Learn how to automatically adjust your iPhone screen’s intensity using the Reduce White Point feature for a more comfortable bedtime viewing experience.

When you go to bed and turn off the lights, your iPhone’s ambient light sensor automatically reduces the brightness to make it easier on your eyes. If the brightness is still too high, you can manually turn it down from Control Center.

However, if even the lowest brightness is not dim enough for your eyes, you can use Reduce White Point to darken your iPhone screen even further. This useful accessibility feature reduces the intensity of bright colors and dims the screen, reducing the strain on your eyes.

Since manually turning on Reduce White Point requires a few steps, we’ll show you how to automate this task. After that, your iPhone will activate it automatically at the set bedtime or when your Sleep Wind Down mode starts. And, of course, Reduce White Point will turn off when you wake up.

Automate Reduce White Point to turn on when you go to bed

1) Open the Shortcuts app on your iPhone and tap the plus button from the top right of the Shortcuts tab.

2) Type Set White Point in the Search Actions box and tap it from the search results.

3) Tap Turn and set it to Toggle. After that, tap Done to save this shortcut.

4) With the shortcut built, tap Automation from the bottom of the Shortcuts app.

5) Tap New Automation or hit the plus button from the upper right corner.

6) Now, you can choose when to run this automation, which will automatically dim your iPhone’s screen brightness. If you have set up a Sleep Schedule on your iPhone, I recommend selecting the Sleep option.

If you have not set up the Sleep Schedule or if you want the screen to dim at a specific time, you can select Time of Day and set it to an appropriate time when you go to bed, like 10 PM. Make sure to set it to repeat daily.

We’re selecting the Sleep option.

7) Wind Down Begins (which is the time before your bedtime) is selected by default, and I think it’s the right option. But you can also choose to lower the brightness when your Bedtime Begins. After that, tap Run Immediately so the automation does not need your permission to run, and hit Next.

8) Select the Set White Point shortcut you built in Steps 1 to 3.

You’ve set your iPhone to automatically turn on Reduce White Point when you are in bed. As mentioned earlier, this will reduce the intensity of bright colors and further dim the display.

Reduce White Point is customizable and can be adjusted from 25% to 100%, with 100% making the screen the darkest. The default is 80, but you can go to iPhone Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size and drag the Reduce White Point slider accordingly.

Turn off Reduce White Point when you wake up

To ensure the task is fully automated from start to finish, you should build a reverse automation that will turn off Reduce White Point when you wake up.

1) Tap the plus button from the top right corner of the Automation tab in the Shortcuts app.

2) Select Sleep and tap Waking Up from the next screen. Alternatively, you can select the Time of Day and pick your wake-up time, like 6 AM.

3) Select Run Immediately and tap Next.

4) Pick the Set White Point shortcut.

Your iPhone will now turn off Reduce White Point when you wake up, ensuring your display appears bright and normal during the day.

Delete these automations

If you no longer want to activate Reduce White Point automatically, go to the Automation tab in the Shortcuts app, swipe left on the created automation, and tap Delete.

On a related note: How to set your iPhone to automatically play music when you stop the morning alarm

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/07/26/reduce-white-point-automation-iphone/

If your Mac browser seems stuck, you’re not alone. iCloud Private Relay, Apple’s paid feature, has been experiencing connectivity issues for nearly 24 hours now.

Apple’s System Status page reveals that issues with iCloud Private Relay began on Thursday at 8:34pm. The outage is still ongoing. iCloud Private Relay is a paid feature, meaning this outage only affects some Apple users.

The issue persisted at the time of writing, but not everyone with the feature turned on was experiencing problems. If your browser takes forever to load a website or reports connection errors, disable iCloud Private Relay on your device.

You’ll forgive me for exploiting this opportunity for a shameless plug: We have useful tips for when websites aren’t loading in Safari on your iPhone, iPad or Mac.

iCloud Private Relay is experiencing an outage

Apple’s dashboard is pretty conservative in reporting errors, as we saw many complaints from people suggesting the problems began as early as 10am. After fixing this problem, Apple will refresh the System Status page.

If you have a paid iCloud+ plan or an Apple One subscription, you also have iCloud Private Relay. Turning on iCloud Private Relay in Settings > iCloud routes internet traffic through secure internet relays.

