Image by Matthew McVickar via Flickr
I really appreciate the apple back-lit keyboard on my 13″ Macbook Pro. But I really have to question why there are 17 levels of brightness and two buttons dedicated to controlling it.
There should only be on or off, a person only needs minimal back-lighting here. It’s only in the dark that you’d need this feature and it’s only a minimal amount of brightness that would be required.
Let’s take that other button and use it for “red mode.” Turn the screen and keyboard lighting to red. This is better on for night vision, preventing problems with light sensitive equipment and making it easier to sleep after using the computer at night.
For now check out F.Lux. Flux makes the color of your computer’s display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day. It works on Windows, OSX and Linux.
***Update 1/15/2012***
I’ve since learned that the whole color of light, night-vision and sleep thoughts were likely incorrect.
Living Critic 