Smart Invert not working correctly with Night Shift

[orev]

Using an iPhone X running IOS 14.0.1. When Night Shift is enabled, Smart Invert also inverts the color temperature change, which makes this feature useless. Instead of a dimmed display, you end up with everything tinted blue, which is the opposite of the goal of Night Shift.

Anyone else seeing this?

I tried to fix it by making a shortcut to disable True Tone and Night Shift, but those actions are not available in Shortcuts.

 

[rsapereira]

Same here.
I have an iPad Pro 9.7" and an iPhone 8.
Both on iPadIOS and IOS 14.0.1.
The iPhone has no problems when enabling Smart Invert with Night Shift together. Nice warm and dimmed display.
With the iPad it happens the same as you described. When enabling Smart Invert with Night Shift together I get a very lighted and blue tinted display.
I've tried to reset the iPad an then restored from iTunes and didn't solve the problem.

 

[rsapereira]

My iPad with Smart Invert and Night Shift enabled together.

Now with Smart Invert enabled and Night Shift disabled.

Now with Smart Invert disabled and Night Shift enabled.

 

[rsapereira]

Hi orev!
Do you still have this bug?
Does anyone have it also?
Fixes??

 

[Dom.S]

It’s still glitched for me and I think we’re stuck waiting for a fix from Apple. Assuming it’s not an intentional change in the first place.

 

[MacCheetah3]

Mine doesn’t turn that intense of blue, or so not to my perception. However, Smart Invert has plenty of bugs: inverting all colors, not reverting when turned off, sometimes not inverting any colors until I zoom in or some other action, etc. Frustratingly and sadly, Apple did the same with the release of iOS 13.0. Somehow Apple breaks Smart Invert and might fix it to a polished state shortly before the next major release, iOS 15, again — or so that’s what recent history would indicate. Annoying but not much a user can do.

 

[rsapereira]

Hi everyone!
Thank you for the replies.

Now, I’m trying to find a possible pattern.

After iOS 14, 14.0.1 and 14.1 update, is this a bug that occurs:

• Only on some iDevice’s specific models?
• Aleatorily on any iDevice?

After some digging and googling on this issue, this thread is the only place that I can find, talking about this specific bug that Smart Invert filter faultily inverts the Night Shift filter.

This thread notices this bug on 1 iPhone X (orev’s one) and 1 iPad Pro 9,7'' (my one) and not affecting 1 iPhone 8 (my one).
Not precise is the information about the MacCheetah3’s iDevice.
MacCheetah3, can you update info about your bug? What is the model of your iDevice? To check that is the same bug, when enabled the Smart Invert and Night Shift filters, you will better percept your display more lighted and blue tinted if you increase the warmness on the Colour Temperature at the Night Shift definitions and if you enable the Dark appearance and the True Tone at the Display and Brightness definitions.

I’ve researched on some friends and family iDevices owners, and found this bug detected on 2 iPhone 7 and 1 iPad 5th Gen, and not detected on 2 iPhone XS, 3 iPhone XR, 2 iPhone 8 Plus and 1 iPad Air 3rd Gen.

Compiling all the info:

iDevices observed with this bug:

• 1 iPhone X
• 2 iPhone 7
• 1 iPad Pro 9,7’’
• 1 iPad 5th Gen

iDevices not affected by this bug:

• 2 iPhone XS
• 3 iPhone XR
• 2 iPhone 8 Plus
• 1 iPhone 8
• 1 iPad Air 3rd Gen

Although not having enough info, to make a sure deduction about a possible pattern of this bug, it is noticed that, at least for now, none iDevice’s same model is getting the same bugged or not bugged result.

For anyone who want to add info on this issue, please check if your iDevice is affected with this bug and post on this thread the result and what model tested.



Thank you!

 

[rsapereira]

Now on iOS/iPadOS 14.2 update, and NO FIX on this bug!!

 

[orev]

Just tried 14.3 and it has the same issue.

I also noticed that this applies to Classic Invert as well, so it seems to be a problem with the general "invert" functionality.

 

[MacCheetah3]

I don't use Night Shift, which based on the submissions here is bad, but even just True Tone and Smart Invert, the experience is far from helpful i.e. can have a blue tint as well as very hit and miss on what should be inverted.

It's worse on iPadOS.

I recall Smart Invert being great in the final couple versions of iOS 13.

 

[orev]

This is NOT fixed in 14.4

 

[SoYoung]

Smart invert is broken since iOS 13.0. Simple as that.

 

[MacCheetah3]

@SoYoung Maybe for Smart Invert + Night Shift. However, from what I recall, Smart Invert was nearly perfect at the end of iOS 13. However, then Apple went and mangled it. Quite frankly, I don't expect it to be fixed significantly during the iOS 14 period. Here's to hoping Apple re-prioritizes accessibility sleekness in iOS 15.

