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Subtle dim effect on lock screen?

H

heycal

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 25, 2013
873
28
Anyone notice that when the phone is locked and off, and you press the power button or home button, there is a slight split second dim-to-brighter effect as the clock comes on and displays the time? It's subtle, but it did catch my eye.

I see this on my iphone 6, but not on iphone 4.
 
heycal said:
Anyone notice that when the phone is locked and off, and you press the power button or home button, there is a slight split second dim-to-brighter effect as the clock comes on and displays the time? It's subtle, but it did catch my eye.

I see this on my iphone 6, but not on iphone 4.
Click to expand...

Yes, this is normal.
 
Tyler23 said:
Not sure how it's bad, exactly..
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Why wouldn't it be? When you turn on a light, do you like it to come on instantly or start dim and then get bright?

If you can't see why it's more annoying to have it dim up than come on instantly, like the iphone 4 (and presumably all androids), I'm not sure I can explain it to you.
 
heycal said:
Why wouldn't it be? When you turn on a light, do you like it to come on instantly or start dim and then get bright?

If you can't see why it's more annoying to have it dim up than come on instantly, like the iphone 4 (and presumably all androids), I'm not sure I can explain it to you.
Click to expand...
It can be a bit more soothing to the eyes to have it come on gradually like that, in particular in the short time that it really takes to do that. It might not be for everyone, just like animations aren't for everyone, but it's not really something that's really good or bad, just something that someone might like, someone else might not even care about, while someone else might dislike (but basically down to subjective personal preference).
 
heycal said:
Why wouldn't it be? When you turn on a light, do you like it to come on instantly or start dim and then get bright?

If you can't see why it's more annoying to have it dim up than come on instantly, like the iphone 4 (and presumably all androids), I'm not sure I can explain it to you.
Click to expand...

I like the fade on. It feels too abrupt for it to instantly be on, especially when you are in a dark room and the brightness was left high up (assuming auto brightness is off.)

I'm a person though who loves animations, and just nice UI, so I tend to appreciate these things rather than feel bogged down or slowed down by them.
 
Maybe you guys can lobby for even more slowed down operations in future editions. Maybe dim up the home screen too, or perhaps slow down the movement between screens?
 
heycal said:
Maybe you guys can lobby for even more slowed down operations in future editions. Maybe dim up the home screen too, or perhaps slow down the movement between screens?
Click to expand...

If that's what you think we want, then by the same logic you probably want the screen on at all times as well :rolleyes:

The subtle "dim to bright" effect takes a split second. Hardly seems worth the effort to really care at all.
 
Tyler23 said:
If that's what you think we want, then by the same logic you probably want the screen on at all times as well :rolleyes:

The subtle "dim to bright" effect takes a split second. Hardly seems worth the effort to really care at all.
Click to expand...

I want the screen on when I want it on, and off when I want it off. I don't want to wait longer than is necessary for either.

If you don't care about details, good for you. But I personally like a thoughtful, well-designed phone.
 
heycal said:
I want the screen on when I want it on, and off when I want it off. I don't want to wait longer than is necessary for either.

If you don't care about details, good for you. But I personally like a thoughtful, well-designed phone.
Click to expand...

I personally find the very quick, subtle fade in to be thoughtful and well designed. It's a nice touch especially when using the phone at night. "Caring" does not solely apply do disliking something. You can care about something by liking it as well. But sure, your asinine conclusion that I don't care about details is clearly spot on.

Different strokes for different folks. I like it, you don't. I suggest you send feed back to Apple and perhaps they will add the option of having the fade in a future update.
 
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heycal said:
I want the screen on when I want it on, and off when I want it off. I don't want to wait longer than is necessary for either.

If you don't care about details, good for you. But I personally like a thoughtful, well-designed phone.
Click to expand...
Chances are the screen isn't usable for that split second that the dimming is being used, so without the dimming it likely wouldn't be any difference as far as when you can actually do anything on the screen.
 
C DM said:
Chances are the screen isn't usable for that split second that the dimming is being used, so without the dimming it likely wouldn't be any difference as far as when you can actually do anything on the screen.
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It's mostly aesthetic. It's distracting to the eye, and a symbol of inefficiency.

I suspect Apple will dump it in future editions.
 
heycal said:
It's mostly aesthetic. It's distracting to the eye, and a symbol of inefficiency.

I suspect Apple will dump it in future editions.
Click to expand...

It's definitely mostly aesthetic which is quite subjective and different for everyone. It's possible Apple will change it at some point, but the fact that it's there and has been for a little while likely means Apple sees it as a nice aesthetic thing to have in their opinion, which means they might not really change it anytime soon.
 
heycal said:
I want the screen on when I want it on, and off when I want it off. I don't want to wait longer than is necessary for either.

If you don't care about details, good for you. But I personally like a thoughtful, well-designed phone.
Click to expand...

It's literally .05 seconds. When you have a phone with Touch ID, it's registering your thumb print even while its animating so there's really no point in complaining.
 
afsnyder said:
It's literally .05 seconds. When you have a phone with Touch ID, it's registering your thumb print even while its animating so there's really no point in complaining.
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.05 seconds of inefficient operation, a problem not seen in Androids or even on the iphone 4.
 
heycal said:
.05 seconds of inefficient operation, a problem not seen in Androids or even on the iphone 4.
Click to expand...

I would bet that you can't do anything with those initial 0.5 seconds on the iPhone 4 even if there is no dimming effect.
 
C DM said:
I would bet that you can't do anything with those initial 0.5 seconds on the iPhone 4 even if there is no dimming effect.
Click to expand...

You know how I could spend those .05 seconds? Not being annoyed by the inefficient and distracting dim effect on the iphone 6.
 
As someone mentioned about Touch ID. When you press the home button and hold your thumb. The phone will unlock as soon as the animation is finished. Like a full screen progress bar. And when the scan and animation is complete the phone unlocks. I think Apple just cleaned up the unlocking process. Cause if the screen would get lit instantly and then you have to wait 1 second with nothing happening just doesn't look nice. It looks good and I don't think Apple will change it.
 
heycal said:
.05 seconds of inefficient operation, a problem not seen in Androids or even on the iphone 4.
Click to expand...

It's not a problem. It's a programmed animation that I enjoy over the harsh bright transition that I didn't appreciate in pitch black.
 
ZEEN0j said:
As someone mentioned about Touch ID. When you press the home button and hold your thumb. The phone will unlock as soon as the animation is finished. Like a full screen progress bar. And when the scan and animation is complete the phone unlocks. I think Apple just cleaned up the unlocking process. Cause if the screen would get lit instantly and then you have to wait 1 second with nothing happening just doesn't look nice. It looks good and I don't think Apple will change it.
Click to expand...

I think they will. Not everyone turns on the phone with the home button (or uses Touch ID), and a dim up effect just looks sloppy. To call it 'animation' is a bit of stretch...
 
heycal said:
...and a dim up effect just looks sloppy. To call it 'animation' is a bit of stretch...
Click to expand...

....and to call it "sloppy" is a monster of a stretch. I have installed these types of dimmers (too bad they are way pre HomeKit) on most on my lights. It is much more elegant and less eye strain to have it go from off to on over 250ms to 500ms of time than an instant on.
 
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ZEEN0j said:
And since it's not a bug and I guess Apple won't be getting lots of complaints about it I doubt they will change it.
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Perhaps not. Just one more stupid design choice by Apple. We can add it to the the long list of them...
 
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