iOS 9.3: How to switch on Night Shift, the iPhone setting that promises to help you go to sleep

Night Shift makes your iPhone or iPad screen turn a subtle yellow, and (supposedly) makes you better at getting to sleep

Andrew Griffin
Monday 28 March 2016 16:33 BST
Comments
iPhones 6 and 6 Plus sit in an Apple Store
iPhones 6 and 6 Plus sit in an Apple Store

iOS 9.3 has a feature that promises to make you sleep better. But it can be hard to work out how exactly to turn it on.

iOS’s Night Shift mode changes the colours of the screen to make them more yellow at night. That makes the screen look less glaring in the darkness of the evening, and is said to make it easier to get to sleep after looking at your iPhone or iPad.

Though the feature was talked about in-depth before it launched, and received rave reviews when it did, actually finding the switch can be a bit more obscure.

To turn on the new feature, head to the Settings app and click on “Display & Brightness”. The Night Shift setting will be inside there.

You can either turn the feature on manually, or schedule it for when you want to run. You can also adjust exactly how orange or yellow you want it to be — using a slider that goes from Less Warm to More Warm.

The effect isn’t subtle when it turns on: around sunset, your screen will fade to a much warmer colour. But studies and anecdotal use have shown that it helps make the iPhone easier to look at and can help reduce the impact that the phone’s bright, glowing screen has on your sleep.

It might still be helpful to know where the option is so that you can turn it back off again. If you’re watching a film on an iPad, for instance, the colour change might make things look a little unnatural and you might want to flip it back off temporarily.

If you’d like to get the same effect on your computer, then it’s a good idea to install f.lux — a program that does the same thing and is offered for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. It can be downloaded from the developers’ website.

f.lux also offers some extra options on top of the iPhone’s own version. You can configure your lighting, meaning that the colour temperature of the screen will match that of your lights, for instance.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in