Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up

[DJTaurus]

I’m thinking the same and use 2 devices. How was the 16plus compared to the 16e for you?

It was better but but but…… after my short experience even with air i still can’t stand large screens…..one hand usage is a must to me. Despite air is super thin and light you still can’t use it one hand.

 

[PwmMen]

From minute 9.20 Aaron talks about PWM
And also shows the difference with and without a PWM option compared to the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
You can see a big difference. I can use the iPhone 17 Pro Max without any problems even with 120Hz.

 

[ultravegeta1981]

From minute 9.20 Aaron talks about PWM
And also shows the difference with and without a PWM option compared to the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
You can see a big difference. I can use the iPhone 17 Pro Max without any problems even with 120Hz.

Yeah but the pwm off switch only works below 25% isn’t it?

 

[ghanwani]

In the spirit of “if you can’t be heard, take action”, I wonder if there is an estimate of how many people some the world are affected by our issue? If the number is large enough, would it make sense for an entrepreneur to make a dedicated phone? I assume it would have to be Android though. Imagine there is a 0.1% that could be more than 1M people. If the phone was sold for $1000 that could be a $1B revenue. It seems it could be a good business plan

TCL is already doing it for much less so it would be hard for a niche player. The phone market is very competitive. You have big players like Sony, Nokia, Microsoft exiting or exited.

 

[now i see it]

Also animations still stay the same, I believe these animations might cause motion sickness

Close your eyes before a screen animation occurs - and when scrolling. That's what I've been doing for many years. Any time anything moves on the screen, scrolling included, the pixels have to refresh. Its another form of flicker. Either 60hz or 120 hz or lower now with adaptive refresh.
There's no escape except to literally not look at it when its happening.

 

[AshX]

I cannot help wondering if this obsession with creating brighter and brighter screens is contributing to the problem. I really don’t understand what this mania for insanely bright screens is all about. I’ve always had the brightness on my phone turned right down, and that’s on screen that can get nowhere as bright as current iPhone screens.

Absolutely. I went to a T-Mobile store to try out the 17’s and interestingly none of them has the PWM toggle. I checked several. It seems their store mode doesn’t include it as it’s at max brightness.

The employee did mention to me several people had complained that the screens were too bright - people not affected by PWM. Apple only cares about marketing benchmarks and being able to say the screen is brighter and has better battery and more vivid colors than the previous model.

In the spirit of “if you can’t be heard, take action”, I wonder if there is an estimate of how many people some the world are affected by our issue? If the number is large enough, would it make sense for an entrepreneur to make a dedicated phone? I assume it would have to be Android though. Imagine there is a 0.1% that could be more than 1M people. If the phone was sold for $1000 that could be a $1B revenue. It seems it could be a good business plan

I would make the argument nearly everyone is sensitive to flicker. It’s just that most people aren’t as severely affected and don’t get severe neurological and visual symptoms. They may just write off their symptoms as blue light, age, being on the phone too long, etc. So everyone is being affected, we are just the canaries in the proverbial coal mine raising the alarm that the reliance on PWM and dithering is harmful.

And yes, Apple makes a point about being health and environmentally conscious. They are missing a large market. Just look at Whole Foods. People will pay a premium to not be poisoned.

Can someone please try to educate me?

I’ve been stuck with an iPhone SE as I originally purchased the iPhone X and had immediate issues, back before I knew this was even a thing.

How are some people having luck with certain phones over others? Aren’t the issues themselves consistent with all these phones? I have no issue using the SE because it’s an LCD screen, so I’m wondering how one person can have issues with the new screens and another have no issues at all?

There are variations in panel design and calibration even within the same device model, which is partially why. Some panels even have different pixel arrangement, modulation depth, and PWM frequency. Some are more inclined to dither than others. There are many factors and unfortunately because we don’t know what is occurring under the hood, we are left to make reasonable deductions based on the evidence we can gather using diagnostic tools and panel serial numbers.

It would take literally hundreds of devices being tested to truly understand what is occurring. But that is simply an unreasonable ask for consumers and should be taken by the company and panel manufacturers prior to release and shipment. In other words; testing and quality control, of which clearly there is very little these days.

