sucks for him.
F.lux is free software and they've said outright that as devices / systems implement color shifting as built-in systems, they've accomplished their goal.
> f.lux is patent pending. Do you make a cell phone, display, lighting system, or other cool sleep tech, and want to talk about collaboration? Email us: support@justgetflux.com
Licensing from a fellow giant who will absolutely take you to court if you don't and repurposing the ideas of small indie developers are entirely different things.
I could be wrong, but I don't think Apple has a history of violating patents from practicing small software developers. Seems like they're pretty much only sued by patent trolls.
Yes, but it's much better that this stuff is built in natively to the OS. F.lux and equivalents I have used on Android often are gltichy given that they interact with the video system.
It's not just Android: on both Windows and Linux, F.lux seems to interact badly with certain Intel video chipsets, and often just turns on and off continuously until I reboot the system. It's great software, but having it native to the OS would be even better. I hope the other vendors follow Apple's lead here.
There's some annoying glitches in the Mac OS implementation. In particular, the profile gets reset to normal for a second or two when certain applications (particularly OpenGL games) start up or exit, and when the screensaver is unlocked.
While that's true, f.lux handles edge cases in important ways -- letting you disable it for certain apps or time periods, as well as "movie mode." As much as I'd like to see this feature be built into the OS, Apple tends to simplify away a lot of fiddly preferences by choosing what they hope are sensible defaults, and as much as I appreciate that in theory, in practice this might be one of those areas where fiddly preferences are superior.
Hopefully then, OSX as well. I probably spend as much time (sadly) on my macbook as I do in front of my iPhone at night. F.lux is a lifesaver, but I'd prefer it builtin to the OS.
Well, Apple didn't treat Flux any differently than other developers who used private APIs or tried to distribute binary blobs to iOS users.
Software running in the background is something Apple tightly controls in iOS (battery life and security being major concerns). They also don't let apps make changes to the OS appearance. That may be the wrong approach, but Apple is at least consistent in it. This was either an OS level feature or a no go from Apple's perspective. As a user I'm happy it's a feature!
Yes, that's the whole point of private APIs - they're not supported, and they can be changed or removed whenever.
It's just access control at the framework level. Apple could embed a copy in each application using the framework, but that's inefficient, so they install it at the system level.
It totally sucks that Apple prohibits third-party apps from offering useful functionality that requires deep integration with the system. So no, it is not exactly "OK."
However, it has nothing to do with rejecting apps because of it, and offering their own version of the functionality. Apple has always reserved this domain for themselves from day one, and f.lux would have had the exact same problems even if Apple hadn't been doing their own version of it.
Not only that, but the private APIs f.lux was using led to a really awkward implementation, complete with huge gotchas like the phone waking up every time the color profile changed.
It is odd that it is a binary blob, but it isn't dangerous in the same way as binary driver blobs on Linux. Everything you install via Xcode is sandboxed in exactly the same way as the binary blobs you download from the App Store.
Apple didn't have an API ready for that for external devs - not due to malice, but due to the lack of need. There are virtually no other use cases for such API, so no wonder they didn't release it.
Within a context of one app it's not that difficult to change the colour balance. What kind of an app would want to change the balance of colours system-wide?
It is a good point. I recently got a company provided phone and I strongly considered getting an iPhone, especially since it's the dominant platform at my company and most internal apps are developed for it exclusively. However, I started tallying up what functionalities I would have to give up and decided against it, a flux like program being one of them.
You can compile and sideload any software yourself using XCode and an AppleID. I run Gamma Thingy (a f.lux alternative) on my non-jailbroken iPhone. You can compile and run emulators, use any private API, whatever. Those apps will just never be in the App Store.
Very interesting. Apple has replicated f.lux's functionality and removed access to the key ingredient used in the authors original implementation. All in one felt swoop.
They were definitely paying close attention to that whole "side load our proprietary blob using Xcode" debacle on HN 2 months ago.
Private frameworks have never come with headers (on either OS X or iOS). This change only affects linking, and it only means that you have to create the .tbd files (just a list of available symbols) for ld to use manually - or use dlsym or other workarounds.
