Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“f.lux has been ready to ship for iOS for four years, but we need Apple's help.”

facebook.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 126 posts

Re: “f.lux has been ready to ship for iOS for four years, but we need Apple's help.”

#61

Post by jws »

If Apple decides that having the screen temperature vary with time, lighting, whatever, I promise it is easier for them to write a few hundred lines of code than it is to engineer secure holes in the sandbox, develop policy around their use, and deal with f.lux.

Adjusting white point is a feature, a little one in a long bullet item list, not a business model.

␄

Appendix: If you are doing this yourself, you can get an approximation of the white point for a temperature kelvin much more easily than computing it accurately. You are probably not doing astrophysics. A 1% or two error is ok. See: http://www.zombieprototypes.com/?p=210

If you want to use it in your iOS app, you can get a UIColor.colorWithKelvin() function from this gist. https://gist.github.com/jimstudt/c5069349f305dd5bb6b2 Use the color multiply function, also in that gist and multiply all of your colors by your white point. Which of course is a lot of work compared to adjusting the display CLUT, but you can get in the Apple store and you don't get the ability to screw up the user's other apps. (Hint: Use the screen brightness to guess the ambient light. You aren't allowed to use the ambient light sensor.) ((Also, I'm relatively certain multiplying is not perceptually correct, but it seems close enough for things I've done so I haven't gone down that rat hole.))

Re: “f.lux has been ready to ship for iOS for four years, but we need Apple's help.”

#62

Post by ecksor »

unquietcode wrote: post #33

The iPhone already supports various 'filters' through its Accessibility settings. I use the 'Low Light' filter every night, which allows the screen to go darker than usual. If they were to just add a low-light redshifted filter, that would be fine for most people I think. However, and to f.lux's point, people should expect their devices will keep their health in mind. I believe Apple is worried that opening up first…

There's also a way to shortcut this low light mode (triple click Home): https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/2ros9k/lpt_nig...

Re: “f.lux has been ready to ship for iOS for four years, but we need Apple's help.”

#63

Post by CamperBob2 »

coldtea wrote: post #51
lispit wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the "patent pending" part that sucks. They're trying to patent the idea of changing your video card's CLUT (color look-up table) to reduce eye strain, which is a fairly obvious and trivial thing to do once you know that blue light affects melatonin production.

> It's the "patent pending" part that sucks. They're trying to patent the idea of changing your video card's CLUT (color look-up table) to reduce eye strain, which is a fairly obvious and trivial thing to do once you know that blue light affects melatonin production. On the other hand, since nobody else has done it (or patented it yet), real life proves that it's not that "obvious". Like the "egg of Columbus" some th…

There are only two real incentives that we, as a society, have to grant patent protection. One is to ensure that inventors have a fair chance to recoup their R&D investment. The other is to offer an alternative to trade secrets, where innovative insights are hidden from the rest of us, potentially forever, by a single proprietor.

Obviously, neither of these applies here. There is absolutely no reason for us to grant patent protection to f.lux. This is so "patently" obvious that the burden of proof falls on those who would argue otherwise.

Re: “f.lux has been ready to ship for iOS for four years, but we need Apple's help.”

#64

Post by morgante »

lispit wrote: post #27
joosters wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with that? It's commercial software, and they are nice enough to let you use a copy for free. They aren't (AFAIK) doing anything remotely malicious, like grabbing user data or bundling malware. It doesn't add advertising to your computer. (I'm not sure if f.lux does any update checking, which some people might count as unacceptable)

It's the "patent pending" part that sucks. They're trying to patent the idea of changing your video card's CLUT (color look-up table) to reduce eye strain, which is a fairly obvious and trivial thing to do once you know that blue light affects melatonin production.

If it's so obvious, how come nobody else does it?

Also, to be clear, I doubt they're getting a patent on "changing your video card's CLUT (color look-up table) to reduce eye strain" but rather on the specific method they use for doing so.

Re: “f.lux has been ready to ship for iOS for four years, but we need Apple's help.”