 

[SoYoung]

@SoYoung Maybe for Smart Invert + Night Shift. However, from what I recall, Smart Invert was nearly perfect at the end of iOS 13. However, then Apple went and mangled it. Quite frankly, I don't expect it to be fixed significantly during the iOS 14 period. Here's to hoping Apple re-prioritizes accessibility sleekness in iOS 15.

In my experience, since iOS 13 smart invert wasn't as good as iOS 11 and 12 versions was. Since then, safari in smart invert isn't working well with many webpages with images still inverted or website not inverting at all or many apps that doesn't invert at all without turning off dark mode entirely to get it to work. In iOS 14 its even worse with not only Safari pages completely messed up if you switch between smart invert on and off, but niow even some apps show images inverted as well (uber eats for exemple) and its worse in dark mode with notifications banner inverted as well. The good news is with the shortcuts update in iOS 14 its easy to just bring some apps automatically in smart invert colours with dark mode off automatically when you open and close an app and with some browser including a night mode like firefox and iCab mobile so its not a big deal to me anymore.

But yes, Apple have big issues with implementing accessibility features bug free. For a couple of years its frequently buggy with some serious ones sometimes and this is in the bottom of their checklist for bug fixes. Just a quick exemple is a new accessibility feature in Catalina that allow you to show the text you wrote in text field bigger in the bottom of the screen, if activated, some webpages in Safari are completely unresponsive, so I have to turn it off and you know what? More than a year later the problem is worse on Big Sur. Same thing with the Zoom accessibility on Apple Watch that can temporary stop the ability to show the notification and control center and this bug is there for 2 years now.

Disappointing because Apple was known for great accessibility integration but these days many of these features simply not working well at all and its just feel like a beta product.

 

[MacCheetah3]

Disappointing because Apple was known for great accessibility integration but these days many of these features simply not working well at all and its just feel like a beta product.

So, sadly true.

 

[orev]

My theory is that Smart Invert was created to make up for the lack of Dark Mode, and since there's now an official Dark Mode, they expect app developers to use that instead, so they are no longer maintaining it.

 

[Dom.S]

Invert is equally broken in iOS 15 but I’ve just stumbled on the Noir extension for Safari and it seems pretty promising. If you mainly used invert to avoid being blinded by white web pages it’s worth a look.

 

[SoYoung]

Invert is equally broken in iOS 15 but I’ve just stumbled on the Noir extension for Safari and it seems pretty promising. If you mainly used invert to avoid being blinded by white web pages it’s worth a look.

Try Dark Reader extension instead. Its the best of his kind. Almost all websites works properly without no graphical glitch or elements of a page still in white. It truly feel like a true dark mode for the web pages. I use it everyday for years on my Mac on desktop Safari and Chrome and it released on iOS 15 as well.

 

[MacCheetah3]

My theory is that Smart Invert was created to make up for the lack of Dark Mode, and since there's now an official Dark Mode, they expect app developers to use that instead, so they are no longer maintaining it.

Smart Invert really was added to help with the shortcomings of basic/standard invert, namely inverting image and video colors. For awhile, some users did activate it as a makeshift Night Mode — seems quite commonly a secondary use for accessibility features from what I’ve seen. A few of the final versions of iOS 13 actually did succeed in having Smart Invert function exactly the way expected/desired (from what I recall). However, otherwise, the feature has had a lot of stability/reliability problems. Throughout iOS 14, in my experience, most instances after you disable/turn off Smart Invert, everything except the image and video colors revert back to normal — by the way, that includes completely closing an app and relaunching. In other words, when you begin using it in an app that has images and/or videos, you’re stuck continuing to use it until the system feels like finally bringing things back to normal. Very irritating.

Also, if an app is programmed properly, Smart Invert won’t flip an app already in Dark Mode to light/regular.

 

[orev]

I’m now on an iPhone 13 running 15.3, and this issue seems to be fixed. When using classic invert with night shift enabled, and I’m not getting the blue tint.

Can anyone else confirm?

 

[Dom.S]

Yep, it does seem to be fixed at last! It’s definitely way more usable than it has been for a very long time.

 

[M0rr1c3]

Hey guys. So, I got this same bug today in my 6s, and I discovered that if you put the zoom in Full screen mode, with the invert filter on, and use the classic invert, the night shift apparently goes completely crazy... fixed it by either removing the filter or changing the zoom to window mode. Hope this helps.

 

[SoYoung]

Thanks to dark mode and Safari extensions, I only use smart invert for 2 apps I think. All the rest have been updated with a dark theme and can finally put a dark theme extension on Safari for web pages so for what I do with smart invert its working okay. I just put the classic invert as a shortcut for the random times I could need it.