iPad Pro Has the new iPad Pro OLED screen messed with your eyes?

[The Cockney Rebel]

My eyes seem to have become blurry, and the only thing I can think of is the screen of my new, larger iPad?

If you’ve also noticed this, I‘d appreciate any feedback.

Wishing you all well.

 

[Surfsalot]

How many hours a day are you staring at it 🤓

 

[The Cockney Rebel]

How many hours a day are you staring at it 🤓

I mostly use it, whilst laying in bed.

Could be about three hours?

 

[stevemiller]

Yep this is what I noticed immediately too. for me the oled sub pixel layout makes everything feel slightly out of focus compared to led screens at the same ppi.

An observation ive made is that it seems to feel more pronounced in dark mode, which makes me wonder if it’s also a vision issue. which is still sad because I like to run my devices in dark mode - black levels is one of the main draws for oled.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I mostly use it, whilst laying in bed.

Could be about three hours?

Looking at the iPad for 3 hours a day is not going to make your vision go blurry (in and of itself). I suggest you see your doctor for a new vision test as well as conferring about the possibility of that in conjunction with any meds you may be taking.

 

[Abstract]

It may be PWM-related issues that some people get using OLED screens. Are you getting sore eyes and a slight headache? My wife was getting these symptoms, and we had no idea it was caused by her new (at the time) iPhone 12 Mini.

We just thought it was a normal headache. Also, because she’s in her early 40s, maybe she was starting to suffer from age-related far-sightedness. 🤷🏻‍♂️ She actually is, so she went to the optometrist and got glasses, but the aggravated eyes and headache persisted.

I don’t get these symptoms, but my non-techie wife does, and it took us 6 months to figure out it was her iPhone causing the issue, as neither of us had OLED screens before. 🤷🏻‍♂️

There is a way to reduce PWM effects (worked for my wife!!), but I don’t know if it works on iPads.

Also, I just bought my wife a new iPad Air M2, and obviously that’s LCD. Her new iPhone 15’s OLED screen doesn’t bother her as much as her previous 12 Mini, which caused her headaches for the entire 3-4 years she owned it.

 

[Funny Apple Man]

I doubt its causing permanent vision damage. The worst it'll do is give you eye strain which does make your eyes a bit blurry. Taking short breaks from screens and some eye drops will fix the issue.

 

[The Cockney Rebel]

Thanks for all of your responses.

Im using my 11: 2018 iPad Pro at the moment, and some things are still a bit blurry.

I plan on having an eye test on Saturday.

Years ago, I got quite bad short sightedness, and it turned out to be the lighting at the gym I was using that caused it!

Ill let you know how it goes with my eye test.

Wishing you all well.

 

[A.R.E.A.M.]

no, and i edit video and color grade on it.

 

[ProbablyDylan]

Yes, but due to the brightness. Nothing like being flashbanged in bed because I forgot had the brightness turned all the way up earlier in the day.

 

[stevemiller]

what drives me bonkers about this situation is i can switch between my iphone (oled), macbook pro (mini led) and ipad (oled) and only the ipad gives me this blurry hazy viewing discomfort. and it's immediate and goes away the moment i go back to a different screen. i know people have been going on about pwm for a while, and since i had no issues with my iphone, i assumed it did not affect me. but whatever is going on with me and this ipad is absolutely miserable.

 

[The Cockney Rebel]

what drives me bonkers about this situation is i can switch between my iphone (oled), macbook pro (mini led) and ipad (oled) and only the ipad gives me this blurry hazy viewing discomfort. and it's immediate and goes away the moment i go back to a different screen. i know people have been going on about pwm for a while, and since i had no issues with my iphone, i assumed it did not affect me. but whatever is going on with me and this ipad is absolutely miserable.

What model/size did you buy?

 

[stevemiller]

What model/size did you buy?

M4 11”

i assumed it was the resolution causing eye strain, but now I do wonder if there’s something else at play. I even have a cheap old low res monitor where the pixels are plainly visible that doesn’t cause this kind of immediate eye strain.

Honestly trying to make sense of it. Could whatever this dual layer oled technology be causing any issues? Like can they be slightly out of alignment or something?

 

[DGGoingUphill]

It took me a while to get used to it. What I think was really happening was that I didn’t realize how bright it was, especially in dim settings. If it’s later in the night, I tend to only have the brightness up a notch or two from all the way down.

 

[Jackbequickly]

It is not the iPad Pro that is making you blind!

 

[AphraB]

I’ve turned off True Tone, set white point at 50%, and turned off promotion and auto brightness. That’s made a significant difference.

