A favorite app on macOS gets updated to make my Mac’s display even brighter
Vivid 2 also arrives with a new way to make your display darker
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Aftertrying out Vivid 1.0on myMacBook Pro 14-inch (2021)back in April, which expands the brightness to take advantage of theHDRdisplay beyondApple’s settings, the developers have brought out version 2.0, which remakes the app from the ground up.
In atweetannouncing the free update, this means that when you enable the expanded brightness setting, it’s not as much of a strain on your CPU, so your battery usage will be higher than it was before when using Vivid.
There’s also a new ‘Eclipse’ setting, which does the opposite in being able to make your display much darker, so you can see some of your content without having to switch the display off completely.
Alongside this, its two developers,Jordi BruinandBen Harrawayhave released Vivid’sweb browseroniPhonethat waspreviously in testing, allowing you to take your iPhone’s brightness beyond Apple’s settings as well.
No, it doesn’t harm your display
Vivid’s web browser has slightly improved since my testing, as you can do aGooglesearch without having to go to the website itself, similar toSafariand every otherweb browser.
Yet it’s the macOS version that I’ve been enjoying more than usual since this new update. As I use myMacBook Pro 14-inch (2021)every day, I like to use Vivid when it’s plugged in, but there have been occasions when I’m watching a video, and the brightness would revert back to Apple’s settings.
Since using the new update, I’ve not come across this, which is already a win for me, as I don’t have to close and reopen Vivid for the video to play at a higher brightness.
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There’s an understandable fear with these apps that they could ruin your Mac’s display as it goes beyond Apple’s brightness settings, but developer Bruin has reassured me previously that there’s no truth to this - your display will not burn out after excessive use.
After using Vivid weekly since April 2022, my Mac hasn’t succumbed to any issues, it’s only made usingmacOSmuch better, especially when it came to the summer season in the UK where its expanded brightness defeated the Sun’s own brightness.
If Bruin and Harraway are thinking of the next steps for the app, I’d be curious to see how Vivid would work on anM2 iPad Prowith its display. However we might be restricted to a web browser there similar toVivid on iOS- but one can hope there’s a solution to using Vivid on other apps than just browsing the web on an iPad soon.
Daryl had been freelancing for 3 years before joining TechRadar, now reporting on everything software-related. In his spare time, he’s written a book, ‘The Making of Tomb Raider’. His second book, ‘50 Years of Boss Fights’, came out in 2024, with a third book coming in 2025. He also has a newsletter called ‘Springboard’. He’s usually found playing games old and new on his Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, and MacBook Pro. If you have a story about an updated app, one that’s about to launch, or just anything Software-related, drop him a line.
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