Not good logic. That’s like saying I might as well stop chewing on fiberglass and start eating broken glass.
The OLED iPhone is going to NAIL you.
Cowboy up (as they say in the USA) and buy an excellent condition USED 8 Plus.
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Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up
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Not good logic. That’s like saying I might as well stop chewing on fiberglass and start eating broken glass.
The OLED iPhone is going to NAIL you.
Cowboy up (as they say in the USA) and buy an excellent condition USED 8 Plus.
Agreed! Exactly what I've experienced as well.
That's the other thing about the 14 Plus, the screen is just so bright, and it's got this yellow tone, especially with True Tone on, in the evenings. It seemed to create an additional bother to me, but regardless of bother, it simply didn't look as good as the 11 overall (even though I can see why people want their OLED for the colours).
Unfortunately untold billions of dollars have been sunk into new OLED panel manufacturing plants and untold more billions will be sunk into even more.
Companies that used to manufacture LCD panels have retooled to manufacture OLED panels - at an immense cost.
Apple is so gigantic and its needs are so vast, that when some engineers at Apple decide to go a certain direction (in this case OLED several years ago) the entire world has to shift axis to compensate.
Companies that used to manufacture LCD panels have retooled to manufacture OLED panels - at an immense cost.
Apple is so gigantic and its needs are so vast, that when some engineers at Apple decide to go a certain direction (in this case OLED several years ago) the entire world has to shift axis to compensate.
Just an update - I pulled the trigger on the iPhone 14 Plus around a week ago, and my personal experience is as follows:
Day 1 - Initial first few hours of use no particular discomfort, which was promising - towards the evening, very slight headache, but nothing severe enough to cause alarm.
Day 2 - No symptoms of eye-strain, used the phone on and off without any discomfort.
Fast forward a couple days that old familiar friend we call PWM eyestrain has returned. Temple headaches, slight nausea - caught a look in the mirror of myself with blood shot eyes (fantastic)
Inevitable return right? not so fast.
The cold reality of having to hurl myself back into 2019 spurred me on in a desperate attempt to try and mitigate the eye-strain with some of @pwm away's work-arounds and so far using RWP at 62% has significantly reduced the symptoms albeit not completely.
I've been using the phone the last couple days since making adjustments and it's perfectly useable. Is it the same as using the iPhone 11? No. there is some very faint lingering discomfort, but not enough to put me off using it. No nausea which was one of the worst side-effects, just very light eye-strain, but not severe enough to cause significant discomfort.
One immediate difference to be noted over the iPhone 11's LCD display is the lack of ghosting on the OLED panels. The pixel smearing used to drive me mental. Apple for some reason always had low response times on their LCD panels.
So to summarise:
Is it ideal having to use an accessibility shortcut to mitigate the native panels PWM and brightness?
No.
Would I like to be able to pick up the phone without the fear of it causing headaches?
Yes.
Do I have a choice without being flung back into the stone age with mediocre battery and potato camera's?
No.
Am I a masochist for willingly exposing myself to a device daily that causes me suffering?
Probably.
Solution:
Mitigate effects as much as possible until next year's OLED generation improvement's on the iPhone 15
I do feel the eye-watering intense brightness of OLED as @pwm away said does contribute to the eye-strain coupled with the PWM flicker, but for now given the lack of options and the superior hardware of the Plus, I'm going to stick it out until the 15 next year which hopefully will have even further improvements made to the OLED panels flicker or even DC Dimming entirely
On side note, the 6.7" form factor doesn't feel anywhere near as massive as you would think coming from the 6.1" of the 11 - it's perfectly usable - despite it weighing slightly more than the 11, the weight distribution makes it more comfortable overall.
Given the experiences posted here so far overall the 14 Pro's seem to be a hellscape of eye-strain misery so anyone else like me who can't take another year on previous generation tech, the 14 Plus is the most bearable option to tide us over until the 15
RWP - 62%
Auto Brightness - Off
Manually adjust Brightness slider depending on lightning conditions
Any questions, let me know 👍
Day 1 - Initial first few hours of use no particular discomfort, which was promising - towards the evening, very slight headache, but nothing severe enough to cause alarm.
Day 2 - No symptoms of eye-strain, used the phone on and off without any discomfort.
Fast forward a couple days that old familiar friend we call PWM eyestrain has returned. Temple headaches, slight nausea - caught a look in the mirror of myself with blood shot eyes (fantastic)
Inevitable return right? not so fast.
