Yea I tried to get several different oled phones a few year’s ago and they hurt my eyes so bad, people kept telling me I had eye problems so I went to the eye doctor and I was told nothing was wrong with my eyes, all of these phone makers need to fix this issue
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Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up
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Did anyone notice this (see my bold/underline) it was mentioned during the keynote today:
“Our goal is to empower people to take charge of their own health journey. With these innovative new features, we’re expanding the comprehensive range of health and wellness tools that we offer our users across iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch,” said Sumbul Desai, M.D., Apple’s vice president of Health. “Mental health and vision health are important, but often overlooked, and we’re excited to introduce features that offer valuable new insights to provide users with an even better understanding of their health. These insights help support users in their daily decisions and offer more informed conversations with their doctors.”
(source: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/06/apple-provides-powerful-insights-into-new-areas-of-health/)
What they are doing (trying to address myopia) is good and I suppose it is good to see the general idea (”vision health”) being looked at by Apple…but it’s hard not to feel a bit cynical reading that statement…especially after seeing them introduce the Vision Pro which puts 23 million pixels of OLED inches from the user’s eye. Curious to see if Apple has tried to address PWM at all with the Vision Pro or if it will just be a headache-inducing, flickering torture chamber.
“Our goal is to empower people to take charge of their own health journey. With these innovative new features, we’re expanding the comprehensive range of health and wellness tools that we offer our users across iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch,” said Sumbul Desai, M.D., Apple’s vice president of Health. “Mental health and vision health are important, but often overlooked, and we’re excited to introduce features that offer valuable new insights to provide users with an even better understanding of their health. These insights help support users in their daily decisions and offer more informed conversations with their doctors.”
(source: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/06/apple-provides-powerful-insights-into-new-areas-of-health/)
What they are doing (trying to address myopia) is good and I suppose it is good to see the general idea (”vision health”) being looked at by Apple…but it’s hard not to feel a bit cynical reading that statement…especially after seeing them introduce the Vision Pro which puts 23 million pixels of OLED inches from the user’s eye. Curious to see if Apple has tried to address PWM at all with the Vision Pro or if it will just be a headache-inducing, flickering torture chamber.
More pixels than a 4K TV. For each eye.
The custom micro‑OLED display system features 23 million pixels, delivering stunning resolution and colors. And a specially designed three‑element lens creates the feeling of a display that’s everywhere you look.Source: https://www.apple.com/apple-vision-pro/
iOS 17 has new Vision Health features, but assuming they’ve added settings related to this usually only leads to disappointment. I wouldn’t be surprised if we had to wait till iOS 20 or even iOS 25, and even then only the latest iPhone will have it.
I'm slightly surprised that ChatGPT got my query correct about how to disable pulse-width modulation on iPhone displays:
Wow. Just a shame none of these steps help.....
To be fair, it does claim that these steps are only intended to mitigate the effect and ChatGPT recognizes that there’s no setting to disable PWM.
Mitigation is of course minimal at best.
On /r/pwm_sensitive, someone went to the Apple WWDC conference and talked to Apple Accessibility people in person:
It would be interesting and beneficial to know what % of iPhone and Android users suffer from pwm. Unfortunately the majority of people have no idea what is the cause of their eye strain, eye burn and headaches when using and after using their phones.
Well, I have a big problem: my work has upgraded my setup with 2 x Studio Displays and a Mac Studio M1, Happy days. If you hadn't already predicted what I'm about to say - I have eye strain..😩
After less than a day of use, I feel my eyes are blurring/struggling to focus and my muscles feel tired which is building a tension headache. Now I'm not about to turn around to my boss and explain this because everyone already thinks I'm alien when I explain how I cannot use any OLED iPhone, coupled with the fact they have just spent £6k on this setup.
One of the displays is saturated and leaning to red. The other is washed out, most noticeable when using the default orange flower screensaver. The colours are totally different in both, calibrated at the factory my foot! When switching back to my 2017 iMac to check settings and workspaces that haven't migrated over to the Studio, I immediately feel my eyes relax.
