Just to make sure, this screen protector does not cancel polarization yet it still has a beneficial effect? Would be interesting to see how this compares with the tracing paper trick and test with polarized sunglasses.
I disabled dithering on Apple silicon + Introducing Stillcolor macOS M1/M2/M3
@aiaf do you think you can create stillcolor for iOS off this ?
https://github.com/anthonya1999/GoodNight
jordan the only thing that still works in that on modern iOS 16/17 is the white point slider (it lets you set an even darker white point than the limit)
a lot of the other private APIs got patched out it seems or maybe just changed, because the other sliders cause an immediate app crash
maybe something is possible for jailbroken devices though? or there's other private APIs on modern ios that haven't been found yet
DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs
Well I mean he is using IOMobileFramebuffer to modify those settings so I was wondering if dithering can be disabled hooking into that? (If that's the correct way to say it lol) it's a non jailbroken app that was made for much older iOS version. Curious if a modern version could be made that also does what still color does.
Btw reduce white point brings on dithering, same with dark mode and night shift unfortunately
Does anyone have an ioreg dump of modern ios?
- Edited
Hopefully someone can get something going for iOS! 
Btw can someone attach that gradient test photo that someone posted in this thread? The one that was created by a user here. I cannot find it
Hello,
Thank you for offering us the Stillcolor app. I am not able to make this work. I get a message stating that there are no applications to open the program. I am not sure what I might be doing wrong. I have a new MacBook Air M3 and this is the first time ever that I have found a computer screen beyond intolerable. Occushield, Night Shift, and Iris have been helpful, especially the Iris, but I think the Stillcolor app is still needed for the job to be complete.
Can you please assist me?
Many thanks,
Jamie
jamieo I'm not sure if you downloaded the correct file. This is the correct ZIP to download:
https://github.com/aiaf/Stillcolor/releases/download/v1.1/Stillcolor-v1.1.zip
After downloading, extract the ZIP and move the app to Applications.
Then, Control-click or two-finger click on the application icon (this is necessary instead of just a standard double-click on the first time you run it) and select "Open" in the menu. Then, select the open anyway option in the dialog that pops up.
If you then see a circle with a cross through it in your menu bar, Stillcolor is now properly running!
Then, make sure to open the Stillcolor menu and select "Launch at Login" to ensure that the app will still stay activated after future shutdowns and reboots.
Thank you much! Yes I did have the right zip, but good old Safari sometimes has issues.
I switched over to Google Chrome from Safari and it worked.
I did not need to do anything except open. There was no "open anyway" option. It was ready and waiting at the top right bar on my computer.
Thank you again!
Has anyone managed to deal with photophobia in their MacBook Pro M3? Thanks to the method of patching one eye, I can use almost any device, but this is the first device that I cannot use even with one eye covered. I installed Stillcolors but it didn't help. Maybe someone here have got any other solution? Maybe I’m doing something wrong?
I'd rather try to adjust to it somehow. Question is, if there is someone who've got similar symptoms, and manage to adjust, and how 
cause in my case patching not working (by now)- Edited
bisk89 MacBook Pro with mini-LED is unfixable even with Stillcolor (on mini-LED the majority of temporal dithering is done on hardware instead of the OS instead in order to support the "reference mode" hardware-level color calibration features), meaning that Stillcolor is unable to fix it. There is also no way to fully turn off local dimming on mini-LED, even the dev of BetterDisplay could not figure it out. I would really recommend returning it or selling it, I tried to get mine (M1 Max 14") working for me for 2 years and it totally messed up my vision taking months to recover.
This was even worse for me because it took a whole year for me to realize that the MacBook itself was causing this, for a while I thought my vision was rapidly deteriorating or I was developing some really weird form of dyslexia leading me to see multiple neuro-ophthalmologists and neurologists (AKA even more wasted time and money…) and surprise, none of them could figure it out or simply said "my eyes were fine".
It was only one day in 2023 when I finally had a second laptop to compare it to after a family member was giving away an old MacBook (2015 12-inch single-port). After using that laptop for just a few days I had the immediate and shocking realization that almost all of these supposed "vision issues" were just gone. I could use this ancient 2015 12-inch totally fine. It felt like my vision issues had just immediately vanished. But then I went back to my 14" and all of the issues returned just as bad. After a week it finally clicked for me that it was the computer.
After realizing it was the screen, since 2023 I've tried to mess with every setting possible to see if I can salvage the computer but nothing worked. The older 12-inch MacBook (and eventually I figured out that an even older Windows laptop I owned was even more comfortable) was simply a night and day difference to the fundamentally flawed mini-LED display.
As of 2024, I sold the 14" last month after failing to get Stillcolor to work on it — yes I spent a lot of money on mine too and it was a total shame, one of my biggest regrets purchasing it and especially dissapointing because everything else about it except for the screen was great. But none of that matters if I literally can't use it as a laptop.
Now I am on an M1 Air (with Stillcolor, which actually works correctly on M1 Air) and for the first time in a while my vision finally feels NORMAL again. I also tried the M2 Air and newer Intel Airs, but the M1 Air is the only modern Mac that truly feels comfortable to me.