It will be interesting to see how password/touch id lock for Notes works. Will they be end-to-end encrypted? Will they be searchable? Or is this simply a UI feature to protect against someone looking over your shoulder?
agreed very curious to know whether this means apple does not have access. I have a passcode on my phone/computer/icloud so casual snooping is not really an issue (and i don't hand my phone to people to play with or share a computer) so that would really be the only benefit to someone like me
One thing I found rather amusing was the fact that there are visible passwords in the picture although it hasn't been unlocked. Hopefully it's at the very least blurred before you input your password.
Reading the text on the screen this appears to be in the action of 'encrypting'. i.e. they just hit a button to say 'hide this data behind my fingerprint' and you just have to authenticate and then it will be encrypted. A poor choice though perhaps. I think they wanted to demonstrate the type of data you would want to store.
Apple says it is encrypted on the server, but it's not clear if it is end-to-end encrypted with the keys staying on your devices. Likely the keys are encrypted with your iCloud password for multi-device use.
I can't believe that's [1] the best low-light picture they could find for their flagship mobile OS preview page.
It doesn't even add anything to the story:
Night Shift uses your iOS device’s clock and geolocation to determine when it’s sunset in your location. Then it automatically shifts the colors in your display to the warmer end of the spectrum, making it easier on your eyes.
Is apple using this to get more apps integrate with HealthKit? Many developers feel integration with HealthKit turns their app into a commodity. Categories such as Weight, Workouts, and Sleep have a new slider menu that reveals great apps you can easily add to your Health dashboard
Is it just me, or does that seem like a surprising set of features for a mid-cycle release. Typically it's just bug fixes for anything other than a major OS launch.
Yes and no. Looks like many of these changes are just at the app level - Notes, Car Play, Health. However, because Apple doesn't separate these apps from the system (ie., you can't update them from the app store) they get bundled into the OTA. If these apps were civilian apps, I doubt anyone would be surprised by these updates.
I agree - I thought the reason this was posted to HN was the fact this is a fairly significant update with its own announcement page, which doesn't appear to have been the case with .1 releases in the past. Perhaps iOS is moving to a faster update cycle?
I hope Safari gets more meaningful updates as well - the once-a-year updates sometimes with not much new (looking at you Safari 9) is real slow progress for web developers, especially compared to Chrome and Firefox.
Moving education features to September/October release essentially dooms them to not be used until the next school year, or at least the second semester.
Testing and implementing new technology midstream is tough in education. Most of that gets done over the summers in the US.
I hope they bring this Night Shift to OSX as well, just for consistency. I've used Flux for years, but it does have some quirks like when waking from sleep.
It'll probably include a WebKit version bump as usual, but according to the WebKit Feature Status page, Service Workers are only "under consideration" (not "in development" or "done"), so I wouldn't expect them anytime soon.
I'm owner of an ios, windows phone and android device.
With that said most of the innovation happening lately is just something carried over from others, e.g. the add block feature, or the night shift, both features already present for example on Cyanogenmod with an adblock installed.
Now my point is... (and I'm not pointing my finger to apple, I like my ipad more now than before, with the exception of the music application), seems like we have started to reach the point where enhancements are only marginal.
I'm not sure how much more cpu power can fix that situation (apple can still play the quad-core card), or if this is a development language restriction issue, or a problem with compilers-languages that cannot make use of multi-core cpus or maybe there is nowhere else to go because everything has been made.
If my previous statement holds true... maybe this is the beginning of the "pc era" of the smartphones with lower sales and no more features worth upgrading to the latest and greatest.
There is still so much more to do that won't require gargantuan cpu/storage/io/screen/etc. resources, that I don't think we are in an "end of history" phase yet with the current conceptualization of these devices. Just a few personal itches off the top of my head that have yet to be scratched:
* There is still not a good solution for group-transactional data over the devices as a first-class citizen feature in the system. Live, collaborative editing with versioning of just a list, for starters, is considered an app'able feature worth $50 USD per year per person.
* Internationalization still takes a back seat. Calendar apps still don't pick up that if you set an appointment for someone in a different time zone than you, you are likely scheduling to a time convenient for them. There should be an option to auto-detect and display applicable time zones as you create the appointment.
* Customization still takes a back seat. When I add custom phone types ("concall", "support", "after-hours support", etc.), it ends up UNSORTED in the list of custom phone types when I go to choose one. That's just the tip of the iceberg of enhancements. For address records of people in a specific organization, I want to be able to set only a certain list of custom phone types for anyone in that organization.
* There still is no sense of tracking versions of information. I have thousands of contacts, and I keep track of old addresses for example; it helps me orient myself to the possible cultures someone has experienced. But only the here-and-now data is recognized.