 

[Abstract]

what drives me bonkers about this situation is i can switch between my iphone (oled), macbook pro (mini led) and ipad (oled) and only the ipad gives me this blurry hazy viewing discomfort. and it's immediate and goes away the moment i go back to a different screen. i know people have been going on about pwm for a while, and since i had no issues with my iphone, i assumed it did not affect me. but whatever is going on with me and this ipad is absolutely miserable.

Different screens have different PWM frequencies, so that may be it. Hard to say. My wife’s iPhone 15 bothers her much, much less than her 12 Mini. She uses it without needing to reduce white point.

On iPhones, the fix is to turn “Auto Screen Brightness” off, and use your screen at near max brightness all the time, which is where the OLED screen is flashing at the highest frequency.

Next, under Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size, turn on ”Reduce White Point”, and adjust the perceived brightness using the slider.


That’s it. Now you’re running your screen at max brightness (i.e. higher frequency) more often than before.

If you want to reduce brightness, then manually reduce the display brightness, as usual. No need to play with the Reduce White Point slider again.

The downside of this is that your screen brightness will ALWAYS be darker than it could be. Also, no auto-brightness.

 

[stevemiller]

Different screens have different PWM frequencies, so that may be it. Hard to say. My wife’s iPhone 15 bothers her much, much less than her 12 Mini. She uses it without needing to reduce white point.

On iPhones, the fix is to turn “Auto Screen Brightness” off, and use your screen at near max brightness all the time, which is where the OLED screen is flashing at the highest frequency.

Next, under Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size, turn on ”Reduce White Point”, and adjust the perceived brightness using the slider.


That’s it. Now you’re running your screen at max brightness (i.e. higher frequency) more often than before.

If you want to reduce brightness, then manually reduce the display brightness, as usual. No need to play with the Reduce White Point slider again.

The downside of this is that your screen brightness will ALWAYS be darker than it could be. Also, no auto-brightness.

I’ll have to play around with these settings, thanks! I appreciate you taking the discomfort some of us experience with some empathy. It is often discouraging to come on here frustrated by a problem only to have people dismiss it outright if it doesn’t directly affect them.

 

[sparksd]

I’ll have to play around with these settings, thanks! I appreciate you taking the discomfort some of us experience with some empathy. It is often discouraging to come on here frustrated by a problem only to have people dismiss it outright if it doesn’t directly affect them.

Yeah, in this thread I had some back and forth with someone who felt pwm issues are a figment of the imagination for only users on this forum -

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ive-decided-ill-get-the-m4-ipad-pro-if.2424616/

Discussion on this started on the 4th page. I sympathize with people who have this issue - it's real.

 

[dmccombs]

My eyes seem to have become blurry, and the only thing I can think of is the screen of my new, larger iPad?

If you’ve also noticed this, I‘d appreciate any feedback.

Wishing you all well.

No, why do you ask?

 

[Samut]

My eyes seem to have become blurry, and the only thing I can think of is the screen of my new, larger iPad?

If you’ve also noticed this, I‘d appreciate any feedback.

Wishing you all well.

Unfortunately you are most likely one of the unfortunate ones affected by pulse width modulation (PWM) which us often associated with Oled screens. Other cause could be some image processing (dithering, etc) that Apple does.

Some other manufacturers have done measures to mitigate this problem but unfortunately Apple has not taken this issue seriously.

Theres more than 400 pages of discussion about the problem on this forum: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/eye-strain-while-using-iphone-x-and-up.2085427/page-440

 

[sziehr]

what’s funny is i have an iphone 15 pro and i know it has PWM, i have exactly 0 issues with it. I have no issues with the iphone 15 pro max. The M4 ipad is seemingly a whole new beast and it is def causing me more eye strain than any other OLED i have used to date. So how i am not impacted by the phones 1 bit but the ipad makes me go wth, and blink way more than the iphone does.

 

[AphraB]

what’s funny is i have an iphone 15 pro and i know it has PWM, i have exactly 0 issues with it. I have no issues with the iphone 15 pro max. The M4 ipad is seemingly a whole new beast and it is def causing me more eye strain than any other OLED i have used to date. So how i am not impacted by the phones 1 bit but the ipad makes me go wth, and blink way more than the iphone does.

Happy to report that after a month of regular use I’m experiencing almost no discomfort.

 

[d5aqoëp]

At the age 35-45, there is a chance of getting reading specs. Check if you’re getting reading glasses if you’re in that age group.

 

[Cosmo M3]

All the screens I have in my home are OLED (LG C1, C2, etc) and I don’t have these issues, but during my most recent optometrist visit, they told me that I was tad far-sighted.

I don’t think OLED screens had anything to do with it, but staring at a screen close to your face for a long isn’t good for you regardless of screen type. Going outside and getting some sunlight is a good reset for me.