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I still have iOS 17 on my 11 Pro btw, I have a spare device where I tested iOS 18 first and now 26, those are worst iOS updates ever, particularly to ruined Photos app. I no longer can get used to new grid, styles and all this mess.

Not impressed by 17 Pro at all and leaning to go and upgrade to S25 Ultra. I am aware it has bad PWM frequency but Apple gave me no choice. I want camera first, viewing/sorting device second, editing device third. If PWM bothers me a lot I will probably just connect it to monitor for desktop experience, hopefully it has DeX mode.

Now with the news that PWM switch is actually doing nothing, not interested in waiting one more year for it all to be refined because I really need a more modern device and portable camera
 
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The option doesn't change anything regarding frequency, hence only one screenshot. But the time how long the pixels are black is changed, see PWM on and off. With full brightness I can't see any change. At the moment I don't think it's good enough for me, but have to test first.

Device: iPhone 17 256GB
 
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The option doesn't change anything regarding frequency, hence only one screenshot. But the time how long the pixels are black is changed, see PWM on and off. With full brightness I can't see any change. At the moment I don't think it's good enough for me, but have to test first.

Device: iPhone 17 256GB
I hope you didn’t do test well. Because this is the worst result I ever seen so far
 
I still have iOS 17 on my 11 Pro btw, I have a spare device where I tested iOS 18 first and now 26, those are worst iOS updates ever, particularly to ruined Photos app. I no longer can get used to new grid, styles and all this mess.

Not impressed by 17 Pro at all and leaning to go and upgrade to S25 Ultra. I am aware it has bad PWM frequency but Apple gave me no choice. I want camera first, viewing/sorting device second, editing device third. If PWM bothers me a lot I will probably just connect it to monitor for desktop experience, hopefully it has DeX mode.

Now with the news that PWM switch is actually doing nothing, not interested in waiting one more year for it all to be refined because I really need a more modern device and portable camera
I would suggest Honor, nothing, Vivo, OP, or Xiaomi. They have better PWM dimming and some of them even better cameras than Apple or Samsung.
 
So I have played for a 10-15 minutes with iPhone Air (PWM off = new setting enabled). No difference for me compared to older phones.

And to be honest, the Air is not that impressive for me. It's thin (so are the current iPads), but the overall size just ruins it. I'm 6 feet tall, average hand size for my height, it's not comfortable in my hand. The camera bump is big. The Pro is just ugly. iPhone 17 is the winner in terms of overall package. But I'm sticking with my SE2020.
 
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The option doesn't change anything regarding frequency, hence only one screenshot. But the time how long the pixels are black is changed, see PWM on and off. With full brightness I can't see any change. At the moment I don't think it's good enough for me, but have to test first.

Device: iPhone 17 256GB

I just got the 17 Pro. I concur, the PWM smoothing kicks gradually. Only at a very low brightness levels 10% does it become more aggressive. At that level colour reproduction is not very critical as it's so dim already which is why Apple implemented this way. Such a shame. I only have a Radex Lupin to test but modulation is around 13% at max brightness in the white areas of the screen. At other levels, the modulation can go up to 30% which is definitely not good. The other annoying feature is that the pwm switch turns off when you enable reduce white point, reenable the PWM switch turns off reduce white point!!

Didn't have much time test but will try and get some more data over the weekend. I had such high hopes but it's definitely a massive let down though the question that still remains is whether this implementation is enough. Trying out the phones under real world usage seems to be the only option. When I had the X, my headaches were triggered when I woke up in the mornings in dim lighting conditions (ie when the phone screen was automatically low in brightness). Unfortunately, the headaches lasted long into the day so it was difficult to judge whether PWM at higher brightness levels were still causing problems in my use case. Tired of this nonsense, I sent the 16e back though I could tolerate it mostly but still had some eye strain. It just wasn't worth compromising my sleep which has been much better when using the SE 2022. The 17 Pro is going back to Apple.
 
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My 17 Pro has been delivered to a family member but I'm having a deep sinking gut feeling read all of these new posts...

I've got enough on my plate right now and a trip to Apple for another refund during launch week would just be the icing on the cake. 😞 I've only got myself to blame for being too stubborn to switch from Apple.
 
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No change my end after a play in store.

Iphone 17pro, PWM setting off and full brightness.