This allows your device to encrypt information such as your DNS records and IP address, preventing your ISP and the websites you visit from obtaining this information, which could be used to determine your identity and build a profile of your location and browsing history over time.

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/07/26/apple-icloud-private-relay-outage-july-2024/

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to reset Siri and set it up again from scratch if it isn’t recognizing your voice correctly or failing to work properly.

The more you use Siri, the better it should get at recognizing your voice and learning your preferences. As an example, you can tell Siri about your preferred music app a few times, and then it will play songs in that app unless asked otherwise.

However, if you’re starting to notice that Siri does not work well, fails to recognize your voice, or offers a consistently poor experience, you should consider resetting and retraining it.

Also see: Siri not talking back to you? Try these fixes

Reset Siri on iPhone or iPad

It involves four easy steps.

Step 1: Toggle off Siri

1. Open the Settings app and tap Siri.
2. Tap Listen for.
3. Toggle off the switch for Talk to Siri and now you can no longer call the voice assistant by pressing the side button.
4. Next, select Off from the same screen and confirm by tapping Turn Off Siri. This will turn off hands-free Hey Siri or Siri.

Step 2: Turn off Dictation

A common set of information is used for both Siri and Dictation. If you’re new to it, you should know that Dictation lets you enter text using your voice when you do not want to use the on-screen keyboard. Simply tap the microphone icon on your keyboard to use Dictation.

Since our goal is to start fresh with Siri, you’ll have to deactivate Dictation so the data it has collected is deleted.

1. Head to iPhone or iPad Settings and tap General > Keyboard.
2. Turn off the switch for Enable Dictation.

Step 3: Delete your Siri history and data

Your Siri and Dictation data and transcripts of your voice commands are saved on the device (or Apple servers) to offer an improved and personalized experience. You should delete this saved data to complete the Siri reset process.

1. Open the iPhone or iPad Settings app and tap Siri.
2. Tap Siri & Dictation History.
3. Tap Delete Siri & Dictation History and confirm.

Step 4: Set up Siri again

With the above steps, you have basically turned off Siri and Dictation and deleted their associated data. Now, it’s time to set up Siri to complete the reset process and start using the voice assistant again.

1. Restart your iPhone or iPad.
2. Go to Settings > Siri > Listen for.
3. Turn on Talk to Siri and tap Enable Siri.
4. Now, tap “Siri” or “Hey Siri” and finish the setup process. It’s very important that you go through this setup in a quiet room so Siri can better catch your voice. If you don’t see the option to configure Hey Siri, select Off and then tap “Siri” or “Hey Siri” again.

Reset Siri on Mac

The basics of resetting Siri on Mac are similar to iOS.

1) Launch System Settings and select Siri.

2) Turn off the switch for Siri, and it should turn off Siri completely.

3) Now, select Keyboard from the bottom of the System Settings screen and turn off Dictation if it’s on.

4) Restart your Mac.

5) With Siri and Dictation both off, return to the Siri screen in System Settings and turn on Siri. This should make the Delete Siri & Dictation History button clickable. Click it and confirm by hitting Delete to remove your Siri data from Apple servers.

If you see an error in deleting your Siri history from Apple’s servers, make sure your Mac is connected to the Internet and try again.

After you follow the above steps, you may also want to enable hands-free Siri by selecting “Siri” or “Hey Siri” next to Listen for.

Two more tips to improve Siri

While resetting Siri can help, you shouldn’t be doing this very frequently as it basically makes it forget your preferences.

To make sure Siri works perfectly, you should also consider the following:

• Set Siri language to the one you speak: For instance, if you are Australian, go to Settings > Siri > Language and select English (Australia) instead of English (US).
• Select just one Siri language: Siri in the latest versions of iOS may let you select more than one language. For instance, if you set Siri voice to English (India), you have the option to select English Only or English & Hindi. Consider going with English Only, as it seems to offer a better Siri experience, at least for now.

Other Siri tutorials for you:

• How to always show speech transcriptions of your Siri requests
• How to send audio messages with Siri on iPhone and iPad
• How to have Siri read web articles to you on iPhone and iPad

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/07/25/how-to-reset-siri/