Apple has been granted a patent (number 11,307,757) for a “theater mode” for the Apple Watch with the goal of simplifying the process of brightening or dimming the screen.
About the patent
The patent apparently involves being able to to this simply by turning the smartphone’s Digital Crown. Currently, you must open the Settings app on your Apple Watch, then tap Display & Brightness to adjust the following: Brightness: Tap the Brightness controls to adjust, or tap the slider, then turn the Digital Crown.
Apple says easier brightening/dimming would come in handy if screens could be dimmed or brightened in response to changes in lighting conditions, to reduce power consumption, to different use conditions, and/or to other situations.
However, the tech giant says that some techniques for adjusting a brightness level of a display screen on an electronic device are “generally cumbersome and inefficient.” Users may have to “traverse through multiple screens of a settings user interface to adjust a brightness setting of the device.” Apple wants this to be a simple process with the Apple Watch.
Summary of the patent
Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent: “The present disclosure generally relates to receiving a user input corresponding to a rotation of a rotatable input mechanism and in accordance with the user input, adjusting a brightness level of a display screen during a brightening configuration session.”