* Linking data between apps takes an explicit act of coordination between app developers; the Newton data soups were particularly good with breaking down this artificial barrier.
* Deep-linking into your own data from within an app in general is not very well-recognized as a use case. Not to speak of deep-linking from an external laptop.
I'm personally gravitating back towards making my information in my Emacs Org mode buffer the primary system of record, and the phone is just a thinly-sliced perspective of that.
I didn't thought about the history/versioning possibilities, they sound very interesting.
The rules per contact for phone numbers is also interesting.
I would say maybe avoiding adding more complexity to the os is part of the reason those things won't get implemented while others as the time/zone calendar issues means inter-zone is broken.
Ahhhhh... interesting. I read so many stories and comments on HN about how it's bad to be too rich. But apparently well like companies can have an exception.
Some problems cannot be easily solved with money. Paying patent lawyers and patent royalties is an example of a problem that can be very easily solved with money.
Surprisingly to many people used to the hiveminds on other forums, HN is not homogeneous in the opinions of the denizens. Many of us are fine with the idea of making money, and don't see it as an all-encompassing evil to be slandered at every turn as if it were an argument unto itself.
I agree but Apple has been known to pay for solid patent licenses. I.e. Amazon's 'one click to pay' patent. If f.lux lands the patent, I think Apple could work out a solid deal with f.lux. Or they will find a distasteful legal loophole. One of the two.
Has Apple been known to pay to license patents from small startups? The fact that they've licensed from Amazon isn't quite analogous, since Amazon clearly has the ability to enforce their patents in court. A small startup may not have the resources to do this.
Being "patent pending" is meaningless without further context, i.e., the application proper. "Patent pending" spans a range of meaningless crud and novel inventions that share the common trait of having not yet received a final rejection office action.
Does anyone have more info on the colour warmths available in nightshift? One nice feature of f.lux is that you can select colour warmths using a slider.
Does nightshift allow a variety of night colours, or just one setting?
Either way, this is great news. For years I had been jailbroken merely in order to have f.lux on my phone. I have mild insominia, and flux has greatly reduced that.
It is worth noting that during the day you should NOT use night mode even in a dark environment, the whole point of the color shifting is to reproduce how the sun interacts with the world around you, turning on night mode during the day won't do your internal clock any favours.
That being said, there might be good arguments for having manual night mode control, like if you're a night shift worker and want day mode at night, and night mode during the day. And a lot of international travel scenarios.
iOS 9.2 made the iPad Pro nearly unusable (dropping keystrokes) with the Logitech Create Pro keyboard, and no fix has been forthcoming in iOS 9.2.1 betas. Will this be addressed in 9.3? It worked perfectly with iOS 9.1.
It could be immensely useful for the enterprise as well if they marketed it right. But apple hasnt seemed to care about business uses for the past few years.
This might be my favorite update since iOS 7 added the slide up menu to toggle wifi. The flux and notes locking capabilities have been on my want list for years now.
I'm so happy to see Notes getting attention and new features. Since the update to support attachments and basic text formatting, it has become my digital notebook of choice. I basically use it for everything, from todo and shopping list, to collecting images about a topic, planning trips, work notes, and many more.
Notes has many features that I considered well implemented: a simple interface, native integration with the OS including sharing from and to the app, seamless iOS & OSX syncing over iCloud, decent search, PDF export.
I hope Apple keeps investing in it adding relevant, useful features, but without allowing it to become too big, like it happened to Evernote.
I agree it's quite nice, the only thing I would like is an easy way to mark up images. You have a bunch of tools for doodling, it just would be nice to use them on top of an image instead of having the doodles be strictly their own image.
That would be fantabulous. Because Notes has been so reliable I've been afraid to ask for more features, but you're right, the tools are already there. Would love to be able to add arrows and caption photos.
I doubt it. All the newer features (those introduced in iOS 9 like formatting) only work for notes stored in iCloud. The IMAP stuff seems to be deprecated/in transition.
Notes with iCloud backup has been incredibly handy to me. I have notes going back to 2007. iCloud seems to have difficulty backing up a database with so many notes, but it's been way better than nothing. (Gmail doesn't work on my iPhone, maybe because it's such an old account? But logging in never worked on my primary Gmail account.)
