Hi there, I’ve been dealing with eye strain issues on certain Apple devices ever since I tried the iPhone X back in 2016. Since then, the list of unusable Apple products has grown much larger, and I thought I’d write down my findings and potentially try to find others with a similar device compatibility set. I’ve noticed a few key things that may be helpful in narrowing down what’s going on here. To start off, here’s what I can use with no symptoms & what I can’t use without feeling some symptoms: Can Use: -iPhone 8+ (All iPhones before this are fine as well) -iPad 6th Gen -iPad 7th Gen -Macbook Pro 2015 Can’t Use -iPhone X/XS/11 Pro (PWM) -iPhone XR/11 -iPad Pro 2018 -iPad Air 2019 -iPad 8th Gen -Macbook Pro 16” 2019 Now, the OLED devices are kind of self-explanatory (PWM), but I was really surprised when I got the XR (LCD screen, has no PWM) and started having similar symptoms as with the OLED devices (After using the device for 20-30 mins, my eyes would feel itchy, and I’d have a throbbing pain around them). This continued when I got the 11, iPad Pro 2018, iPad Air, etc, they all gave me the same symptoms. Just to make 100% sure this wasn’t any kind of user-changeable software/hardware thing, I have thoroughly messed with every possible display setting on iOS, and have gone as far as blocking out the Face ID sensor (Though I still get symptoms on non-Face ID devices anyway). I’ve also seen several eye doctors, been checked for glasses, etc, no dice. So, the point of all this is: Based on my list of usable devices, the one thing that stands out to me the most is the A12 chip. Disregarding the iPhone X/XS/11 Pro (PWM), the clear cutoff of when these LCD devices started giving me symptoms is if they have the A12 (Or better) chip or not. I got this idea because a friend of mine let me use his new iPad 8th Gen recently, and I had the same symptoms. Considering that the 8th Gen is *EXACTLY* the same as the 7th gen aside from the A12 chip, I believe that this may be the main factor of whether a device will cause eye strain for us. Though, I have no idea what exactly Apple did with this chip, it may be that they started doing something graphics-wise in these A12+ devices (Temporal dithering? Some other kind of flickering? No clue). Considering all of this, I’m posting this in hopes that there are others who have this same set of symptoms with these devices, and hopefully we can compare experiences with other devices or potentially come up with solutions. I’m especially interested in hearing if people with these same issues have problems with devices like the iPad Mini 2019 and iPhone SE 2020, as they have the A12 chip as well & I haven’t been able to test those out. Most importantly, I also think it would be helpful to have an ongoing thread where we can discuss new devices as they come out and see if they give us the same issues. So, if your symptoms seem to only happen while on an A12 or better iOS device, please feel free to share your situation and let’s see if we can figure this out.

Hi, First time I have experienced eye strain was two months ago, with a Samsung S 20. Before that, I have been using Samsung S7 without any problems for 2 years and an Samsung S 10e for about a year. With S10e I had problems in beginning, but I did not give too much attention to it , and now I could see why was that happening. I was using Apple iPhone SE 2020 since release, without problems. Then, I got a goid deal for S20 5G and I purchased it. It was first time that I experienced so heavy headaches and strain from one device. Returned it in 3 days. Then, I thought, it was because OLED, i will buy iPhone 11, it will be the last iPhone with IPS LCD. It was not so bad as S20, but I would get headaches after a day of very light usages, just checking sms and emails. So, iP 11 whent back, I am again on SE 2020. Currently, I am also using iPad Mini 5 and MacBook Pro 13 2019 without problems ( knock, knock ). Would also love to hear experiences with another devices, but I think that it is the end of the road regarding Apple devices for me.

