I’m currently testing the Air after being fairly successful with the 16 pro (LG panel) for the past 9 months. I do feel a new strain in my eyes with the Air; it’s mild (for now) but definitely present. I checked my panel and I have a G9Q (Samsung?). I have the PWM toggle on, fwiw. If it doesn’t smooth out and become perfect for me in the next few days the Air is going back and I’m sticking with the 16 pro.
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
You're no doubt gutted but you get to go back to an Iphone 6 pro and not an 11 or SE2 like most of us 🤣
Very true, I got lucky with my 16 pro (it’s not perfect, but it’s the easiest on the eyes that I’ve dealt with since the 11).
I have tried and it never goes anywhere. I am going to the media to deal with this as a result. I work in music and have connections in the media and many have expressed interest in doing a story on my experience with this issue.
There is likely a connection between your underlying health and sensitivity. But I believe based on anecdotal data that most people are affected by flicker and screens but it is not severe enough to create a correlation in their mind. It’s often dismissed as age related or blue light or screen time. We are just the ones who are having very severe reactions to problematic technology.
And no, the medical field is woefully ill-prepared to tackle this topic because A. They know very little about the brain and nervous system and B. The technology is so rapidly changing that it’s hard to do an RCT or study that takes several years, not to mention get funding for it.
There is no permanent damage that can be observed within the eye itself, as almost everyone here will attest. We don’t have any technology to properly assess the brain, nerves, or nervous system on a level deep enough to draw any conclusions. All tests will come back normal using current diagnostics.
My health conditions are fairly complex. I’ve had POTS and inappropriate sinus tachycardia since a 2018 flu infection, but was fine with flashing lights, screens, phones until I got COVID in 2022. So even with dysautonomia I was fine until COVID. Doctors are still trying to figure out if there’s an autoimmune connective tissue disease component (MCTD, Lupus) but no one can agree.
The neuro ophthalmologist I saw essentially said COVID is just wrecking people. By treating one of my conditions we end up making the others worse, so it’s a real problem. I’m reticent to mention this because it’s often dismissed, but the doctor actually brought up EMF and 5G. This is a doctor at a major NYC eye center and university. I know nothing about EMF or 5G and didn’t even bring it up - I’ve dismissed it as conspiratorial. Apparently, it is very real, according to this doctor. She told me that for 90% of people it’s safe, but there is a small subset of people - of which constitute the majority of cases she sees and her colleagues see across the country - who are sensitive to these technologies and are very much affected. Honestly, I was shocked. I’m very much grounded in science and reality but when she explained the mechanisms, I couldn’t dismiss it outright.
There are things they wanted to try. They tried different colored lenses (I’ve had visual snow basically since birth) but all of them caused my eyes to shut and a headache. Syntonic light therapy was also an option but in my current diminished health state, I could not tolerate it. Essentially their approach is that I have to try to get my other conditions more under control before my body can even tolerate anything they might be able to try. I was told I was one of the most severe she’s seen, which surprised me since I don’t think of myself as that. But I suppose that’s a bit of denial on my part. You sort of have to be in denial to function when you’re this sick for this long.
I should note I’m pretty young (32) and this all started when I was 29…so age plays no role.
My perspective/hypothesis with all the research I’ve done? I think COVID has played a major role. If you look at “eye strain” as a Google trend it starts spiking as soon as the pandemic hits. Now maybe this can be explained by everyone working from home and being on screens more, but I don’t think that explains why every year we get more and more posts about being unable to use Apple devices in particular.
I think it’s been a perfect storm between the pandemic, Apple silicon, supply chain and quality control issues, increased brightness, and a marketing race to create the brightness, most colorful and vivid, and longest lasting devices by tech companies. This has led to a lot of cutting corners and software tricks (flickering) to meet benchmarks and as a result more and more people are being affected. It doesn’t help that the switch to LEDs in all public places also started in 2020, so people are exposed more often whether it’s streetlights, car headlights, or store lighting. Couple that with a very observable decline in overall health from a global populace being repeatedly infected by a virus that damaged the nervous system and vascular system…yeah, it starts to add up.
I think there’s hope because there are screens we all can use. The difficulty as has been articulated is knowing what is being added to software updates where even a security update can make a device unusable. The issue is these technologies are essentially a black box which leaves us all to use limited tools (Opple, microscopes, oscilloscopes) to try to suss out what is going on. And because there’s variation between even the same device models themselves it makes it even harder.