The only other device that has been found to be "fully compatible with" Stillcolor aside from the M1 Air is the M2 Touch Bar 13" Pro (the one with the older design and only 2 USB-C ports). However, only certain M2 Touch Bar Pros are known to be good, there is a really significant panel lottery. Multiple members here, including me, have confirmed that M2 Touch Bar models with "00000000" in the display panel ID are great and have perfect results with Stillcolor, but ones with "FMX" at the beginning of the ID cause strain even with Stillcolor.
In summary:
Stillcolor does NOT work at all on the 14"/16" mini-LED MacBook Pro built-in display.
M2/M3 Air + Stillcolor works for some and not at all for others.
The M1 Air and the "M2 Touch Bar 13" Pro models that specifically have 00000000 in the panel ID" are the only models that consistently work "the best" with Stillcolor with multiple people here.
- Edited
Yeah for me patching and "training" didn't work at all for the mini-LED Mac.
On the other hand I *am* able to adjust to OLED over time. Not entirely, but nowadays I can tolerate my iPhone 14 Pro (480Hz PWM, iOS 16.4.1) for basic phone use/texting/reading articles to the point where it actually feels better than my SE 2. (The SE 2 came with iOS 17 and has some of the worst and most noticeable temporal dithering I've ever seen on a phone)
My OLED iPhone is at least able to look "sharp and colorful" despite OLED obviously still having its "own set" of pretty bad flaws.
But it's nowhere near as bad as mini-LED. Mini-LED feels like I'm "looking into a mirror that is constantly distorting the perspective of everything and immediately makes me feel like I want to fall asleep after just a few minutes".
Still get very strained if I use my iPhone 14 Pro for too long indoors though and immediately dizzy if I attempt to do more "complex" tasks on it like writing an email or taking long notes. On the other hand though if I use the phone outdoors in sunlight it actually feels pretty nice, so nowadays I just try to minimize OLED use indoors.
Of course "actually usable" LCDs like my old iPhone 7 on iOS 15 are still much, much better than OLED though.
In conclusion: I'm able to adjust to OLED to a limited degree, but mini-LED only got worse and worse over time no matter what I tried.
- Edited
madmozg Macbook pro right now has crazy PWM because of the mini-led display
IMO, the main problem with MacBook Pro 14"/16" is its intense form of hardware/TCON-level temporal dithering, in addition to the always-on local dimming that constantly changes the ten thousand LEDs behind the screen all pointed directly at you which is what creates the feeling of "glowing edges" around everything and inconsistent "dirty and uneven" lighting.
PWM itself is actually much less with a much faster frequency on the 14"/16" compared to something like OLED.
Given that the M1 Air also uses PWM, in addition to PWM-like brightness dips that are synced with every frame (that fortunately have low flicker depth, but can still be captured on camera by turning camera exposure down) despite this the M1 Air is pretty much fully usable for me after I disable dithering with Stillcolor. Of course, that isn't true for me with mini-LED Macs.
The M1 Air backlight is also "edge-lit" — meaning it is not pointed directly at you — instead of "direct-lit". The M1 Air only has about a dozen or less backlights near the edge of the screen instead of ten thousand of them everywhere.
I don't actually think PWM is the core issue in this case, which is probably why typical strategies for dealing with PWM (like patching) don't work for many people here on the mini-LED Macs.
bisk89 not perfect, but I've gone from pretty extreme eye strain to finding my M3 MBP relatively fine by:
- Forcing constant 120Hz
- Always using dark mode
- Forcing dark mode on websites that don't have one using Noir (with light grey text on black)
- Hiding the menubar and dock when not using them
- Changing the colour profile to SRGB
- Disabling font smoothing, terminal: defaults -currentHost write -g AppleFontSmoothing -int 0 + restart mac
- Having a completely black desktop
- Using Stillcolor
- Having my screen black apart from the part I need (for example, typing this my Safari window is only taking up half the width of the screen, and the dock/menubars are hidden so most of my screen is black).
- Having good ambient lighting in the room
In comparison my MBP is now much more comfortable than I can get my iPhone 15 Pro.
While I tend to think “never say never,” I also tend to agree that the mini-LED XDR MacBook Pros may not be redeemable. This was before Stillcolor, but I sold mine after trying to use it for almost a year and doing a good amount of harm to my eyes/brain. I had purchased it new, planning for it to be an investment for several years, so I took quite a loss on it. Unfortunate, but for me, after a certain point it wasn’t worth any more effort given the risks.
You could possibly use it in clamshell mode as a desktop equivalent.
DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs I'm in 1000% sure that the main problem for me with macbook pros is the waveform type of PWM. It takes few minutes to understand that when you are using the laptop. I can explain why, right now I have new Asus ProArt 10bit display, it is mini-led with 15kHz PWM, but the PWM waveform type is different with more soft edges of waveform, I can notice it, but I easily was able to tolerate it and now I don't have any issues. Will post a bigger review of it later this week.
- Edited
Rowe Yes, that's what I similarly had to do on my 14" mini-LED MBP to make it mildly tolerable at all…
but meanwhile I can use my M1 Air with a pretty large variety of wallpapers and application theme colors, and the only things I need to do is activate Stillcolor, disable font smoothing, disable IOMFB auto-contrast with the Terminal workaround, slap a matte screen protector on it — and optionally use the True Non-Retina Streaming strategy which makes it even better.
I'm also still using the default Color LCD profile. I did turn off True Tone and Night Shift though