Using the Ambient Light Sensor for other purposes

Question

Created Feb ’16

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We are looking to use the Ambient Light Sensor on iOS. It seems that there is a public API in the IOKit framework, however it has a disclaimer at the top that says "Although it is a public framework, Apple discourages developers from using it, and any apps using it will be rejected from App Store."

Looking at other forum posts, most people want to use the Light Sensor in order to adjust the brightness. Adjusting brightness will definitely get your App rejected by the App Store. What we are wondering is, will Apple reject any App that uses the light sensor, or only those Apps that use the light sensor to adjust the brightness?

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Answer 1

div2004 OP

Apr ’16

I would be particularly interested in an answer to this. I am developing an astronomy application and want to detect if the user is in darkness or not as I want to switch colour schemes from white background with normal text during the day to a black background with dark red text at night (as red is low light and so doesn't affect night-vision as much as other colours).

This isn't directly changing the screen brightness at all - merely changing the colour schemes of the app itself.

Would this sort of thing be rejected if submitted to the App Store?

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Answer 2

Beast OP

Apr ’16

Apple says to not use the framework directly on iOS. Most likely Apple will reject the app regardless of the justification.

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Answer 3

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

Apr ’18

This question seems to be an exact duplicate of another question, and you can find my responde over there.

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Answer 4

AtomicPartyEntertainment OP

Sep ’19

ok, so any idea of a workaround?

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