It just seems weird that the solution to try to use tech in the dark is “make the screen darker”. And the solution to using it in a brighter environment, isn’t to make it dark in order to avoid hurting your eyes by having something bright in a bright environment, but apparently it makes more sense to make it even brighter.
In: Biology
We don’t see absolute brightness (very much), we see contrast, the difference in brightness.
In a bright environment, the environment is so much brighter than the screen that we have a tough time seeing anything on the screen…we need to bring the basic screen brightness up so that the contrast on the screen is comparable to the contrast in the environment so we can actually see the detail on the screen.
In the dark we don’t need nearly as much screen brightness…you can’t “wash out” the screen in the dark but you don’t need nearly as much power to maintain the same contrast as the environment so, to conserve battery, we dial it down. If you don’t, you also basically lose the ability to see anything around you (try cranking brightness to full in a fully dark room).
Go ahead and try it your way and see what happens. You can manually adjust the brightness.
You can’t see a dark screen in a light environment. The reflections of everything else prevent you from seeing the content on the screen.
In a dark environment, it takes less backlight to be able to see clearly, since there is no ambient light overpowering it. Brightening the screen would be blinding. Darkening it allows you to see the content more clearly.
Being able to see the screen is about relative light level. In bright environments like outside or a well-lit office there’s a lot more glare and your eyes are adjusted for bright light, so the screen brightens to match your eyes and power through the glare.
Similarly in a dark room there will be far less glare to power through and your eyes will be dilated to accepts as much light as possible. If you turn the brightness all the way up and then turn on the screen you’ll blind yourself, just like looking at a light bulb as it turns on in a dark room or walking out of a dark theater into the sun. And once your eyes constrict to adapt to that high screen brightness you’ll be totally blind if you try to look around the dark room.
Just try it, darken the screen manually outside or brighten it in a dark room. I suspect you won’t have a great experience using the device. Most people certainly wouldn’t.
Not just macbooks. Most high end phones also auto adjust screen brightness.
If you are outside in with direct light hitting the screen you need to increase the screen brightness, or else the picture is washed out from the bright sunlight. Think trying to watch TV with the sun glare shining through a window and hitting the TV screen.
The opposite is true in the dark. There is no need for the screen to be set to very bright. You can easily read the screen in a dark room. Remember the point is to easily read the screen, not have the screen act as a light to brighten a dark room.
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The same reason you turn the brightness up on your phone when you go outside on a sunny day and turn the brightness back down when you go back inside
Because in a brighter environment it would be harder to see something not equally bright. It’s about interference.
It’s to save battery life. When you don’t need as much brightening of the screen for adequate contrast, it reduces power draw to prolong battery charge life. When it’s bright and you need more contrast, it brightens to help you see at the expense of battery life.
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