It’s like playing the lottery. Lose and you get a seizure or a migraine. Win and well, congratulations, you get a usable device for a few years. Truly ridiculous times we are living in where corporate greed supersedes health in all sectors of life.

 

[now i see it]

One idea (I haven't tried) is to wear dark glasses when using an OLED iphone and set the screen brightness to Maximum. Max brightness has the best PWM modulation for the eyes but its way too bright except in direct sunlight. The dark glasses would offset the screen brightness. Sure, battery would take a hit - but maybe the phone could at least be usable.
Might be worth trying.

 

[MICHAELSD]

One idea (I haven't tried) is to wear dark glasses when using an OLED iphone and set the screen brightness to Maximum. Max brightness has the best PWM modulation for the eyes but its way too bright except in direct sunlight. The dark glasses would offset the screen brightness. Sure, battery would take a hit - but maybe the phone could at least be usable.
Might be worth trying.

I’ve quite literally tried running an iPhone X at max brightness and probably iPhone 12 Pro Max as well as iPhone 13 mini and that didn’t help whatsoever. It’s not worth these lengths.

That being said, I just want an iPhone that does what I need it to do: no more, no less. I could make an argument for any iPhone this generation so I’m just waiting for more measurements to decide which is going to be the easiest on the eyes since there is variance between color accuracy as well as PWM rates and modulations.

 

[ghanwani]

I’ve quite literally tried running an iPhone X at max brightness and probably iPhone 12 Pro Max as well as iPhone 13 mini and that didn’t help whatsoever. It’s not worth these lengths.

In that case maybe your sensitivity is to dithering as well, not just PWM.

 

[MICHAELSD]

In that case maybe your sensitivity is to dithering as well, not just PWM.

I’m okay with dithering, just extremely sensitive to PWM/flicker and specifically this high-modulation flicker on smartphones. Although I suppose iPads and MacBooks have gotten just as bad with their OLED and Mini-LED displays.

 

[orange23]

Absolutely. I went to a T-Mobile store to try out the 17’s and interestingly none of them has the PWM toggle. I checked several. It seems their store mode doesn’t include it as it’s at max brightness.

The employee did mention to me several people had complained that the screens were too bright - people not affected by PWM. Apple only cares about marketing benchmarks and being able to say the screen is brighter and has better battery and more vivid colors than the previous model.



I would make the argument nearly everyone is sensitive to flicker. It’s just that most people aren’t as severely affected and don’t get severe neurological and visual symptoms. They may just write off their symptoms as blue light, age, being on the phone too long, etc. So everyone is being affected, we are just the canaries in the proverbial coal mine raising the alarm that the reliance on PWM and dithering is harmful.

And yes, Apple makes a point about being health and environmentally conscious. They are missing a large market. Just look at Whole Foods. People will pay a premium to not be poisoned.



There are variations in panel design and calibration even within the same device model, which is partially why. Some panels even have different pixel arrangement, modulation depth, and PWM frequency. Some are more inclined to dither than others. There are many factors and unfortunately because we don’t know what is occurring under the hood, we are left to make reasonable deductions based on the evidence we can gather using diagnostic tools and panel serial numbers.

It would take literally hundreds of devices being tested to truly understand what is occurring. But that is simply an unreasonable ask for consumers and should be taken by the company and panel manufacturers prior to release and shipment. In other words; testing and quality control, of which clearly there is very little these days.

It’s like playing the lottery. Lose and you get a seizure or a migraine. Win and well, congratulations, you get a usable device for a few years. Truly ridiculous times we are living in where corporate greed supersedes health in all sectors of life.

Couldn't agree more! This is very justifiable argument that everyone is sensitive or negatively impacted already, at different degree. Our group here are just the most severe population and are willing to stand out.
Tech giants like Apple need to be responsible!

 

[ghanwani]

Funny others are noticing this. I thought the same as well in my limited time at the store (probably a couple of minutes with each phone). Don't know yet if it would be usable long term. Have to go back and try it for more time. Store was very busy yesterday.

So I went back and tried them again today. Definitely doesn't work. Dithering is very noticeable. It's like the edges of the letters are moving.