Personally I still much prefer OneNote, but not everyone (especially iOS users) want to tie themselves down to Office/OneDrive - so it's always nice to see built in apps get more functionality.
I'm much happier to tie myself down to the one that runs on Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. It's nice to see Notes getting more features, but if people start keeping a lot more stuff in there it's one more bit of nasty platform lock-in.
It's not ideal, but aren't notes accessible via the iCloud website? I agree with everything you said, especially as someone who uses Windows, Windows Phone and iOS side-by-side.
I have been wanting to switch to OneNote over EverNote recently but have had really weird problems on OS X.
Every single time I open the app it requires me to sign in again. Spent several hours Googling and trying different "Fixes" but can't narrow down why it wont stay signed in.
Hoping this is some edge case bug and they will release an update so I can use it. From what I hear it's actually a really great app.
Improved stability would be appreciated. Almost every time I try to sync my collection of 5k+ notes, the mac app crashes (even the icloud.com version!). The iOS version isn't too much better, as it frequently hangs when I edit notes.
Not OP but he's probably referring to the Education Preview updates. They're referenced at the bottom of the linked page with more info at https://www.apple.com/education/preview/.
The Notes update looks great! I use Notes for shopping lists and also to store passwords/personal info - so the TouchID security feature is nice.
Another native iOS app I use a lot is Reminders - great for appointments and todo reminders (like calling someone back). It would be great to see if that got a bit of an upgrade.
They need to loosen the grips on that background services stuff. Would love to have apps like Dropbox and Owncloud not have to use the stupid location services workaround just to background sync my pictures.
Edit: Seriously? This gets down voted? How would this NOT be a helpful feature? It works wonderfully on my Android devices. Would love to see it on my iOS devices. Wow, Just wow. Bunch of fanboiz or something?
I agree, actually. One thing I like about Windows Phone is the scheduled background agents - you can request the OS run a background agent on a schedule, and it will allow your application to update or sync data on a fairly regular basis even while running on battery, though with limits - and if the device is plugged in and connected to WiFi you get increased limits to do some more intense tasks. I don't need my photos to sync automatically draining battery and wasting data while I am on the mobile network, but when I'm at home for the night and my phone is charging is a perfect change for things to do big syncs like that.
EDIT: Apple kind of added some similar functionality with background app refresh, but the fact that the system tries really hard to "guess" which apps you want updated and which you don't doesn't work so well - I am constantly having to launch SyncSolver to get it to post my Apple Watch steps to fitbit. Just let the apps I set to refresh run on a regular schedule, I can control what I don't want to update.
Didn't downvote you - but generally complaining about downvotes is unclassy. I'll venture a guess and say that you might've been downvoted because "loosen the grips on that background services stuff" sounds a bit flippant - the restrictions exist for very good reason.
That said, there is probably a good case for the case of background uploads to be added to the existing backgrounding framework as an additional use case, with its own set of governing rules (another user brought up: Wi-Fi only, while charging, while battery is high, while reception is good, etc).
The solution to inconvenient background syncing IMO isn't opening the floodgates to everyone running their own daemons and sucking down battery power like it's their last day on Earth. It's a valuable use case, but not a good reason to "loosen the grips" so to speak.
RE: Background services. It's a pocket computer. I want my devices to do more for me. When I set them down, I want them to continue to work for me so I can be productive. Just because something runs in the background doesn't automatically make it a battery suck nor does it make it a security risk.
> RE: Background services. It's a pocket computer.
It's not (per Apple). It's an appliance, and they use that as guidance in the decisions they make. It may be capable of acting like a computer, technically it obviously IS a computer, but Apple treats it as an appliance.
Not so black and white, really. Remember the recent Phil Schiller (I think) quote discussing how Apple sees their devices as a continuum, with more and more functionality going to more mobile, more personal computers? They see the Watch as replacing some amount of iPhone functionality, iPhone being able to do much of what iPad can, iPad largely replacing a laptop, and a laptop almost entirely obviating the desktop? So, in a sense, Apple does view the iPhone as a small and somewhat limited but very real "pocket laptop."
I think the relevant distinction between iOS and OS X is that, with iOS, there is sort of an understanding that the user is granted less direct control, in exchange for a near-guarantee that they won’t have to worry about certain things (like malware, or to a certain extent, battery life) anymore.
True. The iPhone is very appliance like. The iPad is clearly capable of much more, but in many ways is limited by iOS, even if solely when it comes to the interface.