The cold reality of having to hurl myself back into 2019 spurred me on in a desperate attempt to try and mitigate the eye-strain with some of @pwm away's work-arounds and so far using RWP at 62% has significantly reduced the symptoms albeit not completely.
I've been using the phone the last couple days since making adjustments and it's perfectly useable. Is it the same as using the iPhone 11? No. there is some very faint lingering discomfort, but not enough to put me off using it. No nausea which was one of the worst side-effects, just very light eye-strain, but not severe enough to cause significant discomfort.
One immediate difference to be noted over the iPhone 11's LCD display is the lack of ghosting on the OLED panels. The pixel smearing used to drive me mental. Apple for some reason always had low response times on their LCD panels.
So to summarise:
Is it ideal having to use an accessibility shortcut to mitigate the native panels PWM and brightness?
No.
Would I like to be able to pick up the phone without the fear of it causing headaches?
Yes.
Do I have a choice without being flung back into the stone age with mediocre battery and potato camera's?
No.
Am I a masochist for willingly exposing myself to a device daily that causes me suffering?
Probably.
Solution:
Mitigate effects as much as possible until next year's OLED generation improvement's on the iPhone 15
I do feel the eye-watering intense brightness of OLED as @pwm away said does contribute to the eye-strain coupled with the PWM flicker, but for now given the lack of options and the superior hardware of the Plus, I'm going to stick it out until the 15 next year which hopefully will have even further improvements made to the OLED panels flicker or even DC Dimming entirely
On side note, the 6.7" form factor doesn't feel anywhere near as massive as you would think coming from the 6.1" of the 11 - it's perfectly usable - despite it weighing slightly more than the 11, the weight distribution makes it more comfortable overall.
Given the experiences posted here so far overall the 14 Pro's seem to be a hellscape of eye-strain misery so anyone else like me who can't take another year on previous generation tech, the 14 Plus is the most bearable option to tide us over until the 15
RWP - 62%
Auto Brightness - Off
Manually adjust Brightness slider depending on lightning conditions
Any questions, let me know 👍
Similar experience here. I’m 5 days into using a 14 (non-pro). Slight but present headache about 1 day in, but somehow it felt different than the 14PM. Effects from the 14PM felt absent at times, then intense (maybe that was the variable rate?), primarily consisting of eye strain/headaches/difficulty focusing. Regular 14 was low headache, but constant, and it felt like the brightness of the screen was contributing (even with RWP on). On Friday, I put a Zagg blue light screen protector on, and to my surprise my eyes relaxed. It’s not perfect, but damn I might be able to use this thing! My 11 was starting to give me some eye strain recently anyway, and the 14 with the blue light protector is only slightly more annoying. At least for now.
Yes, I used to scoff at those who told me “just put a blue light protector on it,” but I gotta admit I notice a difference. Also noticeable difference between 14 and 14PM: having a screen protector on the 14PM increased the nauseous feeling, but not the case for the 14. Who knows why.
I also found the pro model kind of erratic with symptoms as well. And when they were present, they were intense. Everything about the regular 14 and 14+ seemed less intense and more consistent and low level.
The only logical speculation I had is that somehow the variable refresh rate was adding something to the mix for pegging discomfort, especially motion sickness. Again that might not have anything to do with PWM.
I was getting on OK with my regular 14 and then I got a bad head cold or the flu and it really started bothering me. Of course, I could just rationalize that mostly it was my sickness, but the 11 didn't bother me. That and I just got plain tired and bored of the OLED screen, and all the high maintenance tinkering around it. Otherwise, I could've probably use the 14 if there were no other options. But I did not want to do that.
What gives me concern for the future is once again, you have all these YouTube reviewers clamoring for variable refresh rate for all the iPhone models. For people that that may not work for, we have yet again another barrier. If Apple does indeed go to variable refresh rates for the regular line, the regular 14 and 14+ might be the last modern phone some folks can use because of the variable refresh rate. Of course, I'm not saying that Apple should not use variable refresh rates, it would just be nice if you could disable it. And I'm not talking about limiting the refresh rate like the pros had an option for, that still seems to jump around from 60hz and below, though I'm not sure about that.
It's all speculation really.
Who knows? PWM, temporal dithering, variable refresh rate? Everyone's different and it's a bad mix of discomfort or worse. In other words, it doesn't seem like it's just OLED that is the culprit here.
There's a whole slew of questionable design and software choices Apple seems to be making.
