I’ve usually waited until the Christmas returns period opens, usually early November, to give myself a couple of months to evaluate if need be. Not that I’ve ever needed it, it has never taken too long to realise the screens are a nauseous headache inducing nightmare.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up
- Thread starter Kitkad
- WikiPost WikiPost
- Start date
-
- Tags
- eye strain xs max
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
Correct. They dont care why you are returning it - because anyone could make up any ole story
That video does make it look better, but there are still lines on the display when enabled.
So effectively, this is DC dimming.
I guess this will catch us up to some Android displays. I know some have been testing these out in search of a more powerful phone than the IP11.
Even still.. not all DC dimming is created equal.
Apple should really change the wording in the setting. It’s almost as if they still don’t understand what PWM actually is with lazy wording like that.
Obviously they do as it’s used to increase and achieve better battery life.
MicroLED can’t come soon enough. 😉
So effectively, this is DC dimming.
I guess this will catch us up to some Android displays. I know some have been testing these out in search of a more powerful phone than the IP11.
Even still.. not all DC dimming is created equal.
Apple should really change the wording in the setting. It’s almost as if they still don’t understand what PWM actually is with lazy wording like that.
Obviously they do as it’s used to increase and achieve better battery life.
MicroLED can’t come soon enough. 😉
Having seen these videos, if I could cancel my Pro order - I would. I don't think this mode is going to be good enough for my sensitivity = it's still flickering 😞
Well I’ve gone from optimistic to hopeful, we’ll have to see on Friday. I can’t help but wonder since they have a proper display controller for this feature now if it can get better in the future with software updates?
Last edited:
I have just ordered and its a 2/3 week wait so I'll cancel if its bad news all round.
This is why I didn’t get too excited. It seems more akin to flicker reduction settings on other smartphones rather than a drastic industry-changing feature. Nonetheless, OLED has to have some sort of dip so not all hope is lost. I was just hoping it would be similar to at least the Apple Watch, which is usable.
Majorly disappointing if we’ve waited all this time and the best they can do is light flicker reduction that could have been enabled by default as another gradual stepping stone.
So far I’ve only seen the base 17 and Air in videos, is there any possibility that the 17 Pro/Pro Max could offer a better implementation of this? I’m not as sensitive as others on here and have been able to use my 16 Pro Max for the last year with only the occasional issue here and there but overall it has been a good experience for me.
It is likely to be different across the line. One device could be better than the others. I haven’t looked too in depth at these videos yet but I don’t really care what low brightnesses are like if this significantly reduces modulations at mid-to-high levels. I was just concerned based on the initial description this would only affect the PWM at lower brightnesses and not solve the issue at all.
An Apple Watch has extremely low modulations and still flickers slightly but I find this entirely imperceptible. Literally about .75% at 60Hz on even the earliest models and it’s consistent across the brightness levels.
I sound like a broken record still but Apple solved this on Apple Watch, then didn’t implement the same brightness controller on iPhone.
Don't think I've spent an appreciable amount of time with any Apple Watch but I might've read something about newer models having been worse in the flicker department?
Yup, as they increased brightness apparently the modulations went up and implementation became more sophisticated. I’d be concerned about upgrading since it’s the flicker that bothers me, I really don’t think the smaller size contributes.
Don't take this the wrong way, but when I initially read of people having success with the Apple Watch I was curious if it was a red herring because of the smaller size and how some people look at their watch less than a phone but there is an appreciable difference between the two. Shame they seemingly didn't manage to "scale up" the flicker mitigations with newer models.
I’ve come to that conclusion since I can look at an Apple Watch all day hypothetically and get no sensitivity whatsoever, whereas any size of iPhone will typically lead to instant sensitivity within a split second.
I thought that this was exclusively to the 17 pros? didn't think the regular 17s and the air was getting this...
That's a bad test. The 16 Pro Max is set to a significantly lower brightness level. You can tell because the black bars are wider, but the visible YouTube, Google Maps, and Gmail icons are the same brightness on the 16 Pro Max and the iPhone Air with PWM off.
It was previously reported a few pages back that, that wasn’t the case.
Obviously it’s not true now.
It is disappointing when content creators do minimal/no research about something like this before highlighting it in their video.
Ultimately, most PWM tests I've seen are not indicative of the final relationship between the screen's behaviour and the user's eyes for the following reason.
Most "PWM frequency/modulation measurements" are done either with a white or otherwise uniform image displayed on the screen, in actual usage scenarios the depth of modulation varies massively based on how dark the displayed image is on each part of the screen. If you are looking at a web page with a white background the modulation is at a certain level, if you then look at a web page with a grey background the modulation will be much more intense.
This is why increasing the frequency doesn't help anyone so much and everyone keeps returning their iPhone every year because the darker areas of the screen at any given time are flickering like crazy compared to white as there is more dimming required there, and therefore the modulation HAS to deepen in those areas as PWM is the chosen method of reducing perceived brightness.
If a display has a 480hz PWM frequency, this has no bearing on whether or not a pixel will be on or off during those 480 opportunities to be on per second. For example any black parts of the displayed image will have the pixels switched off entirely, and they are part of the screen too. Any pixel in a state that isn't "off" will be fed full voltage however many times per second it takes for a human to perceive it as the correct shade, so grey/dark but not black areas of the screen will be more likely to irritate the sensory system of a PWM sensitive individual. As you are scrolling through content, this effect is constantly changing and adapting as the images displayed change.
If the new mode Apple has created to try and solve this issue does away with this variance, has a shallow pulse tied to the refresh rate of the display (represented by the faint bars we see in these videos) and reduces the brightness of any darker areas of the display by reducing the voltage to those pixels instead giving them more off time than the lighter/white ones then we will see an effective removal of "Pulse Width Modulation", as the entire screen will flicker uniformly and this hidden problem (and cause of most people's discomfort) will be removed.
I predict that some people will still be sensitive to the pulse despite this improvement, but many others will now be able to use the new phones. The improvement will affect those who use dark modes/themes that don't have a pure black background in app/on page the most in my opinion.