But it's pretty clear to me that that Apple is not selling the iPhone as a general purpose computer, and that's fine with me.
They advertise the virtually comprehensive nature of the App Store. To a non-programmer, what’s the difference between a general-purpose computer and one that features apps?
I doubt it. That's my impression as an iPhone/iPad user of many years. Apple seems to make choices that ensure basic functions work reliably and without wasting resources (like battery) as opposed to a more computer like approach of giving more integration points and configuration options.
Android has allowed things (widgets, alternate keyboards, different launchers/lock screens, background processes) that expose more power but rely on the 3rd party developer to ensure the experience still works well without wasting resources or crashing.
Apple only provides such things after careful study and lockdown (such as keyboards). Much more careful, much more sealed up unmodifiable box.
So its a computer then. I am not sure of the Apple careful approach. I am using latest OS on my old Mac book pro. Each new release has made it slower, draning more battery.
This is an excellent example of how not to respond to being downvoted.
Take a step back and a nice deep breath and consider why you might have been downvoted. It may have more to do with the tone of your delivery than the actual content of your message.
Lashing out at those who disagree with you with baseless accusations is counterproductive.
Downvoting needs to go away. Upvoting a good comment is a positive action. Downvoting is a power trip, and in many ways protectionist and exclusive. I've seen too many comments downvoted based on unpopular opinions which were perfectly constructive and appropriately toned.
People are very happy to exercise their ability to punish others when given that power. It's gotten out of hand here.
Can you give us links to "perfectly constructive and appropriately toned" comments that are in a downvoted state?
What you're saying doesn't match what I typically observe on HN, which is (a) that most downvoted comments have something wrong with them, not just an unpopular opinion, and (b) inappropriate downvotes usually get canceled out be users who see a good comment faded faded and give it a corrective upvote.
Nightshift is nice, but I don't understand why CarPlay, Edu, Health are not just app updates. I don't see how they warrant a whole OS update when really it's just a few extra features added to existing apps (none of which I use or plan to use, unfortunately).
I guess it's just convention by this point. Feature updates across the board periodically, then security updates in between
The Education stuff seems to require OS modifications to support multiple accounts. The rest is probably marketing ("hey, look at these new features of apps you probably don't regularly use").
There are rumors of new devices coming in the March timeframe (iPad Air 3, new 4-inch iPhone). I wonder if 9.3 is also going to be the release that adds support for those new devices.
I guess any sort of trouble with the iPhone is an extremely minor thing in the grand scheme of things.
What to do about it? I can't presume to know what they tested and rejected, but screen orientation control needs to be independent of screen orientation.
The iOS 9 beta had an option in Settings to change the side switch's functionality between silence and orientation lock. Unfortunately, this was pulled before stable release.
It should always be at the "bottom" of the screen. If the "bottom" doesn't match whatever the bottom of your app is, that's likely because the app is configure to only appear in landscape or portrait so it only responds to a large enough position change to trigger a 180-degree flip. Basically, this isn't as simple as it appears because of the potential interactions between app types and what the OS supports.
TL;DR: If you have a landscape only app, trigger the lock before you launch the app and it should stay in place.
It's just a much easier way to get the beta installed which doesn't require iTunes. Just open the profile on your device and next time you check for updates in the settings, the beta will be offered to update to.
Do you still have to have a developer account to get the profile file? Or is it publicly accessible? I was the beta to try out flux (or whatever they call it) but I don't write apps so there is no point in spending the $99 just for that.
317 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 205 ms ] thread> f.lux is patent pending. Do you make a cell phone, display, lighting system, or other cool sleep tech, and want to talk about collaboration? Email us: support@justgetflux.com
https://justgetflux.com/
Annoying, but possibly not f.lux's fault.
Software running in the background is something Apple tightly controls in iOS (battery life and security being major concerns). They also don't let apps make changes to the OS appearance. That may be the wrong approach, but Apple is at least consistent in it. This was either an OS level feature or a no go from Apple's perspective. As a user I'm happy it's a feature!
It's just access control at the framework level. Apple could embed a copy in each application using the framework, but that's inefficient, so they install it at the system level.
However, it has nothing to do with rejecting apps because of it, and offering their own version of the functionality. Apple has always reserved this domain for themselves from day one, and f.lux would have had the exact same problems even if Apple hadn't been doing their own version of it.
