When did you stop using the phone? I stopped Sunday and I’m only just back to normal today. I still will give it another couple of days before I try to spend any time with my S9+. What the exposure to the XS Max display did to me was make me hypersensitive to other sources of pwm flicker like store lights and my S9+ display that usually don’t bother me unless I’m already in the throes of a migraine triggered by something else, like a couple of allergies I have.
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Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up
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Except for one or two times I haven't been on my Xs Max long as all. Those are the times where I got sightly nauseous. The other times it was mild eye strain. I notice it as I'm using the phone which is probably part of the reason I don't use it nearly as much as I've used new phones in the past. Both eye strain and nausea go away in minutes.
Considering no reviewers noticed it on the max or xs, i dont think this will work unfortunately.
My sysmptoms were very intermittent. I noticed that once the muscles in my neck stopped hurting the headaches went away. My aches were were more in the neck and lower back of the head than the eyes. And when my eyes did bother me, it could have been due to my continuous usage of both the 8 Plus and Max, non stop for hours trying to create and alleviate symptoms. No wonder I had headaches lol.
Lol, yeah maybe that was sort of asking for trouble. Well, if you decide to try again I wish you all the best!
Ill bet that NONE of youtubers that get pre release units will ever mentiine pwm problems, they will never ever again get any prerelease unit or invitation to apple event, it is simple as that
I was all ready to try and convince myself to buy a pixel 3xl or 6T in the next month. Now I’m not so sure.
LG G7 (LCD) - 1174 Hz (much better)
chances are this is it.
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how about this return it before the your return period and get back all your money......... why would someone keep it if they are going to sell it.........
I’m to the point now I don’t want amoled even if the pwm doesn’t bug me. That can not be good for your eyes, even if you don’t have any pain. I’m good with my 8+ this year and next year I’ll see if apple has a better lcd option than the xr. Sad because i was very excited for the 6T and considering my first pixel.
But maybe the XR can have a very good PWM free LCD.
For me the step back to the 8 plus is missing the stereo recording of movies. The stereo recording of movies is so much beter compared to mono.
Even though I haven’t had any major issues with amoled displays so far (granted, I haven’t owned the X or the Xs but had some amoled Androids instead), I’m also a bit worried about what the pwm flicker is doing to my eyes in the long term. Unless I end up getting the Xr, maybe I’ll need to look at mid-range Android offering with LCD displays.
In theory the X/Xs/Max is no worse than the S9 and other droids so anybody fine should be ok with the iPhone too.
So there must be another reason at play other than just PWM?
Touch wood I have not experienced it but there is enough noise out there for me to believe it is 100% true. I am really curious TBH.
So there must be another reason at play other than just PWM?
Touch wood I have not experienced it but there is enough noise out there for me to believe it is 100% true. I am really curious TBH.
Actually yes they have. Zollotech is a prominent tech YouTuber and he specifically said in multiple videos he preferred the 8plus since the iPhone X gave him headaches/eye strain.
When I used it in the store my eyes actually felt funny as well. But what threw me off more than anything was the weird jittering when scrolling....almost looks like an old tube TV lines. I use an iPad Pro regularly so maybe I notice that more since I’m so used to the buttery smooth scrolling of promotion.
Right, there appear to be other factors at play. I don’t get headaches. I used to get migraines, but not for 30 years. Medication is working. The OLED screen is in many ways an analog of what Apple has done with MacBook Pro keyboards which have no key travel to speak of and the magic keyboard which has travel but is noisy and distracting (I use it only with my iPad Pro). There is something weird and offputting about the XS display magnified with the Max. I’m going to check out Android OLED phones today just to satisfy my curiousity. No way would I ever leave the Apple platform.
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Not to sound like an alarmist, but migraine headaches are a severe incapacitating event for may sufferers so much so that they take powerful medications such as immunex, and anti-convulsants such as Dopamax and Lamitcal, which are otherwise used as mood stabilizers for people with bipolar disorder and for treatment of epilepsy. People with a long history of migraines also apppear to be at a higher risk of developing dementia, although the causative link has yet to be proved. Giving up an iPhone XS or OLED-based phone in the face of increased migranes seems like a prudent course - ie. A no-brainer
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I would take everything you read in this thread with a *huge* grain of salt. Just about everything electric around you that produces light flickers. Incandescent bulbs, TVs (all types), LED bulbs, flourescent bulbs and so on.
