Can The Upcoming iOS Update Help You Get A Better Night’s Sleep?

When Apple announced their latest iOS update on Monday, we were expecting the usual promises of “minor bug fixes and improvements”, but were actually pleasantly surprised!

The upcoming iOS 9.3 update is promising to help us get a better night’s sleep through a new feature by the name of “Night Shift.

 

What Is Night Shift?

Night Shift will alter the colours on your phone at night-time, replacing the usual bright whites and blues with warmer colours such as orange and red.

Apple said of the new feature: “Night Shift uses your iOS device’s clock and geolocation to determine when it’s sunset in your location. Then it automatically shifts the colours in your display to the warmer end of the spectrum, making it easier on your eyes.”

We’ve explored the way technology affects our circadian rhythm (body clock) in a previous blog post, and now it seems Apple have agreed with us!

While bigger and brighter screens are great during the day, they really damage our sleep patterns at night.

But for most of us, the glaring light of a Facebook or Twitter feed being beamed from a phone screen is the last thing we see before going to sleep at night, but the blue light being emitted reduces our levels of the hormone melatonin, which reminds our bodies to sleep.

 

Apple Are Behind The Curve

Surprisingly, however, Apple are actually a little behind the curve on this one. Amazon Kindle Fire tablets and some Android devices already have similar features such as Blue Shade and Night Light, prompting the development of third party software such as f.lux, which has apparently been downloaded over 15 million times.

However, those who wanted the software on their iPhone or iPad faced a bit of a challenge, as Apple actually had it taken down from the App Store in November.

This meant that the technology has been unavailable for iPhone users (who haven’t had their device jailbroken) for the last couple of months, but thankfully it’s now back in the form of Night Shift.

Whether the new feature measure’s up to f.lux remains to be seen, but we think it’s great that the brand are taking steps to help us all get a better night’s sleep!

The update is only available in beta at the moment so we’re not sure when it’ll be made widely available to the public yet, but keep an eye out for that little red notification on your phone in the near future!