'In 2009 we first approached Apple to get f.lux on iPhones. Years of promises of API access. The last conversation we had with them was "that's too weird for most of our users. Like the Klingon keyboard." Then, they announced their clone onstage, Macworld 2016.'

— https://twitter.com/JustGetFlux/status/1288979404677292032

This is just Apple. It's useless, implausible, unreasonable, unviable...

Right up until other people do all the R&D for them so they can pick out the parts they like for a big announcement on stage. It's a smart strategy. They get to look like geniuses while others do the hard work and take all the risk.

They just went on with the times, 2016 was the year when everyone was obsessed about the "blue light disrupts your sleep" theories. Android, Windows and macOS were all on-board.

It's very likely that the team that said "yes" is not the same team that said "no". Apple is a big company. There's more than one person there.

Either way it demonstrates that their judgement was flawed

Or their judgement is sound, and they correctly assessed that the weirdness of f.lux or the thresholds of their userbase had changed in the intervening 7 years.

IF they first approached in 2009 and then had years of promises it follows that the intervening years should be 5 at the most. but maybe quite a bit less.

Ah, yeah, good catch!

I think it doesn't really eliminate the possibility, though, with different numbers.

Flux is still so much nicer than Windows 10's Night Light feature. Flux is gradual and has a transition over a few hours while Night Light has a transition over a few seconds.

Not to mention, with flux you can get the schedule just right. I work night hours, so it’s a light shade of red. But around 1:30 am it gets really, really red. It 1) tells me I should go to bed if I want to be functional when I wake up. 2) I don’t need to be paying attention to the clock and incidentally rush some work.