Night Shift mode, a new iOS 9.3 feature which helps users get a good night’s sleep by reducing the amount of blue light emitted from a backlight of their iOS device as the sun sets, could be coming to the Mac, the Apple Watch and even to Apple’s CarPlay infotainment system, Patently Apple writes.
A trademark application for “Computer software for controlling computer and mobile device display screens,” filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), specifically covers smartphones (the iPhone), computers (the Mac), smartwatches (Apple Watch) and cars (CarPlay) while also mentioning things like styluses, batteries, radios, integrated circuits and even fire extinguishers, which is normal for these types of trademarks.
The trademark application for “Night Shift” was filed for in both the United States and Hong Kong.
“Much of Apple’s submission to USPTO uses ‘boiler plate’ language associated with International Class 009, hence the stupidity of such things as dog whistles and electrified fences,” explains Patently Apple. “Yet hidden within that glob of devices are those that we can recognize as truly possible and doable over time as we’ve highlighted above.”
That said, the very fact that Apple’s trademark filing protects use of the “Night Shift” name on devices other than the iPhone could hint at plans to bring the feature to the Mac computers, the Apple Watch, the in-car CarPlay infotainment system and more.
And why not?
If Apple dedicated the time and resources to build Night Shift into the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, who’s to say that deploying the feature across all screens wouldn’t make the perfect sense? After all, it’s in Apple’s interest to let its users enjoy benefits provided by Night Shift mode no matter the device they’re using.
F.lux, a free Mac app that changes the colour balance of your computer as the sun sets, has seen fifteen million downloads thus far, proving there’s interest for such a feature. The F.lux creator tried to release an iOS edition of the app in the App Store, but Apple rejected it, probably because it was working on Night Shift mode at the time.
Source: Patently Apple