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No! Stop dimming the screen!

S

Spytap

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 8, 2010
133
87
Has anyone else run into their new 2013 MBA *really* insisting that the screen brightness be turned down? It's become sort of a comical back and forth where when I move from one environment to another, the screen compensates by dimming, I turn it back up a notch or two to match my preference, and then it dims it back down to the first setting it picked. Repeat, until I feel like we're actually having an argument.

I don't want to turn dimming off completely, as the autodim is functional - I just want it to stay where it is once I've adjusted it a bit brighter and not decide that it was right the first time. God help me if the sun goes behind a cloud, it becomes an epic back and forth battle over two notches of brightness:

Shade. MBA dims seven clicks. I brighten two clicks. MBA redims two clicks. I rebrighten two clicks. MBA redims two clicks. I yell at it and post to MRF.
 
keysofanxiety

keysofanxiety

macrumors G3
Nov 23, 2011
9,539
25,302
chumawumba said:
If it bothers you that much then just turn off auto brightness. No need to pointlessly rant.
Click to expand...

Chill, chuma! He was just asking if there was a way to do it :D

But yes, unfortunately there's no way to change it other than to turn off auto-brightness. Sorry OP!
 
Jefe's MacAir

Jefe's MacAir

macrumors 6502a
Nov 21, 2010
554
524
I've found the auto dimming for both the screen and the keyboard to be a mild nuisance. Found it much simpler and less irritating to just turn it off and adjust manually as that is what I, and you, end up doing anyway.
 
D

DisplacedMic

macrumors 65816
May 1, 2009
1,411
1
Jefe's MacAir said:
I've found the auto dimming for both the screen and the keyboard to be a mild nuisance. Found it much simpler and less irritating to just turn it off and adjust manually as that is what I, and you, end up doing anyway.
Click to expand...

yup - auto-bright features are usually huge fails.
 
T

Tarrou8

macrumors member
Jun 10, 2013
83
4
Spytap said:
Has anyone else run into their new 2013 MBA *really* insisting that the screen brightness be turned down? It's become sort of a comical back and forth where when I move from one environment to another, the screen compensates by dimming, I turn it back up a notch or two to match my preference, and then it dims it back down to the first setting it picked. Repeat, until I feel like we're actually having an argument.

I don't want to turn dimming off completely, as the autodim is functional - I just want it to stay where it is once I've adjusted it a bit brighter and not decide that it was right the first time. God help me if the sun goes behind a cloud, it becomes an epic back and forth battle over two notches of brightness:

Shade. MBA dims seven clicks. I brighten two clicks. MBA redims two clicks. I rebrighten two clicks. MBA redims two clicks. I yell at it and post to MRF.
Click to expand...

This post pretty much sums up MacRumors in its entirety.
 
M

MikeyMike01

macrumors 6502
Apr 4, 2010
395
107
I turned off auto brightness fairly quickly.

There's a handy button (two of them!) to handle changing it manually if need be.
 
N

nickandre21

macrumors 6502a
Jun 21, 2012
548
5
I've found auto brightness a pain in the *** turned it of on my tv, phone and macbook. Always better to do it manually.
 
K

kodeman53

macrumors 65816
May 4, 2012
1,091
1
Spytap said:
I don't want to turn dimming off completely, as the autodim is functional - I just want it to stay where it is once I've adjusted it a bit brighter and not decide that it was right the first time.
Click to expand...
In other words, you'd like a more intuitive auto-dim function that can sense your satisfaction level and disable itself until a GPS function has determined you've moved? Got it.
 
B

biglipps66

macrumors member
Mar 11, 2012
70
37
One of the first things I did when I bought mine was turn off that feather.

Problem solved.

/Thread
 
throAU

throAU

macrumors G3
Feb 13, 2012
8,818
6,985
Perth, Western Australia
kodeman53 said:
In other words, you'd like a more intuitive auto-dim function that can sense your satisfaction level and disable itself until a GPS function has determined you've moved? Got it.
Click to expand...

This could maybe be coded with the webcam to analyze the user's eyes for squinting etc. Could also possibly turn the screen OFF entirely when you aren't looking at it :D
 
S

Spytap

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 8, 2010
133
87
kodeman53 said:
In other words, you'd like a more intuitive auto-dim function that can sense your satisfaction level and disable itself until a GPS function has determined you've moved? Got it.
Click to expand...

It has nothing to do with location, I just think it's silly that if the laptop autodims and I "correct" the system by bumping it back up, that it would override that request (several times) in order to "recorrect" the user. If it dims, and I change it back, it shouldn't then decide (without changing any other parameters, mind you) that my changes were unsatisfactory and try to redim again. And again. And Again.

----------
throAU said:
This could maybe be coded with the webcam to analyze the user's eyes for squinting etc. Could also possibly turn the screen OFF entirely when you aren't looking at it :D
Click to expand...

Or just accept that when the sun moves and it dims to compensate, when I change the settings the laptop shouldn't decide to change them back again. :)
 
K

Kissaragi

macrumors 68020
Nov 16, 2006
2,340
370
Just turn it off and use the screen brightness buttons. Moaning on here isn't going to get you anywhere.
 
BenTrovato

BenTrovato

macrumors 68040
Jun 29, 2012
3,035
2,198
Canada
I find auto-brightness to be incredibly useful if you are a passenger during a long road trip through the mountains of Europe. You can pull out your advanced macbook and ouilå, as you drive in and out of tunnels the screen automatically adjusts itself to a comfortable brightness.

Unfortunately if you're just sitting down at a desk, the auto-brightness capabilities are a little minion-ish.
 
M

Mrbobb

macrumors 603
Aug 27, 2012
5,009
209
Am running 10.8.2 and am surprised there isn't a "how strong u want this feature to function" like on an iPhone. Should compensate somewhat ur discomfort but probably will never be perfect.

Even my old Civic's stereo (Japanese famous for stingy on gadgets) has a low-mid-high settings audio compensation against ambient noise.
 
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