Besides a new suite of enhancements for educational uses, Apple’s upcoming iOS 9.3 release, which went into beta this morning, adds several consumer-facing features. Apple highlights these on a website previewing the update. Notably, the update adds a system-wide Night Mode that uses the device’s time and location to present certain colors around the software optimized for darker environments:
Many studies have shown that exposure to bright blue light in the evening can affect your circadian rhythms and make it harder to fall asleep. 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. In the morning, it returns the display to its regular settings. Pleasant dreams.
Notes is one of those apps you use all the time for all kinds of things. Now you can secure the notes that contain your most personal data — such as financial details, medical info, or website logins — with a password or fingerprint. You can also sort notes by date created, date modified, or alphabetically.
The articles in For You are now better tailored to your particular interests. And to help you discover new Favorites, For You suggests trending topics and Editors’ Picks. When a story contains video, you can play it right from your feed. On your iPhone, you can view everything in landscape. And when you check for updates, the latest stories appear much faster — so you can catch up on the day’s events quickly and easily.1
The Health app now bundles in information from the Apple Watch’s activity app:
It’s simpler than ever to find third-party apps to track your health and wellness. Categories such as Weight, Workouts, and Sleep have a new slider menu that reveals great apps you can easily add to your Health dashboard.2The Health app also now displays your move, exercise, and stand data, as well as your goals, from Apple Watch. So you can see all your health metrics in one place and easily share your data with third‑party apps.
Lastly, CarPlay has improved Apple Music integration:
With iOS 9.3, CarPlay adds even more useful features. New and For You from Apple Music — with songs, artists, and albums handpicked by experts, plus selections based on your preferences— are right at hand on your screen. And the Nearby feature in Maps lets you find gas, parking, restaurants, coffee, and more with a tap. So you’ll know the best places to stop, whether you’re on your daily commute or an epic road trip.
As we highlighted in our earlier article, iOS 9.3 also adds Hebrew support for Siri and support for more than one connected Apple Watch per iPhone. 3D Touch Home screen shortcut support has been added for the Weather, Health, Compass, and Stocks apps, while additional support for the App Store and iTunes Store has also been added.
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Where’s the link that Apple published this info on?
I believe this is the link: http://www.apple.com/ios/preview/
Any word on Bluetooth bugs getting fixed? I’d had range/connection problems since I upgraded to 9.2
It might be part of 9.2.1. This update is for features not bugs.
Nope have done that one too. Its really strange and only effecting my iPhone not iPad.
Have you reported the bug to Apple using the Feedback app? I have generally got replies to any bug I have reported.
Thanks for the tip. I sent them my issue
nice…that night mode setting will be great.
Maybe the update will make me want to use the News app. The CarPlay update should be nice with an Apple Music subscription and the nearby feature very handy.
Holy shit they finally did it! Every release I would send a feedback message to Apple to allow Flux on iOS or add the support themselves. SO happy to see it built in. Sucks for Flux, but they never charged for the app anyhow.
I really like a bright wallpaper but HATE at night when the screen displays and the bright wallpaper is too harsh…so i have my display brightness low always and a dark wallpaper. maybe Night Shift/mode will be helpful.
So they finally added the f.lux feature
Oh my god Apple is stupid. That is their idea of useful night mode? That is basically worthless. They’re too stupid to understand that the colors have to be dark in dark rooms or at night for the display to be pleasant? The movies section in iTunes is exactly what most of the OS should look like after tapping a day/night toggle in control center. It’s literally that simple, and anyone with any brain power knows that.
Not stupid. Try it! It feels great and there is also at least one scientific study to back this up.
Um I’m not disputing whether that is a good feature. I’m saying that isn’t a night/dark mode and does nothing for the painful strain on the eyes in a dark room or at night. This feature is to help people not be disrupted by the light of the phone to help them sleep. The hilarious part is that on Apple’s site, scrolling down to that feature changes the background to dark gray, which would be an actual dark mode. Once again Apple screwing up when they should have had a dark mode since iOS 8 at least.
This feature (if it’s like Flux) *does* help with the strain on the eyes in a dark room or at night.
If that’s true Jonny I’ll be happily wrong.
Omg you’re saying someting negative about Apple! You should be punished by Tim Cook for this. You can’t know anything better than Apple’s itself. If you don’t like it, go to Android!!!
Osnoothiest, you are totally correct. Dark UX is the way forward. I was expecting Apple to hire top notch UX designers when the iOS 7 came around only to be even more disappointed.
Reading text against 255,255,255 RGB is not pleasant.
Only the brightest spot in a photograph should reach those intensity levels which are usually light sources or specular highlights.
I wonder for how long and how many overpaid PHD Engineers will take until they change it.
Why they just don’t ask you still remains a mystery.
Yes!
Less blue light is so much easier on the eyes!
Night mode is the one feature I wanted more than any other.
The most attractive feature of iOS 9.3 is night shift mode. I really appreciate this initiative of Apple, although I am not going to use this feature. Becasue I don’t like the orange color screen. I think it is better to use a screen protector like ocushield which can prevent harmful blue light and also not change the color of the screen.
I’ve been waiting for a night mode for centuries. Finally.
If Apple could just unlock the news app in other countries than USA and UK that would be great.
It was strange for me – I’m in New Zealand and it might be because I run the beta versions on my phone but I had a period of about a week where I had access to the News App on my phone.
It must have been after another update of some sort and I haven’t seen it again since! Maybe in iOS 10 we’ll see a more worldwide rollout?
I wonder – is the new night shift mode the start of them trying out darker colourings on screen in preparation for the supposed OLED screens coming to the supposed iPhone 8 (2018)?
Just a thought.
I was expecting the Night Mode since ios7, that is 2 years ago !
I hope it doesn’t take them 2 more years to realize that reading text against the brightest intensity of light the LCD is capable to emit is not a good idea either. Not even a real sheet of white paper is that bright !
Please Apple Dark UX for iOS 10 !
Hopefully, the even dumber rest of the industry copy Apple as they always do, even though in Android this has been possible through third party Apps.
Huh…Notes gets an ability to secure notes by TouchID. But Photos still can’t lock dick/boob pic Albums behind a fingerprint?
Yeah, that makes no sense. I guess Apple is holding those features for iOS10.
Is the ability to sync PDFs with iCloud new to iBooks in 9.3?
Night Shift Mode is not supported on on older model devices such as iPhone 5s and back.
Any device limitations with Night Mode? My old iPad 4 hasn’t gotten several features lately.
is this website ever going to fix the error that disallows scrolling in firefox? Surely you don’t think everyone is going to use safari right?