To my knowledge there hasn’t been any studies on this or any indication of the percentage of folks possibly effected. My gut feel is in a controlled scientific study this would not be a real issue and if it ends up being an issue the percentage of folks effected would be very close to zero.
Avoiding a technology because some tiny fraction of a percent of users have an issue seems short sighted.
It would be like avoiding gluten if you didn’t have celiac disease.
I don’t know that it does anything at all to the eyes themselves. I’ve been using OLED pretty regularly since the Note 7 came out and had very thorough annual eye exams by a very reputable ophthalmologist and though I am nearsighted thanks to genetics and farsighted thanks to age, my eyes have been declared healthy. Even after all the pain I had from using the iris scanner on the Samsung.
Where the problem lies is with the nervous system working in tandem with your eyes. There’s actually so much still being studied and left to learn about what “vision” exactly encompasses and how it works, even in conjunction with language and other aspects of the function of the brain that we would not ordinarily assume have anything to do with what we see.
I found out when it comes to migraine disorders and getting my own diagnosed and brought under control with the least amount of medication possible, that not all doctors are equal in their knowledge and understanding and even the ones who possess a lot acknowledge say much more needs to be studied and learned because there is quite the array of symptoms and it’s not just a really bad headache. For some people it rarely manifests as pain at all.
Well i know what i feel, how i feel and when i feel. Many ppl on this site have either very similar or completely identical problems as i do; majority of those ppl have those problems starting and passing in the same way and lenght as mine do.
P.s. Im also sensitive to dimmed led bulbs and florescent bulbs
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I’ve been using my Max since launch and do not think I’m affected. This has surprised me as I can’t be under fluorescent, low energy or LED lighting without feeling dizzy, sick and completely disoriented. I also used to have problems with CRT monitors if the refresh rate wasn’t high enough - in reality this was most cheaper monitors or in situations where the OS won’t let you adjust it. My vision is slightly blurred at times, but this has been happening for the past twenty years whenever I am tired and is part of the M.E./Fibromyalgia package so I can’t in all honesty blame it on the phone. I do use Face ID but have the Attention part switched off, what difference it makes I don’t know, but radiation blasted towards my eyes so frequently just doesn’t seem sensible to me.
Funny how you ask for a controlled scientific study and the you add your “gut feeling” about the result of such a study.
Just because you are in the majority of people not affected doesn’t mean everybody is. Please don’t be so arrogant and respect the people affected.
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I guess we can all go home now that barjam has graced us with his/her wisdom.
Right some people get ocular migranes - aura w/out pain
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I had to go to Warby Parker today in downtown Berkeley to get my glasses readjusted (I sat on them) and the Apple store is about 30 yards away, and since my dog loves both places, and I got to Warby Parker an hour early by mistake, I decided to pass the time at the Apple store. I mostly focused on the XS. Having returned the Max, I wanted to investigate what role the (massive) size of the display played. All other things being equal, the sheer size, to me, puts the Max in the class of a phablet. It’s still a mobile device, but you see a huge amount of information, too much for me. When I compared the XS to my 8 plus, one alongside the other, the XS displayed about the same amount of information as the 8 Plus, in some cases a little less, in some cases more, but comparable. Having a smaller form factor is definately an advantage.
There is no question that the the higher (super retina) res of the XS makes for much clearer text than the 8 plus. That said the blurrier (less crisper) text on the 8 plus is more comfortable for me to look at. I will be very interested to see the XR when it comes out later this month. Then I will re-evaluate all three phones.
I haven’t completely given up on this XS. It took me 4 years to get used to wearing the Apple Watch. I had th Series 0 for 3 years since it came out. I only wore it when going out on weekends in the evening. I just got the smaller 40 mm Apple Watch 4 (vs previously 42 mm series 0) and coupled with the incredible Infograph watch face and cellular connectiviy, I am now wearing it every day. So people can change.
Sequel - I went to the T-Mobile store and looked at the super Amoled displays on Samsung top of the line phones. I found them to be much more objectionable than the XS and Max. I was particularly put off by the screen extending along the sides of the phone. The text was coarse. To me it was noticeably more disturbing than the iPhone XS. And looking at the pathetiic Android icons is downright depressing. I could never get used to Android, although I don’t begrudge the fact that others like that OS.
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Sad day! Packaged up the iPhone XS Max and sent it back to ATT. Just couldn’t deal with the eye strain and back to the 6S for now. Guess we will see what the XR brings!