Apple released iOS 9.3 on Monday. The latest version of the mobile operating system, which powers iPhones, iPads and iPods, wields a handful of new flairs and features, some of which are listed below.
Night Shift
Possibly the most talked-about is Night Shift: a feature that adjusts the colour tone of the device's screen at night, supposedly to help the user sleep better.
Numerous scientific studies have suggested the blue undertone of digital screens tricks users' brains into thinking they are in bright sunlight, interfering with their ability to produce the necessary sleep hormones.
Night Shift attempts to soften this blow by using the device's geolocation and clock to establish when the sun has set in the user's environment, and causes the screen to emit warmer undertones - red or yellow as opposed to blue - to suggest to the user's brain that they are in sunset or firelight, and therefore it may be time to go to sleep soon.
Yet Apple users who care deeply about this feature will have been able to reap it from external apps - such as f.lux - for years.
Secret notes
Users now have an extra layer of protection for information stored in the Notes application, in the form of password or Touch ID (fingerprint) protection for notes.
Additional user-friendly tweaks to this app include allowing users to organise their notes by date or title.
Classroom tools
The Classroom app - a free Apple app for iPads released alongside iOS 9.3 - aims to enable more fluent use of iPads in an educational context.
The app enables automatic connectivity among iPads in the same mass deployment ecosystem, allows ecosystem administrators to reset school-assigned Apple ID passwords, and enables multiple user accounts to exist on the same device.
Educators can remotely open apps, books, or Web sites on learners' devices, or remotely lock all learners' devices when they need to get the class' attention.
Teachers can also remotely view learners' screens (learners are notified when this happens), either individually or as a group, and share their work with the class via an Apple TV.
The app also facilitates group sharing for projects.
Flairs and frills
The software update also boasts a new algorithm for its News App, which promises to suggest content to users that is better streamlined to their tastes.
The Health app will now make in-app suggestions for other apps users might find useful, and Apple has also added some tweaks to its CarPlay feature, available in a selection of 2016 and 2017 car models.
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