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Moved to XR from X/XS/XS Max due to Eye Strain. Do you still have eye strain on the XR?

  • No, believe the no-PWM from the LCD screen solved my issue

    Votes: 109 34.9%
  • Yes, still have eye strain.

    Votes: 44 14.1%
  • Yes, still have eye strain. However, the strain stopped once I covered the 'Notch' FaceID

    Votes: 9 2.9%
  • No, you guys are crazy!

    Votes: 150 48.1%

  • Total voters
    312
Rather a company which is not selling the phones with Face id

Apple must of done millions of dollars research into Face ID and deemed it safe. Why would they use it if it wasn’t? To much of a risk to them and their reputation.
 
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Why are people putting electrical tape over Face ID?

I keep it on just to unlock the phone, but I turned it off on the Attention Aware...is it still flashing when it’s tirnes off?

Confused about the electrical tape???
Because people are advising that the flood Illuminator is still flashing, even with FaceID and attention aware off
 
Because people are advising that the flood Illuminator is still flashing, even with FaceID and attention aware off
Is there a difference between FaceID and the Flood Illuminator?

Which one is blasting the IR? I only keep it to unlock, I don’t use the Attention Aware.
 
Is there a difference between FaceID and the Flood Illuminator?

Which one is blasting the IR? I only keep it to unlock, I don’t use the Attention Aware.

No, my understanding is that FaceID uses the Flood illuminator & Dot projector to scan your face. I believe the Flood Illuminator is the one blasting the IR.
 
No, my understanding is that FaceID uses the Flood illuminator & Dot projector to scan your face. I believe the Flood Illuminator is the one blasting the IR.
So, why are people covering the flood illuminator if they turn off Face ID? Do they think that’s also causing issues?

So it’s still flashing even when turned off?

Super weird.
 
So, why are people covering the flood illuminator if they turn off Face ID? Do they think that’s also causing issues?

So it’s still flashing even when turned off?

Super weird.

I've tested this. The flood illuminator does not flash after unlock with attention aware features turned off. Require attention for Face ID doesn't change how the flood and dot projector flashes when unlocking. I did not test with Face ID turned off, as I would have had to set everything up again.


I am willing to test it though if no one else have.
 
I've tested this. The flood illuminator does not flash after unlock with attention aware features turned off. Require attention for Face ID doesn't change how the flood and dot projector flashes when unlocking. I did not test with Face ID turned off, as I would have had to set everything up again.


I am willing to test it though if no one else have.

If it is not too much effort, could you test it with FaceID turned off completely? :)
 
If it is not too much effort, could you test it with FaceID turned off completely? :)

I tested. I didn't record, but I tested.

With the settings in the screenshot below, the flood did still flash when waking the phone up, and it continued to do until it either saw my face, or until the screen went off again. Whichever came first. The dot projector did not fire however.

I even tried "Reset Face ID" but it made no difference. The flood illuminator is still flashing when waking the phone up, again until it either saw a face or the screen went off.

IMG_0237.png

EDIT:
I checked while setting Face ID up again, and unsurprisingly both the flood and dot projector are flashing continuously while doing the initial setup scan.
 
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I've tested this. The flood illuminator does not flash after unlock with attention aware features turned off. Require attention for Face ID doesn't change how the flood and dot projector flashes when unlocking. I did not test with Face ID turned off, as I would have had to set everything up again.


I am willing to test it though if no one else have.
So does this prove that with Attention Aware turned off the phone is technically “safer” for those who feel their eyes are affected by Face ID?

I like Face ID for unlocking the phone (I actually need it), but I can live with Attention Aware turned off.
 
I didn´t feel eye strain but I can say that being back to my 7 is now better.

iPhone X: too much eye strain just after a few seconds of using it.
iPhone XR: no eyestrain but sometimes I felt a little annoyance, can´t tell exactly why.
iPhone 7: nothing nothing nothing

I didn't use Face ID, just the code to unlock, but I didn't cover the front camera with tape.
Yep, that’s about how it is for me. I’m not back on my 8 Plus but if I’m going to read an ebook I would prefer to do it on my 8 Plus for that “nothing nothing nothing” experience.

But it’s only because I kept my Product Red Plus and it’s got the best display for reading so I may as well use it. It doesn’t mean I am afraid or reluctant or uncomfortable to use the Xr display.

I did use my S9+ to try and see if I could see the dots or the flood illuminator in video mode. I can see the flood illuminator and it is obnoxiously persistent when it is waiting for your face to be identified. I couldn’t see anything coming out of the face mapping dot projector.

With attention awareness off, I never saw the flood illuminator flash while the phone is unlocked. I don’t think covering it with tape is necessary. Even if it flashes at you once or twice now and again, I hardly think it’s worse than my having to drive into glare of the sunrise and the sunset on my daily commute with the kids to and from school. If anything is going to fry my eyeballs, it will be that.

