How, Why and When To Use iOS Night Shift Mode On iPhone and iPad

iphone night shift mode in control center

iPhone Night Shift mode in Control Center.

Night Shift mode is one of the important features introduced by Apple with the release of iOS 9.3. It has the role to change the color spectrum of the iPhone display when daylight fades away. This makes your iOS device more user friendly for your eyes. According to a series of studies, browsing the iPhone or iPad at night, might cause problems when falling asleep. The colder light used by the iPhone’s retina display leads to tired eyes much faster during nighttime.

Yes, you can adjust the brightness to a lower intensity or invert colors, but this only does half of the job. When enabled, Night Shift practically acts like a switcher that changes the cold light towards a warm light spectrum. At first you’re tempted not to give too much attention to this option and even consider it awkward when trying it for the first few times. But if you stick to it you’ll learn to appreciate it.

How To Enable/Disable Night Shift
ios night shift settings page After I explained you why and when you should use this new iOS feature, let’s see how to do it. There are two ways:
1. Tweak Night Shift Manually by swiping up for the iOS Control Center and tapping the Night Shift label. Tap again to disable.
2. Schedule Night Shift Mode by visiting Settings -> Display & Brightness -> Night Shift. Edit the From and To fields by tapping on their label. You can opt for the default schedule Sunset to Sunrise, or personalize it the way you want to.

Tweak Night Shift Color Temperature
night shift automatic scheduleOn the same iOS Settings page you can also edit how warm you want Night Shift to make the colors on your iPhone or iPad. There is a knob that you can toggle towards Less Warm, More Warm or leave the default setting in the middle of the two.

Fact: Even if Night Shift is set up to activate and deactivate according to a schedule you can instantly turn it ON or OFF from the Control Center shortcut. If you enable it it will automatically switch OFF at Sunrise or as you scheduled it.

Night Shift and Battery Lifetime
low power mode vs night shift feature According to our tests this feature burns up more battery, when enabled compared to the normal mode. This is why Apple, at first made, it impossible for users to switch Night Shift on, when iPhone ran in Low Power Mode. That’s because, initially, Apple considered illogical to use a feature that increases battery drainage, while running in a same time an option that saves battery. However, they changed it later because it makes sense that you want to use Night Shift while reading the news in bed, even if you have only 15% juice left. You’ll plug-in the device before sleep anyway. More, most of us are left with low battery at night time, and that corresponds with the time of day when Night Shift should be used!