I'm tempted to get a screen calibration tool in the hope of improving my situation. If this doesn't help I think I'm going to be looking for a new job...
After less than a day of use, I feel my eyes are blurring/struggling to focus and my muscles feel tired which is building a tension headache. Now I'm not about to turn around to my boss and explain this because everyone already thinks I'm alien when I explain how I cannot use any OLED iPhone, coupled with the fact they have just spent £6k on this setup.
One of the displays is saturated and leaning to red. The other is washed out, most noticeable when using the default orange flower screensaver. The colours are totally different in both, calibrated at the factory my foot! When switching back to my 2017 iMac to check settings and workspaces that haven't migrated over to the Studio, I immediately feel my eyes relax.
I'm tempted to get a screen calibration tool in the hope of improving my situation. If this doesn't help I think I'm going to be looking for a new job...
Hi Jimmy, the Studio Display is an PWM-free IPS panel and I'm sure you will adjust to it.
What I can say, I had a PWM-Samsung LCD and switched to an IPS-panel. I wanted to return the new one after a few minutes. I muscled through it and went bloodshot to bed. The day after I had no problems. IPS can be harsh too is what I learned.
What I can say, I had a PWM-Samsung LCD and switched to an IPS-panel. I wanted to return the new one after a few minutes. I muscled through it and went bloodshot to bed. The day after I had no problems. IPS can be harsh too is what I learned.
God, I hope so. Of course, I'm concerned about dithering as I'm aware these displays are PWM-free and yet my eyes are strained. I cannot use the PWM free iPad Pro's for example, so have to put it down to dithering.
The iPads have given me a worse experience recently but not as bad as the OLED iPhones. The Studio Displays is a milder strain but I've got a headache now and these ruin me for a whole day until I take tablets.
Will the unrelenting disappointment ever give way so I can just enjoy new Apple tech?!
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You definitely need to calibrate these. The source of your eye strain is likely the brightness (either too high or too low). Aim for 140 cd/m2 brightness in an office setting. 120 cd/m2 at home.
You should buy a colorimeter and calibrate both monitors. I recommend X-Rite or Datacolor. Those monitors are fantastic and should have no issues with eye-strain. Best of luck, sir!
I took the plunge today and bought a 14 pro on a completely separate line. Kept my XR line and old number and got a new number on the 14 pro. My plan is to use the 14 pro for the camera and limited other uses. I’ll see how it is on the eyes over time without having the headache of being completely dependent on it.
I’ve been away from this side of the forum awhile so I’m catching up.
Yeah this is NOT something for the eye doctor to address. I’m guessing a neurologist would be the one to see. Unfortunately the ones I can see with the insurance I have are booked up. I’d have to get in a queue and wait a year at this point. And I can’t make an appointment that far in advance with all the people I have to take care of.
Wow how can they not have heard about it? There have been people writing to people in Apple for awhile. I’ve filled out numerous surveys detailing my issues for a couple of years now. There’s been a petition and there have been people complaining on Apples own help forums.
WTH do they even bother having surveys and points of contact if the information and feedback doesn’t ever get passed along where it needs to go?
And if I were running a billion dollar business I’d hire a few people to monitor social media for discussions about problems and dissatisfaction with my products.
Well I appreciate another valiant effort at waking Apple up to this but I’m not going to count on anything being done about it.
Aw no. I’m so sorry to hear that Jimmy.
I had a devil of a time with my Pixel 6 Pro display. I traded it for a Pixel 7a and am doing okay with that. My Samsung S22 Ultra display is my most comfortable display so I use that most of the time for content consumption.
I can use my iPhone 14 Pro Max display okay. Not great. Not good. Just okay. I can use it well enough to make use of iPhone for other purposes. I prefer to post on this forum using my iPhone because it’s easier to find and post photos here.
FRC = Frame Rate Control, which is basically temporal dithering.
Me too. Just this forum thread is 340 pages and still going...