What I experience more on the Xr that I rarely do on the 8 Plus is dry eye. A slight gritty feel, too, sometimes. I had that with the Max, too. It is more pronounced when I am reading this forum than when I am composing a post.

Well...guess what...the font in the composition window is comfortably large. It’s incredibly tiny in regular reading view.

On my S9+ I can easily make the font on this forum look large. I don’t know how to do that on iOS. It don’t see the same interface on Safari. Edit: I can’t see that setting on my S9+ Samsung Browser anymore. ???:confused:???

I’m going to go play with my display settings and see how it helps or hurts.

The font on the 8 Plus is very slightly larger. It is almost imperceptibly so. But I guess it’s enough of a difference to matter.
 
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I’m going to go play with my display settings and see how it helps or hurts.

The font on the 8 Plus is very slightly larger. It is almost imperceptibly so. But I guess it’s enough of a difference to matter.

The XR fonts in standard display are smaller than the Plus fonts. I keep my XR on display zoom. The font size become more readable and yet smaller than display zoom on my 6s.

Going on specs I’ve seen, display zoom on the XR enlarges the fonts only moderately (particularly helpful on MacRumors forums), perhaps imperceptively larger but technically a smidge larger than those of the Plus in standard view.
 
I tested. I didn't record, but I tested.

With the settings in the screenshot below, the flood did still flash when waking the phone up, and it continued to do until it either saw my face, or until the screen went off again. Whichever came first. The dot projector did not fire however.

I even tried "Reset Face ID" but it made no difference. The flood illuminator is still flashing when waking the phone up, again until it either saw a face or the screen went off.

View attachment 801467

EDIT:
I checked while setting Face ID up again, and unsurprisingly both the flood and dot projector are flashing continuously while doing the initial setup scan.

Thank you! That is pretty wild the flood Illuminator still comes on with FaceID turned off.
 
So does this prove that with Attention Aware turned off the phone is technically “safer” for those who feel their eyes are affected by Face ID?

I like Face ID for unlocking the phone (I actually need it), but I can live with Attention Aware turned off.

It should be. It would be interesting to hear from some of those sensitive if they notice a difference. I'm still not sure if I'm bothered by it or not.
 
As somebody who is affected by PWM I decided to test out the XR over the weekend. I felt the screen quality was inferior to the 7 Plus that I used to compare it to, however, I did really like true tone that the XR offered so I plan to move to an 8 Plus in the near future. As far as my PWM symptoms, I'd say that I had some symptoms but nothing to the degree of what an OLED screen would cause. Mostly just eyes feeling fatigued and a slight headache.

Disabling the Attention Aware seemed to help ease those symptoms but I felt that in the end if I was experiencing these symptoms that it just wasn't worth it for me. I didn't bother testing with Face ID disabled because I didn't think there was a point as I don't want to go back to entering a passcode and manually typing in all of my passwords for apps/websites again.

Seems like the 8 Plus will be my end of road with Apple since I can't really use their newer products. I really wish I would have jumped on the 8 Plus in red last year as it's now more difficult to find.
 
 says that FaceID learns your face over time, as you grow a beard or whatever. It may be (totally guessing here) that the regular flashing of the flood illuminator is FaceID building a database of your face through time in order for it to be able to adapt to changes. (Im probably wrong about this but I thought I'd throw it in the mix).
 
 says that FaceID learns your face over time, as you grow a beard or whatever. It may be (totally guessing here) that the regular flashing of the flood illuminator is FaceID building a database of your face through time in order for it to be able to adapt to changes. (Im probably wrong about this but I thought I'd throw it in the mix).

But with Face-ID off and completely reset. No reason for it to be doing that.
 
 says that FaceID learns your face over time, as you grow a beard or whatever. It may be (totally guessing here) that the regular flashing of the flood illuminator is FaceID building a database of your face through time in order for it to be able to adapt to changes. (Im probably wrong about this but I thought I'd throw it in the mix).

I don't think so, because with Face ID on and attention aware features off, it doesn't flash while unlocked. I think it learns by subtle differences during the actual unlock sequence.
Plus to learn it would have to fire the dot projector, which it does not do after unlock.
 
What I experience more on the Xr that I rarely do on the 8 Plus is dry eye. A slight gritty feel, too, sometimes.
Same here. Not sure what's going on, but the XR is definitely causing eye strain for me. It's like my eyes get super fatigued and dry while using it, it makes no sense.

I tried my 8+ and had zero issues, how could the XR be doing this? It's still a LCD panel, I've got Face ID covered, where is this strain coming from? Anyone found a solution for this yet?

