Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Auto-brightness does not work well

silverblack

silverblack

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Nov 27, 2007
2,680
840
Do you find that the auto-brightness function of iPad kind of sucks? It's too bright in the dark and not bright enough in a well-lit room. I realize this probably functions just as poorly on Macbook Pro; however, it's much more convenient to change screen brightness on MBs. With the iPad, I constantly find myself going to setting and drag the bar back and forth for screen brightness...

Apple need to find a way to adjust the sensitivity of the ambient light sensor.
 
I don't think my screens brightness has changed at all since it's been on with auto adjust turned on.
 
I'm having the same issues with two different iPads. My wife's 16 GB will brighten when going from a dark to a light environment but not the other way around, whereas my 64 GB doesn't shift at all under any conditions.

Unlike with a MacBook Pro, where you can block the ambient light sensor with your hand and almost always get the screen to automatically adjust, the iPad does not respond when you do the same.
 
You should probably just turn off auto brightness as it just helps drain the battery faster. Although with the battery on the iPad I'm not sure how much of a difference it would really make.
 
I am experiencing the same issues. I think it's important to note that the auto-adjustments on an iPhone and Macbook Pro work VERY differently. MBPs are nearly automatic, and I highly doubt the autoadjust on the ipad was supposed to work this way. An iPhone, however, is much more laissez faire. For instance, it will never dim itself going from a light to dark environment. To readjust, you can lock it, and then unlock it.

But my ipad won't even do that much.

Here's hoping for an update before 4.0 this fall...
 
The iPhone is not supposed to auto adjust when at the lockscreen. As for the auto dim it will only go as dim as the lowest setting you set the manual birghtness control to. I will agree with you ok the point that it is sometimes lazy when it comes to adjusting but it usually does in the end.
 
I know it doesn't adjust ON the lock screen, but if you want the iPhone to readjust to your environment, you can force it by locking and unlocking.
 
Mine works, but not all that well. I feel like I am adjusting mine a lot as well. I have seen it get brighter and dimmer, but never by very much.
 
This is one reason why I can't wait to jailbreak my iPad. On my iPhone, I have SBSettings installed that lets me adjust the brightness quickly. It's a mini settings menu which you can access from within most apps running by swiping your finger across the status bar.
 
p-rice said:
This is one reason why I can't wait to jailbreak my iPad. On my iPhone, I have SBSettings installed that lets me adjust the brightness quickly.
Click to expand...

Sometimes, I swipe the status bar on my iPad expecting SBSettings to appear.
 
Auto brightness works on my iPad, just not as well as it should. The iPad is WAY too bright for my liking, and my complaint is mostly for use at night. It can like up my room. I guess that's LED vs LCD in a nutshell. My iPhone is pretty dim and I always set my auto brightness off because usually it gets too dim... the opposite is true for the iPad.
 
Intell said:
The iPhone is not supposed to auto adjust when at the lockscreen. As for the auto dim it will only go as dim as the lowest setting you set the manual birghtness control to. I will agree with you ok the point that it is sometimes lazy when it comes to adjusting but it usually does in the end.
Click to expand...

Eh. IT SHOULD auto adjust on the lock screen. Sick of getting blinded. Auto Brightness is turned off on mine until they fix this.
 
I have always switched off auto brightness for both my iPhone and iPad and at 40% on both the brightness has been very good
 
silverblack said:
I realize this probably functions just as poorly on Macbook Pro
Click to expand...
Not at all. In fact auto brightness on a MBP couldn't be more perfect and I'm very impressed with it. It even turns off the keyboard backlight in bright rooms.

But I agree that the auto-brightness feature on the iPad and even the iPhone is terrible. I'm not pleased how Apple implemented this feature into those devices.
 
auto-brightness adjustments on my ipad, ipod, and mbp perform poorly. i cannot tell at all on the ios devices, and on the osx one it often happens when i don't want it to, so i turn it off on everything. it's a good idea, but i don't see the implementation working very well anywhere.
 
Probably the worst design I find on the fat pad is the brightness. It goes bright enough, but at night, in a dark room, it doesn't go dim enough. It's either quite bright, or off. I wish you could set it to go down from full brightness, to almost off, without that big jump.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back