 

[Ac1d 8urn]

Well, I've had my lovely sage 17 for a full week now and it seems to be much better than any OLED iPhone I've had so far. First thing I did was change the PWM setting and I definitely noticed a difference. It's still not as good as an LCD of course, and I hope future software updates can improve the smoothing further if that's possible, but I have had no eyestrain headaches all week! I did have a neck-induced tension headache(I've been in 2 severe car wrecks and have permanent whiplash, I have to use a special pillow at night and even with that, if I sleep on my back or with my neck tilted even slightly forward I will pay for it the next day 😭), but so far the phone is miraculously not bothering me at all. I can tell when a screen is going to bother me because I get kind of a squeezing feeling in my forehead after a few minutes, and the 17 has not given me that. My vision has been slowly de-blurring as well. I'm gonna keep it, obvs it won't work for everyone but for me it does.

 

[jrajpaul]

Well, I've had my lovely sage 17 for a full week now and it seems to be much better than any OLED iPhone I've had so far. First thing I did was change the PWM setting and I definitely noticed a difference. It's still not as good as an LCD of course, and I hope future software updates can improve the smoothing further if that's possible, but I have had no eyestrain headaches all week! I did have a neck-induced tension headache(I've been in 2 severe car wrecks and have permanent whiplash, I have to use a special pillow at night and even with that, if I sleep on my back or with my neck tilted even slightly forward I will pay for it the next day 😭), but so far the phone is miraculously not bothering me at all. I can tell when a screen is going to bother me because I get kind of a squeezing feeling in my forehead after a few minutes, and the 17 has not given me that. My vision has been slowly de-blurring as well. I'm gonna keep it, obvs it won't work for everyone but for me it does.

That’s great to hear. What screen do you have (LG,Samsung or BOE). There is very little experience on these forums with the regular 17.

 

[gigapocket1]

Has anyone switched devices and gotten one to work for them? Like returned their 17PM and got another 17PM with a different screen and problems went away?

 

[pdoherty]

Share a secret with you: iPhone screen has a major update/change every two years, that means if 13 works for you, 14 won't be much different; and the other way around too...

How would you know if it was the 12 and 13 that would be similar instead of the 13 and 14 that were?

 

[pdoherty]

I had tried all of that, while it doesn’t really affect after turning off all the transparency effects, the OS looks worse than ever. Also animations still stay the same, I believe these animations might cause motion sickness. I actually don’t get why Apple doesn’t wanna add option to completely disable all animations, on Mac it seems to still be possible via few terminal commands

I'd like that option as well. The animations make the phone feel slower.

 

[uacd]

So, for a fourth day in a row I am testing a little trick I found out on SE3 (which somehow also gave me little eye strain despite being an LCD display phone). I am using low power mode constantly and even made Shortcuts automation to re-enable it after device hits 80% during charging. It seems display is more or less usable. I recommend everyone struggling with new 17 series to try that out if new PWM option doesn’t help

 

[Heman87]

So, for a fourth day in a row I am testing a little trick I found out on SE3 (which somehow also gave me little eye strain despite being an LCD display phone). I am using low power mode constantly and even made Shortcuts automation to re-enable it after device hits 80% during charging. It seems display is more or less usable. I recommend everyone struggling with new 17 series to try that out if new PWM option doesn’t help

I think it might disable Temporal dithering in low battery mode.

 

[Heman87]

As anyone used the iPad 11? Des it use PWM or TD? I'm currently on vacation in turkey and I found a very good deal in Turkey. But if it isn't good I can't return it

 

[uacd]

As anyone used the iPad 11? Des it use PWM or TD? I'm currently on vacation in turkey and I found a very good deal in Turkey. But if it isn't good I can't return it

While they certainly can be found at a good price, they will become obsolete faster than other iPads. I hardly recommend checking Air M3 instead, they have more or less same displays (both LCD, but on Air it has better color reproduction and brightness) but Air has desktop-level internals and will serve you for much longer and can do many more tasks+there is always 13’ option if you would want to have more screen real estate.