My screen stats:
True Tone ON
50% brightness
Font size increased by 3
View: Zoomed
 
Maybe because of the light coming from four sides? Select a white only picture and rotate the phone a bit. Your seeing something like a rainbow effect.
Doesn’t happen with my iPhone 8.

Maybe this is the reason? Don’t know - but could be possible...
 
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Same here. Not sure what's going on, but the XR is definitely causing eye strain for me. It's like my eyes get super fatigued and dry while using it, it makes no sense.

I tried my 8+ and had zero issues, how could the XR be doing this? It's still a LCD panel, I've got Face ID covered, where is this strain coming from? Anyone found a solution for this yet?

My screen stats:
True Tone ON
50% brightness
Font size increased by 3
View: Zoomed
Well if you covered Face ID, you ruled out one possible source of irritation for both of us. So thank you. I don’t have a full screen protector over the notch so I didn’t want to cover it over with tape and ruin my oleophobic coating.

I have gone back and forth on True Tone and ultimately turned it off. I kept getting a very faint impression it was introducing a slight gradient to the display, making the edges seem darker or warmer or...something. In the past when we had troubles with gradient shading on iPads and older iPhones, that used to be a known source of irritation for my vision.

When I want a bit of warmth on the display I put on the Night mode and adjust it down to a very low warmth level.

I’ve also experimented with the white point levels and ultimately toggled that off for now.

You know it could very well be the lower ppi rating. Wayyy back, many years ago I don’t remember exactly when, I think it was when the first new retina Mini was introduced, I got a full sized iPad instead. It had a lower dpi. And I ended up with horrible eye strain and a headache with it. The print looked grainy to me and I was an avid reader who was very interested in ebooks. So I returned it. I got then got the retina Mini, which had a higher ppi and adjusted to it much better.

I believe that the Xr has the same ppi level as the current iPad mini. I’m not sure, but I believe someone said that it did. So theoretically it should not bother my eyes at all. But I have gotten used to the pixel density on my 8 Plus, so I suppose I just needed some time to readjust to the lower pixel density on the Xr. Which I think for the most part I have. I’m way more comfortable on the Xr in the last few days than I was initially.

When I switch back and forth between my 8 Plus and my Xr I have to adjust all over again. I haven’t been on my 8 Plus for a couple of days. But I’ve been doing an Animal Crossing Pocket Camp event and ran my battery down to 60%, so I threw it on the charger. :oops:

And that’s why I’m back on the 8 Plus to read this forum at the moment. I may have to adjust all over again when I pick my Xr back up. I can switch easily between my S9+ OLED display and my Xr. But switching between the two kinds of LCD displays seems to cause discomfort for some reason.

I can’t use the Apple implementation of OLED on the X series. But yes, I am fine with it on my Samsung for some reason. Someone posted that Apple has some sort of patented power management system for OLED and it’s probably that which is doing our eyes in on OLED. I just looked some things up and did find that the OLED panels used by Apple are different from the ones in a Samsung Galaxy. http://www.i-runway.com/blog/iphone-x-its-oled-going-behind-the-screen/ I wish I knew precisely how the differences result in me being able to use one display but not the other.

I don’t know if they’re implementing that power management method on LCD. I’ll have to try and find that post again.
 
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Same here. Not sure what's going on, but the XR is definitely causing eye strain for me. It's like my eyes get super fatigued and dry while using it, it makes no sense.

I tried my 8+ and had zero issues, how could the XR be doing this? It's still a LCD panel, I've got Face ID covered, where is this strain coming from? Anyone found a solution for this yet?

My screen stats:
True Tone ON
50% brightness
Font size increased by 3
View: Zoomed

Maybe the smaller.screen?
16:9 aspects ratio is much nicer on the eyes while reading
 
As somebody who is affected by PWM I decided to test out the XR over the weekend. I felt the screen quality was inferior to the 7 Plus that I used to compare it to, however, I did really like true tone that the XR offered so I plan to move to an 8 Plus in the near future. As far as my PWM symptoms, I'd say that I had some symptoms but nothing to the degree of what an OLED screen would cause. Mostly just eyes feeling fatigued and a slight headache.

Disabling the Attention Aware seemed to help ease those symptoms but I felt that in the end if I was experiencing these symptoms that it just wasn't worth it for me. I didn't bother testing with Face ID disabled because I didn't think there was a point as I don't want to go back to entering a passcode and manually typing in all of my passwords for apps/websites again.

Seems like the 8 Plus will be my end of road with Apple since I can't really use their newer products. I really wish I would have jumped on the 8 Plus in red last year as it's now more difficult to find.

I am a bit worried about this as well, I don’t see a competitor that would really satisfy me at the moment, maybe Samsung but they use Oled screens and pwm
 
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