Only difference with these devices, that I have found, is touch sample rate, which is 120Hz for devices from X and afterwards. [https://www.google.at/amp/s/wccftech.com/iphone-xs-120hz-touch-sample-rate-explained/amp/](url)

Can use: Ipad 2018 - with reduce white point on the first (lowest) or higher settings. With this turned off is ok for a short time, but then I get pain in my eyes. Its like its too bright even if I lower the brightness. (I have tried to 'trick' myself that its on when its not but it always seems to hurt unless I turn it on) BUT I had this similar issue with an LG G6 but eventually was able to use it with the screen warmness OFF (not exactly the same but you get me) and I dont use the ipad as much but I've had it a couple years now. Iphone 8 plus, seems fine but not used for significant periods of time Cant use: Macbook pro 13 2015, had to sell it. Would almost immediatly (talking minutes of use) get a significant headache that was like a burning pressure within my head, my eyes would get sore and hurt all round the eye (guessing eye muscles), afterwards I would have a 'hangover' from it for 1-3 days where the pain and disorentation would persist and gradually get better without use. Tried to get use to it for more than a year, sold it. Tried Ubuntu on it, W10 and a few other random Linux versions and still had this issue even with external monitors - tried all sort of color profiles and screen filters and running in safe mode (sort of helped that) but in the end it just wasnt usable for me. (Have exactly the same issue with a T460 that I had to sell and a work Dell lattitue, neither of which I could use for more than a few minutes without the same sort of pain, even with external monitors) Also anything with an OLED screen, my work samsung A6 has PWM at 230ish hz and I cant use it. The Dell laptop has PWM at 1000hz but even with external screens causes me issues (PWM affects me but not as intense as whatever dithering etc the Mac / Dell uses etc) I had a galaxy S6 years ago (broke it) that had an OLED screen that was fine though. Maybe it had PWM or maybe it didnt - maybe it caused all my problems who knows.

@"HAL9000"#p14506 For what it's worth, I found the iPad 8th gen to be extremely unusable, and returned it. Same with the newest iPad mini (also A12). My girlfriend has iPad 7th gen, and I don't remember it being that bad. Actually I tried the 8th gen based on my good experience with it, and the understanding that the panel should be very similar. I will try and spend some time with it.

In my opinion the problem is software. I can use my iPhone 6 and my old iPad with iOS 10 for hours, but I have problems with my father iPhone 6s and iPad mini with iOS 13. I could use my grandma iPhone 8 plus without problems with iOS 11, but now with iOS 13 I have problems. For the l'iPhone xs or xs max it could be an hardware problem too, maybe oled screeen? I always notice a ghost effect of the words when scrolling, and I get headache in 5 minutes.

@"degen"#p14604 That’s interesting that you seem to have a problem with A12 devices like I do. Have you tried any others? (XR/11/iPad Pro 2018, etc)?

iMac 2017 is the most eye-straining device for me. I've accustomed to it little by little, but only after applying some tweaks (Gamma Control with max brightness, color profile, native resolution, etc.). I hope one day I can find a way to switch off temporal dithering on it. I tried to use this Mac in BootCamp recently, and to my surprise, it was much worse than under macOS. I felt strain after one hour (that didn't happen before: on the same machine BootCamp was much more relaxing). Scrolling was especially straining. I think this screen applies some PWM below max brightness. Plus it's a slow matrix. So it might be a hardware issue. People at MacRumors mentioned "screen lottery", meaning you may get a good or a bad Mac. I didn't try other Macs though, except in the store. As to mobile, I do not have strain from iPhone SE 1st Gen and iPad 6th Gen (2018), but I generally feel that my old Moto is more relaxing for the eyes. Not that bright and vibrant. My impression is also that with every version iOS has more and more vivid and bright colors. Right after I upgraded iPhone SE to iOS 14, I had to turn the brightness down a bit. Also, scrolling is easier on the eyes on Android. Among other Apple devices that I tried in the store, I did not like iPad Pro 2018 and MacBook Pro 16 (some sort of dizziness immediately). So this might be in line with the others' experience.

A family member of mine who is doing visual rehab therapy at Salus University was told by the staff there that he should switch from Windows based machines to to Apple. We are currently use a macbook air and the symptoms are softer with that product.

@"annv"#p14617 iPhone 6s: scrolling with iOS 10 is much more relaxing than with iOS 13. Since iOS 13 I notice a bad ghost effect while scrolling

@"halkatzen"#p14618 Mmm, nothing personal, but I do not think there is a solid foundation behind that suggestion. There are plenty of people here who can't use Mac devices / recent Apple OSs **anymore**.

