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Risco

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 22, 2010
1,961
321
United Kingdom
I am guessing this is to save energy, but in a dark room the screen goes really dark. It seems a little bit messed up?
 
Oh, this is EXACTLY what I've been wanting since iOS 1.

It should (and finally now does!) increase brightness if it gets bright, and conversely should dim if it gets dark.
 
I especially like that auto brightness now works on the lock screen. No more being blinded in the middle of the night when I press the sleep/wake button.
 
I am guessing this is to save energy, but in a dark room the screen goes really dark. It seems a little bit messed up?

This is exactly what you would want it to do. You want the screen to be on max in a pitch black room?
 
I must say that the Auto-Brightness setting is the exact opposite of intuitive. I'm still not entirely sure how to set it up correctly. It seems like the brightness bar defines the minimum brightness for the Auto-Brightness feature. If you set it to high brightness values by default, it does not seem to dim down at all. Anyways, I cannot seem to find a level that gives me satisfactory results in all light situations.

For example, I just set up the brightness bar to the value below the "B" in a completely dark room. When turning on and off Auto-Brightness, it wouldn't change, so that obviously has to be the minimum value. When holding the phone out of the window on a cloudy day the brightness slowly (too slow in my opinion, takes like 40 seconds) rises to full brightness. A bit too much, if you ask me, but nothing that bothers me. However, if I got back inside and put the phone on my desk, which isn't right next to a windows, it goes back all the way down to the value below "Bri", meaning it's almost as dark as the value it chooses in absolute darkness! The value I would manually choose for that light situation would be somewhere between "ness" and "&".

I don't know if Apple ever tested this new feature under real conditions, but for me it's just not working as it's supposed to, adjusting way too slow to some extreme values.
 
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Sadly, I like to use my screen as a flashlight to walk around the house in the dark. I'm going to miss that "feature."
 
Yes it does seem a bit temperamental doesn't it, I set mine at halfway, and sometimes it'll stay there in daylight, and sometimes it'll go full whack again! Very odd. Think they've overtweaked it!
 
The way this setting works is not the way you expect it, but this is by design. When you set the auto-brightness, you are setting a tolerance, not a minimum/maximum. Confusing? Absolutely.

Some people, in a well lit room, prefer an extremely bright screen. Some like it 3/4 full brightness. And others may like 50%. If you are in a really dark room, and set the auto-brightness to 25%, lock the iPhone/iPad and move the device to a room lit extremely well, the auto-brightness should bump to 50% and no more. Again this a tolerance. The higher the auto-brightness setting, the less you'll see a difference in a dimly lit room. This is because, like mentioned before, many users have different brightness preferences.

What we think should happen is, in an extremely dark room, the auto-brightness should barely light screen and in a room that is bright, should be full brightness. But this would not work because again, what might be okay for you, might be too dark for others to see.

What Apple needs to do is have 2 sliders, 1 for a dimly lit room, 1 for a very well lit room. Then you create a range for the OS to operate within and thus, no confusion.

So to see this work, make sure the auto-brightness setting is not higher than 60%. Also, keep in mind the auto-brightness is not active, it only kicks in when the device is unlocked after being locked.
 
The way this setting works is not the way you expect it, but this is by design. When you set the auto-brightness, you are setting a tolerance, not a minimum/maximum. Confusing? Absolutely.

Some people, in a well lit room, prefer an extremely bright screen. Some like it 3/4 full brightness. And others may like 50%. If you are in a really dark room, and set the auto-brightness to 25%, lock the iPhone/iPad and move the device to a room lit extremely well, the auto-brightness should bump to 50% and no more. Again this a tolerance. The higher the auto-brightness setting, the less you'll see a difference in a dimly lit room. This is because, like mentioned before, many users have different brightness preferences.

What we think should happen is, in an extremely dark room, the auto-brightness should barely light screen and in a room that is bright, should be full brightness. But this would not work because again, what might be okay for you, might be too dark for others to see.

What Apple needs to do is have 2 sliders, 1 for a dimly lit room, 1 for a very well lit room. Then you create a range for the OS to operate within and thus, no confusion.

So to see this work, make sure the auto-brightness setting is not higher than 60%. Also, keep in mind the auto-brightness is not active, it only kicks in when the device is unlocked after being locked.

iOS 6 changed this a little. Now it adjusts the brightness even when the phone is unlocked and you're using it. Well.. its supposed to. But as people are pointing out, it doesn't work to well.
 
I noticed the same thing. You can actually see the brightness scale change in real time. It seems much more dynamic but we'll get used to it.

If I hold it up to a light, it goes up to full brightness rather quickly. But when I take it away from the light back into darkness (even covering up the sensor), it goes down verryyyyyyyy slowly, if at all.
 
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