Hot on the heels of Apple's battery bug-squashing update, the tech giant has released a beta for the next installment of macOS Sierra that includes a popular, sleep-saving feature from its mobile cousin.
Night Shift, which changes the color temperature of your device's display in order to reduce sleeplessness from staring at a screen past your bedtime, is present in macOS Sierra 10.12.4 beta 1.
- Experience Night Shift for yourself with a brand-new MacBook
Released for iPhone and iPad last year as part of iOS 9.3, Night Shift reduces blue light shown after sundown, giving the display a reddish-orange tint when enabled.
Blue or 'cool' light from sources like the sun or LEDs may cause alertness in the brain and disrupt a viewer's sleep, according to researchers from Harvard Health Publications. As TechRadar's senior US mobile editor Matt Swider found out, blue light messes with your circadian rhythm and makes it harder to fall asleep.
Given their proclivity for bedtime reading, Amazon's Fire tablets jumped on the tinting game early by introducing Blue Shade back in late 2015. Additionally, third-party plug-ins like f.lux have also been around quite a while to help add color-correcting features for both Mac and Windows machines.
Seeing as Apple just released a new version of macOS Sierra this week, it may be a while before Night Shift makes its way to Macs and MacBooks. That said, eager beavers (or those getting eye strain from burning the midnight oil) can opt to try out the feature via Apple's Beta Software Program.
Via 9to5Mac
- Thanks to Night Shift, the MacBook Pro is about to go lights-out