Looking for people with similar reactions to certain Apple devices

Deepdeep

brvideo I changed my room lighting to a 40W "warm/milky?" incandescent a few days ago and it feels better than the LED tubelight I had earlier (which wasn't too bad even if a bit too bright), and also the "daylight" CFL and the small flickerless LED tube I tried for a few days each before the incandescent. A change in lighting might ease the strain from the monitors a bit (it might take a couple of days to really feel the difference). The amplitude of the flicker from incandescents and cfls is (generally) less than that of LEDs with flicker I think, and also their colour spectrum might be easier on our eyes methinks coz I found the flickerless LED a bit harsh even though it was just 5W … but I need to go back and try it again to be sure.

mike

brvideo Have you tried patching/covering one eye?

brvideo

I'm not using any electronic lighting in my home office where I've been working for the last two years. And nothing has changed. There is a cathedral ceiling with a window behind me that lets some sunlight in. Most of the wall is behind closed vertical blinds but there is some light coming from the very top. But I don't think that's a cause. If it's raining and really dark I do have a desk lamp but I rarely turn it on except maybe at night and that's not when I'm working.

I have played with patching one eye just to see what happens, and yes, there is a great deal less pain. But, I can't work like that for any length of time nor would I even want to try and adapt to it. I did mention this to my eye doctor and asked if this means I have "binocular vision" or some similar ailment. He said everybody uses both eyes to create images and sometimes there are differences in perception but nothing is wrong with my eyes in that regard.

mike

brvideo I have played with patching one eye just to see what happens, and yes, there is a great deal less pain. But, I can't work like that for any length of time nor would I even want to try and adapt to it.

For me training with one eye covered/patched have made my brain / eye muscles to relearn so I can use all screens with both eyes, as a normal person. Before I couldn’t use any LED-screen never than 2011, that was a big problem. So for me it was a total game changer.

So it’s not about trying to adapt, is a relearning/reprogramming process.

If it works with patching you should start to train with one eye, and hopefully you will have the same success as me.

studioceleste

francerex
Thanks for letting me know you're running the latest iOS on the 8 and that it's still fine for your eyes. I'll start digging around to find a used 8 with decent storage and hang tight until they introduce phones that don't make me sick.

Interesting about Apple, but if they do remedy it they'll just introduce the new tech with fancy marketing words so that people won't even realize it's less harmful for their eyes. Let's hope it makes it to a stage to be remedied!

augusto

I have the same symptoms as you described with the same devices.

However I can use iPhone 11, XR e SE just fine (LCD ones).

To my surprise I can not use the new MacBook pros nor the new studio display.

I use to work at Apple as a software engineer and I’ve raise this concern with the display team which tried their best to understand what was wrong with me/the screens, the guess is the PWM but it is still unknown since the XDR displays (new iPad 11 inch, MacBooks and studio display) have much higher frequency than iphone oled displays and I still can’t use it.

ryans

augusto I use to work at Apple as a software engineer and I’ve raise this concern with the display team

The obvious temporal dithering is another culprit 🙂? And whatever this flicker is.

pushupsandcode

augusto what's your opinion on the way macOS renders fonts? Eye strain and migraines worsened for me when I switched from video editing on my 2019 16in MBP to studying and coding. It was impossible to focus and had to take breaks every 10-15 minutes.

A quick search revealed more and more software developers have issues with Apple products, and I found the way macOS handles text rendering is different than in Windows and Linux. I found Ubuntu to be the best for my poor set of eyes, to the point I find myself hyperfocused for the entire day without breaks, and the difference here might be due to font hinting.

And for me, there's also something about having to scale the resolution in 4K screens. Everything is either too small at native resolution, or too blurry when scaled in macOS (and I've tried just about everything to fix the eye strain from text reading and writing).

