Hi guys. It has been a while and I am glad to see the community is as active and lively as ever. It is great to see some of the familiar faces as well. Online community presence for this flickering phenomenon is growing steadily and it wouldn't have been possible if not from each of the individual's collective efforts. Thank you for some of the DMs and reference of me from time to time. It is really appreciated and I genuinely am.
This will be quite a long post as I have quite a few things to update.
Researchers specialized on this flickering phenomenon is on track. Firstly, to inform that current flickering measurement standards do not represent the real world. Secondary, to demonstrate that those with migraine/ heightened sensitivity are much more subsceptive to flickering. Thirdly, to propose a
new measuring flickering standard to the industry.
For those that wish to have a glimpse to this new standard, called PAVM(
PHANTOM ARRAY VISIBILITY MEASURE), here are the links below.
SVM showed poor correlation to actual participants scores
https://www.lee.org/flicker/wp-cont...23-lightinghumanfactorsflicker-pnnl-royer.pdf
An early first look into PAVM (table 3, page 9 shows results)
https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2024-05/ssl-tan-etal-2024-lrt_tlm.pdf
PAVM was designed to include those higher sensitivity to flickering.
A PAVM of score 0
indicates no flicker, while 0.5 would be safe for the the average people, regardless of their task activity (I may be wrong on the exact figure)
Hopefully in future, screen manufacturers can use this regulated guideline as reference for producing eyestrain free screen. I believe companies themselves have a make a stricter guideline for screens, for users are staring directly into a light source.
Now I bring the not-so-good news.
The future of the iPhones series appears to be bleak. Should reports of 2025's all iPhone 17 move to LTPO panels were true, then those that had success with the plus/ regular models today would be pushed out of the Apple ecosystem.
The reason is because — at present, the regular models are running LTPS OLED panels, while the pro models are LTPO. LTPS OLED has been in the market longer than LTPO, and allows modification to mitigate flicker.
LTPO panels in contrast were designed to flicker from the beginning.
Tandem OLED, or think of it as LTPO 2.0, was introduced to address this ~ by staking 2 lower powered LTPO OLED. It does not seem to be of help much. Some even claimed the experience was worse than a typical OLED.
As of now, little progress can be made to LTPO in regards to eyestrain. While some smartphones manufacturers have made claims of achieving higher hertz on LTPO panels, they were false as they were simply slotting in more black frame (complete screen ON and OFF) into low frequency LTPO to pass off as higher hertz.
Oneplus did claimed that their next flagship OP13 will be using BOE's new X2 ltpo panel and would have an increased emphasize on eyestrain. However, I wouldn't keep my hopes high. As it does not seem realistic to produce a LTPO panel without its flaws in such a short time. Doing so would have to have redesigned LTPO from the ground up.
Can we call a leopard a leopard if it does not have any spots? This is something good to think about.
Additionally, because LTPO can can run at a low 1 hertz, rendered text may look fuzzy or jumpy — especially to those that were more sensitive. While it is possible to program LTPO panel to run at a targetted 120 hertz etc, LTPO were designed to run at 1 hertz before overclocking itself to 120 hertz etc, according to system needs. A system may still report a fixed 120 hertz despite the screen occasional slip to 1 hertz.
This occasion suddden slip disrupts a sensitive user's vestibular system. Hence causing symptoms of dizziness and poor balance etc. 1 hertz would not have mattered much to LCD panels since text on LCD panels are stable as long as a user not interact with it. OLED however, are constantly refreshing per second, regardless of user interaction.
The Chinese online community are actively bringing up on this LTPO panel concern. Their voice were heard and thus phones like Honor 200 and Xiaomi 14T pro continue with LTPS OLED panels. Phones like the Honor Magic series used LTPO mainly to target the western market.
For some iphone users, following the complete transition to LTPO, the last usable OLED iphone may be the iphone 16/iphone 16 plus.
We are seeing a return of 2020, following the complete transition to OLED. The last usable iPhone was 11, followed iPhone se(2022). In the near future, The last remaining usable iPhone would be the 16/16plus, followed by iPhone se(2025).
It appears that Apple's vision today is spearing toward the forefront of technology specifications. Their priorities have changed. In the past, their philosophy was to design and make products that would work seamlessly for human. At present today, it is looking more like us humans work for products.
I expect this flickering phenomenon for the iphones to persist for the next decade. (If I'm being extremely optimistic, probably half a decade). Only then, will I return to the Apple ecosystem. For I do not see myself obliged to put up with the side effects such as headaches, dry eyes, blurred vision and worst of all — cognitive impairment.
