Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up

[DJTaurus]

I’m thinking the same and use 2 devices. How was the 16plus compared to the 16e for you?

It was better but but but…… after my short experience even with air i still can’t stand large screens…..one hand usage is a must to me. Despite air is super thin and light you still can’t use it one hand.

 

[PwmMen]

From minute 9.20 Aaron talks about PWM
And also shows the difference with and without a PWM option compared to the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
You can see a big difference. I can use the iPhone 17 Pro Max without any problems even with 120Hz.

 

[ultravegeta1981]

From minute 9.20 Aaron talks about PWM
And also shows the difference with and without a PWM option compared to the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
You can see a big difference. I can use the iPhone 17 Pro Max without any problems even with 120Hz.

Yeah but the pwm off switch only works below 25% isn’t it?

 

[ghanwani]

In the spirit of “if you can’t be heard, take action”, I wonder if there is an estimate of how many people some the world are affected by our issue? If the number is large enough, would it make sense for an entrepreneur to make a dedicated phone? I assume it would have to be Android though. Imagine there is a 0.1% that could be more than 1M people. If the phone was sold for $1000 that could be a $1B revenue. It seems it could be a good business plan

TCL is already doing it for much less so it would be hard for a niche player. The phone market is very competitive. You have big players like Sony, Nokia, Microsoft exiting or exited.

 

[now i see it]

Also animations still stay the same, I believe these animations might cause motion sickness

Close your eyes before a screen animation occurs - and when scrolling. That's what I've been doing for many years. Any time anything moves on the screen, scrolling included, the pixels have to refresh. Its another form of flicker. Either 60hz or 120 hz or lower now with adaptive refresh.
There's no escape except to literally not look at it when its happening.

 

[AshX]

I cannot help wondering if this obsession with creating brighter and brighter screens is contributing to the problem. I really don’t understand what this mania for insanely bright screens is all about. I’ve always had the brightness on my phone turned right down, and that’s on screen that can get nowhere as bright as current iPhone screens.

Absolutely. I went to a T-Mobile store to try out the 17’s and interestingly none of them has the PWM toggle. I checked several. It seems their store mode doesn’t include it as it’s at max brightness.

The employee did mention to me several people had complained that the screens were too bright - people not affected by PWM. Apple only cares about marketing benchmarks and being able to say the screen is brighter and has better battery and more vivid colors than the previous model.

In the spirit of “if you can’t be heard, take action”, I wonder if there is an estimate of how many people some the world are affected by our issue? If the number is large enough, would it make sense for an entrepreneur to make a dedicated phone? I assume it would have to be Android though. Imagine there is a 0.1% that could be more than 1M people. If the phone was sold for $1000 that could be a $1B revenue. It seems it could be a good business plan

I would make the argument nearly everyone is sensitive to flicker. It’s just that most people aren’t as severely affected and don’t get severe neurological and visual symptoms. They may just write off their symptoms as blue light, age, being on the phone too long, etc. So everyone is being affected, we are just the canaries in the proverbial coal mine raising the alarm that the reliance on PWM and dithering is harmful.

And yes, Apple makes a point about being health and environmentally conscious. They are missing a large market. Just look at Whole Foods. People will pay a premium to not be poisoned.

Can someone please try to educate me?

I’ve been stuck with an iPhone SE as I originally purchased the iPhone X and had immediate issues, back before I knew this was even a thing.

How are some people having luck with certain phones over others? Aren’t the issues themselves consistent with all these phones? I have no issue using the SE because it’s an LCD screen, so I’m wondering how one person can have issues with the new screens and another have no issues at all?

There are variations in panel design and calibration even within the same device model, which is partially why. Some panels even have different pixel arrangement, modulation depth, and PWM frequency. Some are more inclined to dither than others. There are many factors and unfortunately because we don’t know what is occurring under the hood, we are left to make reasonable deductions based on the evidence we can gather using diagnostic tools and panel serial numbers.

It would take literally hundreds of devices being tested to truly understand what is occurring. But that is simply an unreasonable ask for consumers and should be taken by the company and panel manufacturers prior to release and shipment. In other words; testing and quality control, of which clearly there is very little these days.

It’s like playing the lottery. Lose and you get a seizure or a migraine. Win and well, congratulations, you get a usable device for a few years. Truly ridiculous times we are living in where corporate greed supersedes health in all sectors of life.

 

[now i see it]

One idea (I haven't tried) is to wear dark glasses when using an OLED iphone and set the screen brightness to Maximum. Max brightness has the best PWM modulation for the eyes but its way too bright except in direct sunlight. The dark glasses would offset the screen brightness. Sure, battery would take a hit - but maybe the phone could at least be usable.
Might be worth trying.

 

[MICHAELSD]

One idea (I haven't tried) is to wear dark glasses when using an OLED iphone and set the screen brightness to Maximum. Max brightness has the best PWM modulation for the eyes but its way too bright except in direct sunlight. The dark glasses would offset the screen brightness. Sure, battery would take a hit - but maybe the phone could at least be usable.
Might be worth trying.

I’ve quite literally tried running an iPhone X at max brightness and probably iPhone 12 Pro Max as well as iPhone 13 mini and that didn’t help whatsoever. It’s not worth these lengths.

That being said, I just want an iPhone that does what I need it to do: no more, no less. I could make an argument for any iPhone this generation so I’m just waiting for more measurements to decide which is going to be the easiest on the eyes since there is variance between color accuracy as well as PWM rates and modulations.

 

[ghanwani]

I’ve quite literally tried running an iPhone X at max brightness and probably iPhone 12 Pro Max as well as iPhone 13 mini and that didn’t help whatsoever. It’s not worth these lengths.

In that case maybe your sensitivity is to dithering as well, not just PWM.

 

[MICHAELSD]

In that case maybe your sensitivity is to dithering as well, not just PWM.

I’m okay with dithering, just extremely sensitive to PWM/flicker and specifically this high-modulation flicker on smartphones. Although I suppose iPads and MacBooks have gotten just as bad with their OLED and Mini-LED displays.