Note: Even with the below steps, there is still dithering in lots of Apps (e.g. Whatsapp, viewing images in Whatsapp (terrible), True Tone, Night Shift, < 40% brightness, low power mode… the list goes on). Think I'll throw the phone out the window… goddammit..

Hi guys, I don't have much time at hand but I wanted to let you know I think I found some way to reduce dithering / eyestrain on LCD iPhones:

For homescreen, lock and settings

  1. Settings -> Appearance -> Turn on Larger Text (the setting where it 'restarts', not the slider)
  2. Classic invert -> On
  3. Zoom -> Zoom filter -> select Inverted; Zoom -> On
  4. (Take three fingers and tap twice to zoom out again; as turning on zoom lands you in an odd view.)

Notes:

  • It seems to work best when the steps are done in that order (Larger text before turning on the Classic/Zoom invert. But this could be subjective
  • It seems that restarting the phone worsens it a bit again (see below). Toggling the things improves it again.
  • Also, I turned On things like Reduce transparency and reduce motion, turned Off True tone

Device: SE 2020

iOS: 17.6.1

Before: Before, I could hardly look at the display. Looking at it gave me instant anxiety and being very unsure of myself, an effect that lasted. (I get the same effect from OLED iPhones / PWM, and LED lighting as well (even on DC, always have to add capacitors to the DC output). It seemed incredibly harsh, even on 50% or 25% brightness. True Tone made things worse. Things (text, symbols) seemed to "dance" before my eyes, even normal Settings pages. I could not focus my eyes on anything. If I looked at it, it had an almost "hypnotic" effect where I would get absent-minded and almost "sucked into" the screen.

I started to dreaded using the phone, and just seeing it lying around. I stashed it after a while and only used my SE 2016 (iOS 15.8.3) over it.

Now: (Larger text + Classic invert + zoom invert):

I can look at the display comfortably. Things look like actual solid things. I don't get any anxiety feelings, arising panic or anything like that. Fonts and icons still seem a bit less sharp than on my SE 2016, but it does not bother me now (I thought the un-sharpness was what bothered me before, but that is not the case). The same goes for the harsh backlight (presumably a KSF phosphor (fuller spectrum)), I thought that was the thing bothering me but that's not the case; it is still harsh of course (equally harsh as this does not get changed), but when compared to my SE 2016, that backlight is also quite harsh on same brightness, and SE is relatively fine for me (iOS 15.8.3).

However, after looking at the screen for 5min+ I get some dry and watery eyes (not tested yet whitepoint and screenprotectors). If there was some 'psychoactive' effect I would say it is calming (which is in my view preferable). However, I don't use my phone for more than some surfing + messages, so for me it's fine.

For apps (Photos, Maps…)

When opening some apps like Photos, and looking at some gradients (iOS 13 orange wallpaper, normal pics), there is still terrible dithering. I could feel it instantly. Opening Maps, it looks a bit blurry, and then I look at a river name (blue font), again, really strong dithering and blurry appearance.

So I experiemented a bit more and came up with a fix (tested only for Photos, Maps, App Store).

It is basically turning on Increase Contrast, but via per-app setting for each app. The reason we do it this way is because the Settings App and the Homescreen (including spotlight search) become very eye-strain-y with Increase Contrast. And creating an "Exception" for Settings and Homescreen (ie. doing the inverse), does not work, Increase C. will still be on in Spotlight etc.

So this seems the best option

  1. Create a per-app accessibility setting
  2. Select Photos (or Maps, or…)
  3. Turn On Increase Contrast. Leave the rest the same

Before:

When looking at the iOS 13 orange gradient wallpaper, I can't focus. The image seems to keep changing. I feel like I get sucked into the image and things become blurry. I also get nauseous / an urge to throw up (I did eat a lot before). I did this test five six times, with breaks in between, and the last time I almost threw up (thankfully didn't 🙂 (Tested now, happens for fonts in Maps, App Store).