By the way, the Touchbar on my MBP flickers like crazy when recorded in slow motion with a phone camera. There are so many variables at play here, I'm confident my issue is not restricted to PWM alone.

madmozg

augusto hey man, I have the same problem. I also thought that iphone 11 was the first OLED display, no? Also I dont have any problems with my macbook pro 15 2018. Only with macbook pros with M1 and studio display. 🙁

augusto

I recently also cancelled my Tesla model y order after test driving it and finding out the screen gives me eye strain, nausea and migraine. 🤦‍♂️

Sunspark

pushupsandcode You can check what settings are set by running the gnome tweaks app. If not installed, install it. Then look at the fonts section, my guess is that it'll say slight hinting, greyscale AA.

You should determine if on your MBP Ubuntu is rendering using the discrete AMD driver or the integrated Intel one since you have both in your MBP. Do you know? Check in system settings about/details to see, or type glxinfo | grep OpenGL

pushupsandcode

Sunspark Unfortunately, having Ubuntu on my Macbook was short-lived, even though it looked gorgeous and relaxing on the Retina screen. It was overheating to the point that it was crashing every few minutes.

But just before that I've managed to install Tweaks and see that Hinting was enabled at slight (it looked better at full), and AA was at subpixel. The AMD was recognized and working, but I don't know if that was the one rendering. Anyways, I've already reset it and put it for sale, and not willing to have another 3 day migraine. I got a used Thinkpad E15 Gen 2 for €330 (arrived this morning), been testing Ubuntu all day, so far no eye strain, no headaches and works great. I will keep testing.

alie

bkdo we are exactly the same. Could you find a solution? My iPhone 7 Plus and MacBook Pro 2013 are about to die.

ocean10

How is everyone on this thread doing now? Has anyone been able to figure things out? Much of this sounds so similar to me. I use an iPhone SE 2022 on iOS 16.1.1 but gradually finding that apps don't support the early iOS 16 versions and I'm running out of ideas as to how to proceed forward.

I even accidentally updated an old iPhone 7 to a recent version of iOS 15 (still gets "security updates" but must be something else that changed a well) and can't use that anymore . I summarized some things in a post a few months ago:

https://ledstrain.org/d/2683-severe-symptoms-updating-old-iphone-started-a-summary-of-goodbad-versions

I noticed some people haven't posted here in a while. Wishful thinking is that some of you found solutions…….

alie

I had iPhone 7 plus and happy with it. I could not upgrade due to eye fatigue problem.

Finally I had to upgrade to iphone 15 pro. First 2 weeks was difficult but I got used to it.

ocean10

alie

What were your symptoms when you first got the iPhone 15 Pro? When I tried that phone it just feels like it wipes me out. Not really eyestrain but just this weird dizziness, general unease, sometimes a pressure feeling. Even using the phone for a few minutes leaves me with symptoms that last quite a while (sometimes hours). Symptoms seem strong enough that it's hard to imagine using it for two weeks but if it's possible to adapt that would be incredible.

alie

ocean10

My stmptoms were headache, sickness, neck pain.

Clokwork

I'll let you know when the 16 comes out. I "need" to update. My current phone can update to the latest, but I need to keep it as my safe option. Word is the iPhone 16 will have an updated OLED panel with the only improvement being a technique to focus the light of the pixels more directly to give the panel more brightness. I believe this could make current panels actually worse for some of us, but I have no data to back this up. I say this because it's essentially focusing more of what's happening per pixel to your eyes/brain. Either way, hopefully I can get used to it since it's not a TV or monitor and I don't have to stare at it for long periods of time.

I do, however, have issues currently with modern iPhones that when I look away from the panel after using it, I feel a bit "off". By that, the best way I can describe it is that when I look away from the phone after use it, I feel just a little disoriented and don't feel like my eyes focus well on things around me. It's not disabling. Just uncomfortable. This is something I hope I can adjust to.

beyondthelight

I have the same problem with digital screens, i feel disoriented after seeing them, im not sure if this is by design or by mistake, reminds me of the insects that fly around blue lights all disoriented until they die electrocuted, there something in certain types of light that disorients the mind of living organisms. This is especially noticeable in old fluorescent white tubes and modern led light, which both are luminescent, the contrary to incandescence light. The only solution i have found is to switch to incandescent displays.

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