Cozzyb The popular tricks that people use - greyscale and reduce white point - help to ease the discomfort a bit. Essentially what these tricks do are reducing the amplitude of light modulation (dithering of all phones, and PWM of those with OLED screens) so that we perceive less flickering.
Unfortunately it is not enough to make the problem go away because the dithering and PWM are still there. So if you are on iOS 15 backwards, just hold on to it. Don’t update.
Anyone on iOS 16.2? I feel like that's at least useable for me on the iPhone XR. I don't really get eye discomfort using it. My iPhone 8 is still on iOS 14 though, and I feel like it's superior in terms of eye comfort. Just a shame a lot of apps don't even work on iOS 14 anymore.
I'm on 16.1.1 on my SE 2022
Take a look at my post here:
Based on testing quite a few devices it seems that something changed between iOS 16.1.1 and iOS 16.3.1. (but to be fair I didn't test an XR)
Right from what you wrote, seems like something took a wrong turn between 16.1.1 and 16.3.1, but the problem update could've been 16.3 and not 16.2
Is it temporal dithering that's added?
Well, for better or worse, I can use my iPhone XR with 16.2 indefinitely. But I don't know if I have really bad eyestrain compared to everyone here. I mainly suffer from PWM; I might be able to tolerate dithering to some extent.
I think my wife's laptop is on the latest version of windows 11 (I guess since it automatically updates) and I can use it without issues. I heard that dithering was added at some point.
sakraycore the temporal dithering was added in iOS 17.1.2(i have some proof IMO)
it seems its another effect which cause your eye strain.
I don't have eyestrain with 16.2 and iPhone XR.
Edit: Can I please see the proof that temporal dithering was added in iOS 17.1.2 though?
sakraycore flickersense.org has testing data with a iPhone SE with dithering esp with using dark mode, night shift or reduce white point. I'm sure it's the same on every other device. Apple uses dcip3 and I'm sure these panels are cheap ones
Yep. I suppose it could have changed at different points for different phones as well. I haven't tried an XR in a long time but weirdly I seem to remember that when it came out I tried it and I was not comfortable with the screen. It wasn't the severe symptoms I got when I tried the first OLED iPhone X but it wasn't comfortable either. Back then I kept my iPhone 7 and then eventually upgraded to the SE 2020 which was perfect for my eyes.
This is all super confusing.
It feels like the colors are more vibrant. Maybe that's why.
To be fair, I mostly use my iPhone XR just to play Genshin Impact and watch anime though. And for those purposes it's okay.
I do remember my iPhone XR being slightly more comfortable while on iOS 15 though. Made the mistake of upgrading to iOS 16 one day. And while it's still fine, there is some difference. It's the sort of thing I can adapt to and doesn't make me feel bad at the end though.
twomee here is a link to a video I made. A microscope with slow motion video into Apple device with iOS 17.4
if it doesn’t work, try that:
Sorry, what am I looking at here? It seems to be a static image, but it's somehow making me uncomfortable.
sakraycore you should see the red ones are blinking, this is the temporal dithering IMO
well, iOS 18 is here... anyone tried it? your impression?
twomee it would be really great if you could repeat the test with the iOS 18.
This would be handy! Tempted to try iOS 18 as this 11 is causing issues on 17
TemporalDithering I tried iOS 18 and iOS 18.1 but unfortunately I feel the same strain… can we still hope they will remove it or it will be exist always?
Never had issues on my iPhone 12 (can't use any iphone from 12 or macbook from m1pro)..
Tried updating to IOS 18 and got very strong eye strain.. downgraded back to 17.6..
At this point, I think the dithering can only be discarded if the screen can natively display a very wide color gamut that dithering is not needed anymore. Apparently 10-bit seems not good enough for Apple to discard dithering. I think we will need to wait for a very long time.
The good news is there’s nothing new with recent iOS versions anyway, so we can just stick to our current versions and avoid updating.