Another downside of the iPad 11 is non-laminated display. I’ve used such display on iPad Air 1, it feels almost like using plastic, doesn’t feel like glass at all. But surely, to each their own so if you have already tried this one in store and like it, it is worth considering

 

[Heman87]

While they certainly can be found at a good price, they will become obsolete faster than other iPads. I hardly recommend checking Air M3 instead, they have more or less same displays (both LCD, but on Air it has better color reproduction and brightness) but Air has desktop-level internals and will serve you for much longer and can do many more tasks+there is always 13’ option if you would want to have more screen real estate.

Another downside of the iPad 11 is non-laminated display. I’ve used such display on iPad Air 1, it feels almost like using plastic, doesn’t feel like glass at all. But surely, to each their own so if you have already tried this one in store and like it, it is worth considering

Yes thank you. I'm also fine with the Air. Even better. But the Air uses temporal dithering right? Are you sensitive to TD?

 

[now i see it]

So, for a fourth day in a row I am testing a little trick I found out on SE3 (which somehow also gave me little eye strain despite being an LCD display phone). I am using low power mode constantly and even made Shortcuts automation to re-enable it after device hits 80% during charging. It seems display is more or less usable. I recommend everyone struggling with new 17 series to try that out if new PWM option doesn’t help

Great Tip!!
Here's the shortcut to keep Low Power Mode on all the time:

(Pilfered from a Reddit post)

https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/vlpfcv/a_full_breakdown_of_what_low_power_mode_actually

* Shortcuts >
* automation >
* create new automation >
* low power mode >
* select “Turns off” >
* add new action >
* set LPM and the default option is to turn it on. Then hit next and uncheck “Ask before running”.

"Now you’ve set up an automation that will turn on LPM whenever it’s turned off (this happens automatically when your phone charges to 80%). This way it’ll essentially be on all the time. You’ll always have the option to disable it or delete it entirely."

 

[uacd]

Yes thank you. I'm also fine with the Air. Even better. But the Air uses temporal dithering right? Are you sensitive to TD?

It seems like I am even more sensitive to TD than PWM, very unusual. I literally can’t watch HDR videos, no matter what device, my eyes would rain instantly. Maybe due to higher brightness or maybe because of temporal dithering, never used actual 10 bit display (not FRC) so maybe this would be different.

As I found out, low power mode blocks TD on 95% of Apple devices, I also constantly have it on my MacBook Air which sometimes gave me eye strain and now it feels usable.

In worst case scenario if you get eye strain you can do it similarly: use low battery mode. It doesn’t affect performance at all even on such an old device as mine (11 Pro), as a big plus - it doesn’t heat as much during charging too.

With iPad Air you will likely be fine. I am also eyeing this exact device because well… my 2014 iPad Air 2 is longing for upgrade😃 I need access to new applications and Safari barely opens webpages. Well, I mean it is usable but I think it would be a more worthy upgrade than a new iPhone (or maybe I will even settle with both, but currently more inclined to get an iPad)

 

[uacd]

Great Tip!!
Here's the shortcut to keep Low Power Mode on all the time:

(Pilfered from a Reddit post)

https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/vlpfcv/a_full_breakdown_of_what_low_power_mode_actually

* Shortcuts >
* automation >
* create new automation >
* low power mode >
* select “Turns off” >
* add new action >
* set LPM and the default option is to turn it on. Then hit next and uncheck “Ask before running”.

"Now you’ve set up an automation that will turn on LPM whenever it’s turned off (this happens automatically when your phone charges to 80%). This way it’ll essentially be on all the time. You’ll always have the option to disable it or delete it entirely."

I first tried tinkering with Shortcuts myself because I discovered it only not so long ago, and then thought “hmm, I can use ChatGPT”, and it literally gave me three methods, so I did exactly like that:

1. Shortcuts → Automation → New Automation.
2. Choose Battery Level → set it to “Rises Above 80%”. (This is when iOS normally disables Low Power Mode.)
3. Add the action Set Low Power Mode → On.
4. Turn Ask Before Running → Off.

I’ve already made my few shortcuts which also seem to help me with sleeping, like the one that cuts off wifi, cellular and bluetooth when I go to sleep, as I would often go sleep at different times I would simply run it manually from my homescreen (I don’t have iOS 18 or 26 so I don’t have “shutdown” button in contro center😃)