Immediate discomfort.

(I'll still keep my order which arrives in 2 weeks time but its not looking good)

So all in all, this is another big failure of OLED and continual ignorance of our group? I can't believe they come out PWM feature, while actually doing almost nothing??? Can we all together do something to raise our voice??? 😡
 
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So all in all, this is another big failure of OLED and continual ignorance of our group? I can't believe they come out PWM feature, while actually doing almost nothing??? Can we all together do something to raise our voice??? 😡

I just cant believe they sat around a table and agreed on a decision to call it 'Disables pulse width modulation' in the setting wording.
 
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I just cant believe they sat around a table and agreed on a decision to call it 'Disables pulse width modulation' in the setting wording.
Can this false advertising and misleading feature be categorized into Consumer Deceptive Lawsuit?? Any lawyer in our group, pls advise, what we can do together? I am speechless now....being nice and patient is completely helpless in our century???
 
iOS 26 might be giving more people eyestrain simply because its harder to look at with its increased transparency and reduced contrast. The eyes have to struggle more just to see everything clearly. Eye fatigue. It may not be due to increased dithering at all. But I certainly don't know.

See this is why I’ve stuck to iOS 18.7 on my iPhone 13 Pro. I’ve had a bad feeling about iOS 26 that I might well struggle using it precisely because of the issues you mentioned above.

Glad I cancelled my iPhone 17 Pro review as wanted to see what people on here had to say about the screen first, and this particular feature.
 
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What role does Pro Motion play, if any? Would locking the refresh rate to 60Hz stabilize things? I don’t see many people bringing up the Pro Motion fluctuations in terms of it may affect device comfort, given they theoretically can go as low as 1Hz.



iOS 15 was the last usable version of iOS I’ve been able to use on my iPhone 13. I did test iOS 18 on a separate iPhone 13 and it was much more tolerable than iOS 16/17.

Dithering would be the only flicker technique Apple could modify like that (GPU dithering) within a software update, correct?

I’ve always had the screen on my 13 Pro locked to 60Hz as that’s the only way I can use it.
 
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Why on earth would Apple choose those words for
Ok this might sound cynical... but perhaps whatever new dimming implementation was used on the 17 when that toggle is actuated, isn't actually now defined as pure PWM in the definitive sense. So they can legally say that PWM has been disabled - even though the screen still flickers like hell/
This is horrible.
 
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It’s partially because there has been a lack of research into these particular technologies and also because of a lack of knowledge among users. Most people are unaware PWM and dithering even exists and instead blame symptoms on blue light, screen time, and age. It’s only within the last 5-7 years as companies like Apple have shifted to OLED which relies heavily on PWM and as dithering has been utilized more often to render the P3 colorspace across devices, especially LCD, that more and more users have been affected. At least that is my theory.

We are shifting from sRGB to P3 at a breakneck pace as companies race to market new displays as the most vibrant and PWM modulation is getting worse as smartphone brightness increases. This is a byproduct of a race to beat competitors in terms of display benchmarks, at the expense of health.

As far as the health basis for a lawsuit, you’d be initially relying on decades worth of established epilepsy research. It’s been determined Apple Silicon MacBooks are applying spatiotemporal dithering via the GPU occurring at approximately 15Hz over 4 frames per refresh cycle on a 60Hz refresh rate device. Additionally older Macs and newer Macs have TCON FRC (done via the display panel itself) at approximately 30Hz. These frequencies are well within the epileptic danger zone of 15-30Hz which can trigger seizures, and has triggered them in sensitive users.

More research would have to be done, but the science and data is there.
If some organization just research data within our forum group, that shall be substantial clinical evidence to prove the significant damage to people's eyes and health. And our eyes health life matter!
 
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Played around a bit with an Air that my mom has received and yeah, unfortunately it's still bad.
Immediate headache and eye strain, regardless of the toggle. What a disappointment. Back to G75, I guess.
(Also a single top speaker in a £1k phone is laughable, it's quite harsh sounding too.)
 
Currently setting up an iPhone 17. Hoping for the best but resigned to the worst.

I’m so angry Apple seem to have used this accessibility feature as a gimmick to win people like us over. I had no hope before the 17 lineup was announced and I would have been fine with no hope after it was announced. The worst thing you can do is give people false hope.
 
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