Not that I care about Flux. But this is definitely not helping them.
So happy it is being cloned but it would've be nice if it was just on the AppStore to begin with.
You can compile and sideload any software yourself using XCode and an AppleID. I run Gamma Thingy (a f.lux alternative) on my non-jailbroken iPhone. You can compile and run emulators, use any private API, whatever. Those apps will just never be in the App Store.
[0] https://www.apple.com/ios/carplay/
I don't want my screen to dim at 15:00/3PM, that's just super annoying instead of useful. Let me input a time for dimming instead.
"The Apple private frameworks have been removed from the iOS/watchOS/tvOS SDKs."
http://i.imgur.com/oXAPsyd.png
They were definitely paying close attention to that whole "side load our proprietary blob using Xcode" debacle on HN 2 months ago.
f.lux for iOS announcement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10544770
Apple's actions the next day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10556375
Probably not a reason to double down on your private API usage.
So to my reading it's showing passwords which are about to be protected, not something that already has been locked.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303
I hope Safari gets more meaningful updates as well - the once-a-year updates sometimes with not much new (looking at you Safari 9) is real slow progress for web developers, especially compared to Chrome and Firefox.
Testing and implementing new technology midstream is tough in education. Most of that gets done over the summers in the US.
(I didn't see anything about Mobile Safari on this page, but maybe there's something nonetheless...?)
https://webkit.org/status/#specification-service-workers
No support for service workers unfortunately.
Now my point is... (and I'm not pointing my finger to apple, I like my ipad more now than before, with the exception of the music application), seems like we have started to reach the point where enhancements are only marginal.
I'm not sure how much more cpu power can fix that situation (apple can still play the quad-core card), or if this is a development language restriction issue, or a problem with compilers-languages that cannot make use of multi-core cpus or maybe there is nowhere else to go because everything has been made.
If my previous statement holds true... maybe this is the beginning of the "pc era" of the smartphones with lower sales and no more features worth upgrading to the latest and greatest.
* There is still not a good solution for group-transactional data over the devices as a first-class citizen feature in the system. Live, collaborative editing with versioning of just a list, for starters, is considered an app'able feature worth $50 USD per year per person. * Internationalization still takes a back seat. Calendar apps still don't pick up that if you set an appointment for someone in a different time zone than you, you are likely scheduling to a time convenient for them. There should be an option to auto-detect and display applicable time zones as you create the appointment. * Customization still takes a back seat. When I add custom phone types ("concall", "support", "after-hours support", etc.), it ends up UNSORTED in the list of custom phone types when I go to choose one. That's just the tip of the iceberg of enhancements. For address records of people in a specific organization, I want to be able to set only a certain list of custom phone types for anyone in that organization. * There still is no sense of tracking versions of information. I have thousands of contacts, and I keep track of old addresses for example; it helps me orient myself to the possible cultures someone has experienced. But only the here-and-now data is recognized. * Linking data between apps takes an explicit act of coordination between app developers; the Newton data soups were particularly good with breaking down this artificial barrier. * Deep-linking into your own data from within an app in general is not very well-recognized as a use case. Not to speak of deep-linking from an external laptop.
I'm personally gravitating back towards making my information in my Emacs Org mode buffer the primary system of record, and the phone is just a thinly-sliced perspective of that.
2. Fuck off with your nonsense and trying to drudge it up here.
Very last line on that page.
Does nightshift allow a variety of night colours, or just one setting?
Either way, this is great news. For years I had been jailbroken merely in order to have f.lux on my phone. I have mild insominia, and flux has greatly reduced that.
It is worth noting that during the day you should NOT use night mode even in a dark environment, the whole point of the color shifting is to reproduce how the sun interacts with the world around you, turning on night mode during the day won't do your internal clock any favours.
That being said, there might be good arguments for having manual night mode control, like if you're a night shift worker and want day mode at night, and night mode during the day. And a lot of international travel scenarios.
That's one use case. There are situations where blue light reduces the length of time one can look at a screen, and "night" mode enables longer usage.
Or in other words, after a short zap of a smartphone display, you won’t be able to see very well in the dark.
I'll let someone else worry about whether or not they're violating NDA: http://www.macrumors.com/2016/01/11/apple-ios-9-3-night-shif....
If that site is to be believed, there is indeed a slider.
Yours is the better link, though, as it has a pic right in the article.
