If you have been using the latest version of the iOS developer beta (get it here) then you may have noticed the auto brightness settings are not so easy to find anymore. Apparently Apple really wants you to use their settings when it comes to auto-brightness in iOS 11. Luckily, they haven’t made it impossible for you to change and a few seconds of your time can have you back running on your own brightness settings.
If you go into “Settings” and then “Display and Brightness” you won’t find the auto-brightness toggle. Why? We’re not sure but if we had to build an OS that’s probably where we would put it. Instead, all you will see for controlling your display brightness is a slider. The slider does help you change your display brightness but if you still have auto-brightness turned on then the slider acts as more of a suggestion rather than an actual setting. It basically sets a range for auto-brightness to work within. This might be great for some but for others, it can be downright annoying. Personally, I hate auto-brightness. I can adjust my own brightness, thank you very much.
Anyway, if you want to turn auto-brightness off, here’s what to do:
- Tap “Settings”
- Press “General”
- Now tap “Accessibility”
- Choose “Display Accomodations”
- Toggle the auto-brightness on or off
That’s not a massive pain for you to go through but Apple did make toggling the feature seem a little bit cumbersome to do. Jumping through several menus to get to a relatively simple toggle seems unnecessary.
Of course, auto-brightness does have it’s place for some people. The feature can help you save battery life while also improving your viewing experience in situations like being outdoors. Still, the brightness slider is enough for me. Maybe I’m a control freak and I feel threatened by auto-brightness in iOS 11. I don’t know. All I know is this toggle could have been much easier to find. Hopefully this quick guide has helped some of you find the toggle for auto-brightness in iOS 11. Who knows what kind of interesting minor quirks and changes we could see in the next few weeks as we draw closer and closer to the iPhone 8 launch and official public release of iOS 11. Keep your eyes peeled and be sure to send along a note if you notice something that has changed in iOS 11 for the better or worse.
