Apple earlier this week introduced the first beta of iOS 9.3 and included in it is a new feature called Night Shift. Night Shift uses your iOS device’s location and clock to automatically adjust the colors in your display, making them warmer and easier on the eyes at nighttime, which ideally would allow you to sleep better. When Apple announced this feature, people immediately noticed the similarity to the popular third-party app Flux, which was only briefly available for iOS last year before Apple shut it down. Now, the developers behind Flux have come out and offered a comment on Apple’s new Night Shift feature…
In a blog post, the Flux team acknowledged that it’s a big step for Apple to acknowledge the health risks that go along with looking at a bright display late at night. Flux, however, wasn’t going to let its own contribution go unnoticed and reaffirmed the fact that it is the “original innovators and leaders” in the market.
Flux didn’t stop there, though. The developers said that they are now calling on Apple to allow them to release Flux on iOS and to open up access to the API used to power Night Shift. As I mentioned before, Flux was briefly made available for iOS via side loading with Xcode last year, but not through the App Store as to not break Apple’s policies. The app, however, was removed from the developer’s website at the request of Apple a day later.
Whether or not Apple responds to Flux’s argument remains to be seen. Even if Apple were to allow Flux to be available in the App Store, it would be hard to convince the average user to download it as opposed to just using built-in Night Shift feature, even if Flux offers considerably more customization. Nevertheless, Flux remains available for Mac.
