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iPhone 17 Pro Has Toggle to Disable Screen Flickering (PWM)

macduke said:
This is great for people who need it, but quite possible the most niche setting ever added to an iPhone!
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There are many more niche accessibility settings on iPhones. This is one that affects a lot more people than some of those other settings.

There's even scientific studies about flicker that have already shown that invisible flicker affects the brain of people with migraines and puts strain on it. This was done with MRI. We already know from other studies that flicker affects everyone in some way but for sensitive people it's absolute hell. I'm glad Apple is finally doing something about it.
 
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FINALLY! This is incredible news. I've been waiting for this time. Finally can upgrade from my 11 Standard. As others have said, I hope true disabling of PWM is possible, and not just locking at 480 Hz. Fingers crossed - this is big for us PWM sensitive folk.

It's also really sad to see that people who don't experience this issue almost refuse to believe it exists. Humans are strange creatures.
 
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Sadly Apple's insane dithering algorithms will still be in effect I expect, so this will still kill me, but it's worth checking!
AshX said:
You and I are not alone. I’ve done unofficial questionnaires with every user I’ve interacted with and many didn’t have issues until they got COVID. And if they did have sensitivities, it worsened them.

I could tolerate my 2019 iMac that I left on MacOS Mojave - unchanged from when I bought it (it was a music production computer so that’s typical). I got reinfected in July 2024 and couldn’t tolerate the AMD dithering and FRC anymore.

My theory is that in addition to the vascular and neurological destabilization caused by COVID, it also has the potential to lower your critical fusion flicker threshold - AKA the rate at which you perceive flicker and your tolerance for it.

Obviously COVID and long COVID are still essentially a black box that scientists are still trying to understand. I think it’s an unfortunate coincidence that Apple and other companies have really ramped up device brightness and dithering to try to make screens look flashier and more vivid. The PWM frequency and modulation has been particularly bad since the iPhone 14 series, with the latest M4 gen of iPads and MacBooks driving users to Eyestrain subreddits and forums by the week. One user even reported an Apple Store tech was having symptoms.

So this issue really has to be addressed. The flicker portion is the easiest to deal with and the most egregious: PWM and dithering. People in the communities are discussing a class action lawsuit because it has gotten out of hand and up until this rumor, Apple has been silent.

Again, count yourself lucky if you’re reading this thread and don’t have this problem. But shaming people as I’ve seen a lot of people do over the years on this forum is akin to shaming someone for having any other disability or neurological condition. No one here is trying to rag on Apple - this is an industry wide problem.
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Not everything is down to covid.. I and a lot of others had it before then, it's just around the time apple switched to OLED with the regular iPhone 12
 
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This is huge news! Let's see if this feature will become available on my 16 Pro... Otherwise I will probably do an unplanned upgrade (now that the 16 pro has still has some resale value).
 
Harthag said:
It affects many people. Why do you think "flicker free" monitors and TVs became a thing several years ago? Why have OLED TV manufacturers worked to eliminate flicker? Many Android phones, including the Pixel 10 Pro finally, have this option to reduce PWM flicker. This feature is huge and I'm very happy to see Apple doing this.
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100%, waited since iPhone 11 for this, crawling accross the floor due to vertigo induced by PWM is only a joke if it doesn't affect you! Frankly disgusting that Apple did not build this in from day one, when other brands are advertsing flicker free as a selling point.
 
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As someone who is not affected by PWM, this has no affect on me. For those who do, can rejoice. Expect this same setting to arrive on M5 iPad Pro as well.
 
For all those hoping it’s coming to other pre-17 models I would argue let’s hope not. If it was that would mean it’s software based and there’s only so much you can do with that. Essentially turn the hardware brightness to max then dim it using software which still doesn’t work. Asus does this with their OLEDs and I tried it using Betterdisplay on a current gen MacBook Pro and it does very little.
 
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Sheepish-Lord said:
For all those hoping it’s coming to other pre-17 models I would argue let’s hope not. If it was that would mean it’s software based and there’s only so much you can do with that. Essentially turn the hardware brightness to max then dim it using software which still doesn’t work. Asus does this with their OLEDs and I tried it using Betterdisplay on a current gen MacBook Pro and it does very little.
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Apple support has confirmed it is only for the Pro models
 
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AshX said:
You and I are not alone. I’ve done unofficial questionnaires with every user I’ve interacted with and many didn’t have issues until they got COVID. And if they did have sensitivities, it worsened them.

I could tolerate my 2019 iMac that I left on MacOS Mojave - unchanged from when I bought it (it was a music production computer so that’s typical). I got reinfected in July 2024 and couldn’t tolerate the AMD dithering and FRC anymore.

My theory is that in addition to the vascular and neurological destabilization caused by COVID, it also has the potential to lower your critical fusion flicker threshold - AKA the rate at which you perceive flicker and your tolerance for it.

Obviously COVID and long COVID are still essentially a black box that scientists are still trying to understand. I think it’s an unfortunate coincidence that Apple and other companies have really ramped up device brightness and dithering to try to make screens look flashier and more vivid. The PWM frequency and modulation has been particularly bad since the iPhone 14 series, with the latest M4 gen of iPads and MacBooks driving users to Eyestrain subreddits and forums by the week. One user even reported an Apple Store tech was having symptoms.