#65

Post by morgante »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #30

This is why consumers need root access to their phones. These are more than just phones, they are pocket sized computers. We have root/admin access on our laptops and desktops, we should have it here.

Isn't that what jailbreaking is for?

Re: “f.lux has been ready to ship for iOS for four years, but we need Apple's help.”

#67

Post by forgotpwtomain »

coldtea wrote: post #52
forgotpwtomain wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention this is a relatively simple thing to implement I think redshift for linux (linked above as [1]) is ~ 10k lines of C code and maybe a few hundred of python-qt.

10k lines of C doesn't mean "simple". Perhaps not in this case, but even an 1K line of C program could need tons of research to be written, extravagant math, etc. There can be 1K programs that are orders of magnitude more complex to write than 100K programs -- e.g. cryptography vs a game engine.

I can tell you for sure that adjusting the color temp. of your monitor requires no extravagant math.

Re: “f.lux has been ready to ship for iOS for four years, but we need Apple's help.”

#68

Post by coldtea »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #63
coldtea wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the "patent pending" part that sucks. They're trying to patent the idea of changing your video card's CLUT (color look-up table) to reduce eye strain, which is a fairly obvious and trivial thing to do once you know that blue light affects melatonin production. On the other hand, since nobody else has done it (or patented it yet), real life proves that it's not that "obvious". Like the "egg of Columbus" some th…

There are only two real incentives that we, as a society, have to grant patent protection. One is to ensure that inventors have a fair chance to recoup their R&D investment. The other is to offer an alternative to trade secrets, where innovative insights are hidden from the rest of us, potentially forever, by a single proprietor. Obviously, neither of these applies here. There is absolutely no reason for us to grant…

>There are only two real incentives that we, as a society, have to grant patent protection. One is to ensure that inventors have a fair chance to recoup their R&D investment. The other is to offer an alternative to trade secrets, where the innovative methods are locked up, potentially forever, by a single proprietor. Obviously, neither of these applies here.

I actually disagree with both -- let R&D happen by public research (e.g. universities) that competes for funds based on results, and then makes said results available for everybody (at least in the same country who did the paying).

But that said, I don't see why the people who did this "obviously" don't need a "fair chance to recoup their R&D investment". Does it say anywhere that the R&D investment must be huge? Because that's not the case with tons of patents -- some are just accidental inventions, like the fabled 3M's post-it notes.

>There is absolutely no reason for us to grant patent protection to f.lux. The burden of proof falls on those who would argue otherwise.

Actually if the patent office DOES grant them a patent, then the burden on proof falls on you.

Re: “f.lux has been ready to ship for iOS for four years, but we need Apple's help.”

#69

Post by tacos »

I predicted "more drama" when this thread hit the HN homepage two days ago, and now we have it. Given what's going on in the world this weekend I'm not sure a "Twitter petition for f.lux" really should be on the top of our minds. But apparently the people behind f.lux think it should.

Perhaps we could avoid making HN part of their ongoing social media awareness campaign? Happy to talk about technology features, happy to debate what I feel are highly-suspect medical claims being made on their site that defy common sense. But I'm not excited to debate open vs free vs app store twice in the same weekend over an app that so very obviously goes against Apple's core vision for their products.

If and when Apple chooses to offer such functionality, it certainly won't look and behave like f.lux does. And I'm equally certain Apple won't make such wild claims regarding alleged health benefits.

Re: “f.lux has been ready to ship for iOS for four years, but we need Apple's help.”

#70

Post by EarthLaunch »

mangeletti wrote: post #57
lispit wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the "patent pending" part that sucks. They're trying to patent the idea of changing your video card's CLUT (color look-up table) to reduce eye strain, which is a fairly obvious and trivial thing to do once you know that blue light affects melatonin production.

I was starting to feel confused about the anti-commercial sentiment I was seeing in here, noting that this is a forum created by one of the most successful venture capital firms in technology. But, then I saw your comment. I can get on board with this comment. The fact that they're attempting to patent something so trivial puts them right up there with the likes of Intellectual Ventures, etc., IMHO.

Yes, HN is fundamentally more anti-intellectual than it is anti-commercial.
Post reply on HN