F.lux for iOS Pulled as Apple Says it Violates Developer Agreement

F.lux for iOS was all the rage when it was released a couple days ago, as the screen brightness tweak was made available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch via side loading using Xcode 7.

However, the developers of f.lux have announced the app is no longer available, as Apple contacted them and explained the download and install method was “in violation of the Developer Program Agreement.”

F.lux lowers the blue light in your display as night looms, and in turn warms up temperature colour instead, which is said to have less effect on sleep.

While f.lux’s developers believed new Xcode signing would allow for side loading of apps, Apple informed them it should not continue in this way. Thusly, download links to acquire f.lux are no longer available on the website (you may be able to find third party download links on the web, but be careful).

Michael and Lorna, developers of f.lux, explain why they are unable to ship an iOS version of the app:

f.lux cannot ship an iOS App using the Documented APIs, because the APIs we use are not there. In the last 5 years, we have had numerous conversations with Apple about our product and what would be required to make it work with iOS.

We respect Apple’s products enormously, and we urge Apple to allow work like ours to continue through Documented APIs.

The developers say if you want to write feedback to Apple, you can do so here.

During the height of f.lux for iOS’ popularity, the company’s site was visited 176,000 times in a span of 24 hours; their desktop version of f.lux has been downloaded over 15 million times to date.

We side loaded f.lux onto our iPhone and iPad last night and it’s an amazing tweak. We’ve long used the Mac version, and can only hope Apple will allow developers to access APIs required to bring f.lux to the App Store in the future.

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