What's "ambient light compensation"?

It does more than just adjust the brightness, essentailly it adjusts the screen's colors based on the color of the ambient light. This is important for people like graphic designers where the type of lighting in the room can affect the perception of colors on the screen.

Hi Bob,

There seems to be a bit of anecdotal information and results of home-experiments to be found:

Ambient light compensation in the colour configuration industry is when you use a light sensor (e.g. camera) to detect the colour temperature and tint of the ambient light and adjust the screen's calibration to provide more accurate colours. If apple are following the jargon, then this wouldn't be specifically about relieving eye strain but rather showing accurate colour throughout different lighting environments. Such as the difference between dusk light, fluorescent tubes, overcast, full sun etc. If you are in a dark room then this would have no effect since there is no ambient light.

It appears to be matching your display to your ambient light in order to ensure color correctness. You can see the change when you turn it on and off, particularly if your Mac is in weird light.

But nothing from Apple yet it seems...

Max.

Probably related to this Apple patent which you can find by searching for patent number 8860653:

AMBIENT LIGHT SENSING TECHNIQUE

A method for controlling characteristics of an electronic device based on ambient light levels is provided. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving light at an ambient light sensor of a device and measuring components, such as color components, of the visible light. The component levels may be weighted differently by factors that vary based on the intensity of the light received by the ambient light sensor. Also, the brightness level of a light source in the device or color output of the device may be controlled based on the weighted component levels. Additional methods, systems, and devices relating to control of an electronic device based on sensed ambient light are also disclosed.

Thanks everyone for the information. That's interesting. I wonder if it's going to be unveiled in the fall…

Say, donarb, where'd you learn about the patent?