Google's been accused of giving its previous flagships, the Nexus 5X and 6P, less attention that the pair deserves, now that the company's focus is beelining full speed ahead in the direction of its self-branded premium smartphones, the Google Pixel and XL.
Google recently pulled the Nexus 5X and 6P from its online store to provide some ample vacancy for its new phones. To add insult to injury, several features included in its Android Nougat operating system were absent in the Nougat update for the Nexus 5X and 6P, which was a letdown for users who fancy night mode and even fingerprint gestures found on the Pixel phones.
Will Night Mode Return To The Nexus 5X And Nexus 6P?
According to Google, it wasn't able to carry over the night Mode feature for the Nexus 5X and 6P because it requires a driver support not present on the devices. Despite this, users still clamored for night mode. During the beta test for Nougat, many of them submitted this omission as a bug, saying that night mode is nowhere to be found in the settings menu.
Now, it seems that Google is pushing back. Someone from Google, most likely a moderator or employee that handles firmware issues, has labeled the night mode bug as "closed," with a "FutureRelease" status.
This might be indicative the the night mode feature will return to the Nexus 5X and 6P, perhaps via a software update. Whether or not it's true that the night mode requires a different driver to work, the upset has likely caused Google to avoid disappointing owners of the Nexus 5X and 6P.
Why Some Nougat Feautres Are't Present On The Nexus 5X And 6P
It's highly possible that the night mode feature wasn't carried over to avoid confusion with a virtually similar feature on Pixel phones called "Night Light." It doesn't seem like a major semantic disruption if you think about it, although they may have been also signaling that the best, full-fledged Nougat experience can only be found on the Pixel phones, and that other smartphones will have, by some measure, a reduced and inferior build.
Is it a marketing tactic? We can't say for sure, but it's good to know that the feature will potentially return. We'll find out if it does once Android 7.1 officially arrives on the Nexus 5X and 6P. Meanwhile, don't hold your breath for this once since Google might not bring it over at all.
For the uninitiated, the night mode feature dims the screen with a red tint during certain times of the day, particularly at evening, to reduce blue light, which has been proven to disrupt healthy sleeping patterns upon prolonged exposure.