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I think this pretty much sums up the display team at apple:
“...your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” (Jurassic Park)
Of course Apple can’t make phones for every single case and person, but I wish they would revert back to the 11 lineup offerings. The pros can do the OLED thing and some other stuff including variable refresh rate and the regular phones or at least some segment of the line could stick with LCD and have some of the modern accoutrements. Something a little bit more than the SE which feels a little too compromised for some folks. I feel like in 2019 when the regular 11 with the LCD and the 11 pro was offered that that really gave more people more options.
Quick update from me: SE 2022 wasn't gonna cut it, now using an 11 and much happier. Finally right?! 🙈
(Now to deal with feeling stupid that I didn't just accept that the 11 was always in my future 😅).
(Now to deal with feeling stupid that I didn't just accept that the 11 was always in my future 😅).
I FINALLY got a chance to pop in to an Apple Store and see the regular 14 and 14 Max. I could not really focus on the displays at all. I definitely felt the pwm there. I’m amazed how some of you were able to persist on them as long as you did!
I’m currently posting on my 14 Pro Max. I give myself no more than an hour per day on it. Usually it’s much less than that. I’m using it mainly for the camera and Apple Pay based shopping. Music playing. Maps. I’m ok on it for that much. I’m going to go fetch my S22 Ultra off the charger so I can be on the internet a little longer.
I did stop into a carrier store to see the Z Flip 4. Wow, the display looked so clear and gorgeous. Yeah there is a crease but I don’t even consider it a distraction or anything bad.
I couldn’t tell anything about pwm in the time I looked at it. But it seemed fine at the time. I told my husband when the Z Flip 5 releases in August that would be a contender as my birthday present. 😬
I’m currently posting on my 14 Pro Max. I give myself no more than an hour per day on it. Usually it’s much less than that. I’m using it mainly for the camera and Apple Pay based shopping. Music playing. Maps. I’m ok on it for that much. I’m going to go fetch my S22 Ultra off the charger so I can be on the internet a little longer.
I did stop into a carrier store to see the Z Flip 4. Wow, the display looked so clear and gorgeous. Yeah there is a crease but I don’t even consider it a distraction or anything bad.
I couldn’t tell anything about pwm in the time I looked at it. But it seemed fine at the time. I told my husband when the Z Flip 5 releases in August that would be a contender as my birthday present. 😬
Millions and millions of 14PM have been sold and its not like the internet is blowing up with complaints about them. For most people, the horrible iPhone OLED displays don’t bother them.
and so it begins....
www.macrumors.com
13-Inch MacBook Air With OLED Display Rumored to Launch in 2024
Apple plans to introduce new 13-inch MacBook Air, 11-inch iPad Pro, and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models with OLED displays in 2024, according to display...
www.macrumors.com
More people in this thread who have hands on experience with the 14 Pro Max, I remember there wasn't much success and some even found it worse than the 14/14 Plus models
This is true, but consider the silent ones...
It finally happened that an Apple store employee said "I know exactly the issue your describing" when I declined an OLED iPhone and bought the SE explaining to him that I couldn't use them due to eye strain and headaches. He said he experiences the exact same problems, especially when where contact lenses. But when wanting to show me something on his phone, he pulls out an iPhone 14! When I said "what the..." he simply remarked " sacrifices have to made"! 🙃
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This makes me hopeful that it’s a next-generation technology that won’t need PWM.and so it begins....
13-Inch MacBook Air With OLED Display Rumored to Launch in 2024
Apple plans to introduce new 13-inch MacBook Air, 11-inch iPad Pro, and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models with OLED displays in 2024, according to display...
Apple waited a long time to add OLED to iPad and Mac for a reason, hopefully…
Still, want.
Has anyone noticed that they can tolerate OLED phones better if viewing the screen from an off angle?
I noticed that with the iPhone 13, if I look at it at 45 degrees it doesn't really bother me. Seems strange?Yes at 90° off axis, all flickering is gone
1)Has anyone tried both the pros and found max better ?
2)also anyone that had issues with 14s and felt better with the pros ?
2)also anyone that had issues with 14s and felt better with the pros ?
I thought this was something more people might have noticed, essentially the OLED panels are quite directional, just 10 degrees is enough to take the edge off for me, don't think it makes a huge difference overall, just reduces the direct brightness.
I find that when I look at OLED iPhones after swiveling it 180 degrees, I see no negative side effects at all.
Your eyes aren’t fully focusing on the display. The flickering is going to be the most intense in a direct field of view…