So this issue really has to be addressed. The flicker portion is the easiest to deal with and the most egregious: PWM and dithering. People in the communities are discussing a class action lawsuit because it has gotten out of hand and up until this rumor, Apple has been silent.

Again, count yourself lucky if you’re reading this thread and don’t have this problem. But shaming people as I’ve seen a lot of people do over the years on this forum is akin to shaming someone for having any other disability or neurological condition. No one here is trying to rag on Apple - this is an industry wide problem.
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Since you’re bringing it up, are you vaxxed as well? If so, the full regiment of boosters etc?
 
JCCL said:
Wow. This is HUGE for those that are sensible to this.
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Now is this feature going to be in the next iPads? Or retrofitted to the existing M4 iPad Pros?

And more to the point we need people to test to ensure it actually does what it's suggesting. I really hope it does.
 
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SpotOnT said:
Can’t wait to see how this works and what the limitations are. I will gladly take a bit of color shift when reducing brightness in exchange for stopping PWM
Click to expand...

Absolutely, and many of us have said the same over recent years and releases.

We appreciate this fix might be at detriment to the overall product but baby steps and all that.
 
1757509841738.png
 
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AshX said:
You and I are not alone. I’ve done unofficial questionnaires with every user I’ve interacted with and many didn’t have issues until they got COVID. And if they did have sensitivities, it worsened them.

I could tolerate my 2019 iMac that I left on MacOS Mojave - unchanged from when I bought it (it was a music production computer so that’s typical). I got reinfected in July 2024 and couldn’t tolerate the AMD dithering and FRC anymore.

My theory is that in addition to the vascular and neurological destabilization caused by COVID, it also has the potential to lower your critical fusion flicker threshold - AKA the rate at which you perceive flicker and your tolerance for it.

Obviously COVID and long COVID are still essentially a black box that scientists are still trying to understand. I think it’s an unfortunate coincidence that Apple and other companies have really ramped up device brightness and dithering to try to make screens look flashier and more vivid. The PWM frequency and modulation has been particularly bad since the iPhone 14 series, with the latest M4 gen of iPads and MacBooks driving users to Eyestrain subreddits and forums by the week. One user even reported an Apple Store tech was having symptoms.

So this issue really has to be addressed. The flicker portion is the easiest to deal with and the most egregious: PWM and dithering. People in the communities are discussing a class action lawsuit because it has gotten out of hand and up until this rumor, Apple has been silent.

Again, count yourself lucky if you’re reading this thread and don’t have this problem. But shaming people as I’ve seen a lot of people do over the years on this forum is akin to shaming someone for having any other disability or neurological condition. No one here is trying to rag on Apple - this is an industry wide problem.
Click to expand...
Agreed, though I almost consider it a case of PWM-sensitive people having more capability (not a disability) to detect the flickering which is why they're affected. For me it wasn't Covid - I've had this sensitivity for decades. For example, when I first started in IT in the mid-1990s people of course used CRT monitors and I could immediately tell visually when someone's monitor was set to 60Hz as opposed to 72Hz. I'd tell them to check their settings and "fix" it since 72Hz is better for them and every time I was right.

Disability or superpower is irrelevant. I just hope they fixed it.
 
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F27 said:
Good to see Apple taking eye care very seriously and I hope others follow their lead offering this option. Also hope it comes to their iPad Pro's.

It's the main reason I've been avoiding OLED for years, was fearful that everything would eventually transition to it. Phones might be OK because it's a 'glance at' device but its a big no no for me on laptops where you might look at it 8 hours a day.

However I think backlit LED is the true future, now they are making them with nano LED's which can produce almost OLED like images without the drawbacks like burn in, shorter life and of course PWM flicker.
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Agreed. miniLED until we get full microLED
 
I'm a bit disappointed it's been confirmed by Apple support it's Pro-only feature. On the other hand it's seems like it's hardware related, so it might not be just some software-only switch.

The weird thing is that I thought the regular iPhone 17 and 17 Pro screens are exactly the same this year.
 
WOW! Is this really happening — can I dare to dream this is the fix?!

As I'm clearly PWM sensitive and have be unable to use any OLED iPhone since the launch of the X - I’ve been teetering on the edge of leaving iPhone for a while now. If this turns out to be the real solution, Apple is about to see some frantic ordering from me: iPad Pro, MacBook, Ultra 3, AirPods Pro 3… the whole lineup.

The standard 17 is all I need and it comes in black (all black everything) - but if it has to be Pro only, so be it. Fingers crossed.
 
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pdoherty said:
Agreed, though I almost consider it a case of PWM-sensitive people having more capability (not a disability) to detect the flickering which is why they're affected. For me it wasn't Covid - I've had this sensitivity for decades. For example, when I first started in IT in the mid-1990s people of course used CRT monitors and I could immediately tell visually when someone's monitor was set to 60Hz as opposed to 72Hz. I'd tell them to check their settings and "fix" it since 72Hz is better for them and every time I was right.

Disability or superpower is irrelevant. I just hope they fixed it.
Click to expand...
There is research that some people can see at a "higher frame rate" than others. And that same population is more susceptible to screen flicker. So yeah, being sensitive to PWM is a feature, not a bug.
 
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So can anyone explain how it is dimming the display? It was always my understand that PWM when dimming was essential for OLED displays
 
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