Looking for people with similar reactions to certain Apple devices
- Edited
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.
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!
- Edited
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.
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. 
- Edited
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.
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.
- Edited
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.
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
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.
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:
I noticed some people haven't posted here in a while. Wishful thinking is that some of you found solutions…….
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.
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.
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.
- Edited
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.