Eye strain with iOS 16 and iOS 17 - do NOT update iOS

Recently upgraded to IOS 16.5 from IOS 15 and left without phone. I was using Iphone X, it do not gave me any serious issues(all other OLED Iphones not usable for me) until IOS 16.5, after upgrade I have same issue as from other higher Iphone OLED models. And most interesting thing here, that it not possible to downgrade.

I suspect the temporal dithering technology was introduced since ios 15 and was much worse since ios 16.

My ipad air 2 was made useless since the upgrade to ios 15, while my iphone se 2020 got a little more uncomfortable to look at on ios 15. And ios 16 was the final nail to the coffin that made my iphone become useless (my ipad air 2 does not get to have ios 16 update, but it is already useless anyway). My devices are all LCD display ones so PWM will not be the reason of eye strain here, and I could use them comfortably before ios 15-16.

This is not the first time I’ve seen people talking about the same idea. Many devices suddenly became useless after ios 16 upgrade, according to multiple posts online.

My iphone right now is on an ios 17 beta version and I can confirm that the eye strain still persists, so anyone on any ios version of 14 or earlier should NOT try to take the risk of upgrading your ios to any newer version. Stay on ios 14 or earlier versions to be safe. Also if you want to purchase a legacy iphone or ipad, you should check which ios version it will run on. If you buy a device which has ios 16 out of the box, it is very likely to be a wrong purchase.

I can’t believe why Apple is allowed to make such a radical change to the display rendering and not make any statement about it anywhere.

[deleted] would you say iOS 17 is more comfortable than iOS 16? I’m thinking of updating my phone (on iOS 15.2) but like you, i also discovered that iOS 16 felt worse than iOS 15 on my iPad, hence why I didn’t update my phone

earlgreymilktea09 iOS 17 and iOS 16 look the same to me now, the headache is still there. I'd strongly recommend that you keep your phone on iOS 15 and wait. Or better, you can borrow an iphone with iOS 16 and see for yourself. But based on the case of your iPad, I don't think you will be happy with iOS 16 on your iPhone either.

I hate that many apps don't support me anymore. I'm on 14.8 until the screen falls off.

Clokwork Same situation. Let's see if i will be able to use the iphone 15 with ios17..

Has anyone had this fixed by updating to any of the iOS 17 versions? I had the same issue mentioned on this thread when I updated one of my 1st Generation iPad Pros to iOS 16.5. Because of this I luckily did not update my iPhone SE 2022 (which I can look at for hours with no issues). If you read down the thread you'll see that someone mentioned iOS 17 Beta 6 as fixing the problem.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PWM_Sensitive/comments/14d9fzd/do_not_upgrade_to_ios_165_w_iphone_se_2022/

I also have trouble with what seems like most "new" screens on laptops, many cars, etc. I've been assuming that this was something to do with hardware/led wavelengths/etc. I guess the fact that a software update can make a perfectly usable phone "bad" gives me a little bit of hope in that some day someone will figure this out with a software fix.

ocean10 sounds like emulators. Thinking about how they emulate old games, we'll be emulating old devices heh.

m1ngw Thanks for mentioning this! I've wanted such a feature (greyscale with faint colors) for a very long time.

ocean10

ocean10 I was on iOS 17 Beta too but did not notice any good. That guy was lucky to find a beta version that worked for him. It seems that we may have to wait for the next iOS, the current one is clearly not usable.

m1ngw thanks for the suggestion. I’m trying greyscale now to see how it turns out. It’s ironic that the damn billion-color technology thing is forcing us to reduce colors as much as possible.

[deleted] I updated my iPad to iOS 17. At first it felt better than ios16.5 but I felt The Eye fatigue after prolonged usage. Guess I’m probably gonna keep my phone on iOS 15. Sucks that we’re stuck on older firmware :/

You should feel lucky that you still have a device on iOS 15 to use. Many already updated and there are no going back now.

I don't believe any IOS moving forward is going to work well. Until they change screen technology to something more eye friendly, I don't think we really have a chance unfortunately.

Can anyone with an iPhone SE 2020 confirm the gray-scale trick above has made the phone usable again?

I tried reducing the colour saturation using the greyscale option and it seems to help. unfortunately I need give the 13 mini back so I can't use it for much longer. I've never had a problem with the SE 2020 or SE 2022 phones though I still prefer the screen of the original SE. will see if I can get another mini

My 15 pro arrived yesterday. Desaturated the colours - no luck. Eyes felt like they were burning. Sorry Apple it’s going back. I will stick with the SE2022. Maybe I will try a 13 mini again with the return policy.