I have been trying to find an iPad to use that will be comfortable, for longer browsing sessions since my iPhone 13 Mini gives me some eye strain due to pwm.

I tried an iPad Pro 11”, with the m2 chip. it wasn’t bad- no real eye strain, though I’d occasionally get dry/burning eyes.

I picked up 9th generation iPad, due to the very low sale price ($250), and the fact that besides no pwm, it does not have P3 colors, so no temporal dithering. this one started off ok- only occasional dry eyes. But after a few weeks, it’s like a sunburn on my eyes each time I use it.

Last year I tried the 10th generation iPad- Sam’s specs with no p3 colors, so no temporal dithering and no pwm- but the burning dry eyes were immediate, from day 1.

Same goes with Air 5th generation that I tried last year- the effect was immediate from day 1.

sweat I’m finding of course is that the dry, burning eyes occur with or without temporal dithering- and without pwm being in the mix.

I am at a loss as to what these displays do that can cause this particular symptom, when there is no flickering?

I can use my Dell Latitude laptop for work all day long with no issues, so some led displays are clearly no issue.

I don’t expect a diagnosis of my particular situation, but I’m curious if anyone knows the technical details around what might be different on these iPad displays vs other devices that make them a potential problem for some people.

You might want to look at what iOS the devices were using when you were testing all of these. I previously had been hanging on to an iPad Pro 1st generation because it gave me absolutely no symptoms (I get a general unease/warm feeling/nausea/dizziness/ and even sometimes muscle pain from many (all?) the modern Apple screens). For phones I've been able to use the SE series.

Last year I bought a refurbished iPad Pro of the same generation so I had a backup. It was fine on the setup screen but part of the set up process updated it to the most recent iOS (which was 16.5 at that point). As soon it finished updating I had symptoms. My old iPad gives me no symptoms at all and I can look at it for hours. Looking at the two screens next to each other I can't perceive anything different visually. But one now makes me sick and one doesn't.

Seems like something in the iOS 16 series (and also in iOS 17) changed. Not sure if temporal dithering was introduced or if it is something else. But if you search around you'll see other people with similar issues.

I have an iPhone SE 2022 still running on iOS 16.1.1 and it's fine. It's causing me a lot of anxiety because if I have to replace it for any reason it will come with iOS 17 and presumably not be useable. (All of the OLED iPhones give me bad symptoms immediately when I look at them).

I wish I could figure out what is going on. I guess the only potential positive is that it seems to be a software change that introduced these symptoms so presumably this could be fixed for some of us.

dev