Notes has many features that I considered well implemented: a simple interface, native integration with the OS including sharing from and to the app, seamless iOS & OSX syncing over iCloud, decent search, PDF export.
I hope Apple keeps investing in it adding relevant, useful features, but without allowing it to become too big, like it happened to Evernote.
Apple's Pages/Keynote/Numbers support WebDAV sync and 3rd-party file-share apps, e.g. https://panic.com/transmit-ios/, so there is precedent.
Every single time I open the app it requires me to sign in again. Spent several hours Googling and trying different "Fixes" but can't narrow down why it wont stay signed in.
Hoping this is some edge case bug and they will release an update so I can use it. From what I hear it's actually a really great app.
For me it's the best todo list, shopping list, notes of all sorts, url bookmarking, collaboration tool, etc.
Good to see competition from Apple in this regard.
There's also a Chrome app that wraps the site, which almost makes it feel like a real desktop app: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-keep-notes-....
Previously this has not been a problem.
Once I had Evernote delete a months worth of notes randomly. I wish Google Keep was more refined.
https://www.apple.com/education/preview/
Another native iOS app I use a lot is Reminders - great for appointments and todo reminders (like calling someone back). It would be great to see if that got a bit of an upgrade.
Edit: Seriously? This gets down voted? How would this NOT be a helpful feature? It works wonderfully on my Android devices. Would love to see it on my iOS devices. Wow, Just wow. Bunch of fanboiz or something?
EDIT: Apple kind of added some similar functionality with background app refresh, but the fact that the system tries really hard to "guess" which apps you want updated and which you don't doesn't work so well - I am constantly having to launch SyncSolver to get it to post my Apple Watch steps to fitbit. Just let the apps I set to refresh run on a regular schedule, I can control what I don't want to update.
That said, there is probably a good case for the case of background uploads to be added to the existing backgrounding framework as an additional use case, with its own set of governing rules (another user brought up: Wi-Fi only, while charging, while battery is high, while reception is good, etc).
The solution to inconvenient background syncing IMO isn't opening the floodgates to everyone running their own daemons and sucking down battery power like it's their last day on Earth. It's a valuable use case, but not a good reason to "loosen the grips" so to speak.
RE: Background services. It's a pocket computer. I want my devices to do more for me. When I set them down, I want them to continue to work for me so I can be productive. Just because something runs in the background doesn't automatically make it a battery suck nor does it make it a security risk.
It's not (per Apple). It's an appliance, and they use that as guidance in the decisions they make. It may be capable of acting like a computer, technically it obviously IS a computer, but Apple treats it as an appliance.
I think the relevant distinction between iOS and OS X is that, with iOS, there is sort of an understanding that the user is granted less direct control, in exchange for a near-guarantee that they won’t have to worry about certain things (like malware, or to a certain extent, battery life) anymore.
But it's pretty clear to me that that Apple is not selling the iPhone as a general purpose computer, and that's fine with me.
Android has allowed things (widgets, alternate keyboards, different launchers/lock screens, background processes) that expose more power but rely on the 3rd party developer to ensure the experience still works well without wasting resources or crashing.
Apple only provides such things after careful study and lockdown (such as keyboards). Much more careful, much more sealed up unmodifiable box.
Take a step back and a nice deep breath and consider why you might have been downvoted. It may have more to do with the tone of your delivery than the actual content of your message.
Lashing out at those who disagree with you with baseless accusations is counterproductive.
People are very happy to exercise their ability to punish others when given that power. It's gotten out of hand here.
Edit: here being HN, not necessarily this thread.
What you're saying doesn't match what I typically observe on HN, which is (a) that most downvoted comments have something wrong with them, not just an unpopular opinion, and (b) inappropriate downvotes usually get canceled out be users who see a good comment faded faded and give it a corrective upvote.
I guess it's just convention by this point. Feature updates across the board periodically, then security updates in between
https://youtu.be/OD_g5szHGWo?t=79
http://9to5mac.com/2015/09/23/best-iphone-6s-feature-3d-touc...
http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/06/11/first-look-ios-9s-...
This seems like an extremely minor thing, and I'm not sure what your proposed solution would be.
What to do about it? I can't presume to know what they tested and rejected, but screen orientation control needs to be independent of screen orientation.
TL;DR: If you have a landscape only app, trigger the lock before you launch the app and it should stay in place.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sync-solver-for-fitbit/id935...