Now: Able to look at the wallpaper without issues. It does seem a bit blurry, and when focusing on details, I seem to lose track of them over time. The sucking-in effect is still there, but perhaps 1/3 as strong, relatively tolerable. No nausea feelings. Reminds me a bit of those old monitors that are a bit unpleasant to look at and have a screen-y feeling, but nothing serious. (Tested for Photos, Maps, App Store)

(Continuation from above):

However, this is not a complete fix, and I would not want to use it for 20min+.

However it's a drastic improvement over before when I did not even want to look at it for 3 seconds.

Again, the order of the steps seems to matter, and restarting the phone makes it a little worse again). !And, colors look a bit different.). But it's way better than before.

If you have some devices perhaps try it out. Let me know if it helps for you

    webkittempoe changed the title to Some success fixing Iphone Temporal dithering (SE 2020 / iOS 17) .

    The double invert trick more or less fixes my iPhone 14 Pro Max. Remarkable effect. Especially in low light. I use the smallest text size, double invert, 25% reduce whitepoint and 20% blue color filter. It used to induce pain pretty immediately, and I can usually use it for hours now.

    Really interested in hearing measurements for how the screen actually changes with double invert, apart from the reduced high gamut. My guess is that it is forced the use of sRGB colorspace and avoids some FRC.

    There is also a trick where enabling screen recording disables VRR and forces 120 hz, but I didn't try it.

      Any ideas if this would work on an IPad and iPhone 11?

      It's fixed my 13 mini. Also I swapped the display to some cheap LCD and now can use this iphone on 100% brightness as much as I want

      async, are you able to use reduce white point at the same time as double invert applied?

      I'm asking because my 13 mini doesn't respond on reduce white point with this trick. There were no changes in screen brightness at 0% or 100%

          Can someone test before and after with a microscope and a 240fps slomo vid to see if it indeed turns of dithering/frc? If this works I would 100% buy the RLCD modded iPhone 8+ on aliexpress

            Ivan_P it works kinda weird when used together with those options. Makes blacks more black. Doesn't really reduce the brightness here . Should be reasy enough to see on the gray text on the screen when adjusting it.

              jordan I tested. It didn't disable screen FRC. Some colors still flicker.

              But it didn't give any symptoms to me

                And to be clear, I have never seen a screen that didn't use pixel flickering for some colors.

                Even true 8-bit panels flicker. They just don't cause any problems like FRC-powered screens

                4 months later

                webkittempoe Settings -> Appearance -> Turn on Larger Text (the setting where it 'restarts', not the slider)

                Hello! And what does this point look like? I just don't really understand what he's doing. And what you need to include. Please take a screenshot.

                    Botvinic It's in the display settings at the bottom, display zoom. Also duplicated in Accessibility>Display. What that one does is scales the screen to a non-native resolution, it can make things slightly blurrier.

                    So, since I was gifted an iPhone X here which I've been playing with as an iPod, I tried this double invert thing out to see what happens.. interesting.. basically it seems to make all the colours darker. You really notice it with reds especially. I can't say that is an improvement. Just use the greyscale color filter instead.. you can add a button for it in the control center.

                    I've been using it mostly with truetone off. What's interesting is, with it off whites look bluish and when I turn it on, it gets warmer and looks more like my android's white (which doesn't have truetone).

                        6 days later

                        Sunspark It's in the display settings at the bottom, display zoom. Also duplicated in Accessibility>Display. What that one does is scales the screen to a non-native resolution, it can make things slightly blurrier.

                        No, there are two settings. The author talks about accessibility - larger text. This setting does nothing.

                        Yours is here - display - display zoom.

                        So which one is correct?

                          a month later

                          has anyone had any success on the OLED iPhones ?

                            m1ngw I have success with the exact same method using an iPhone 13 mini with an Incell screen.

                            There is a clear difference. When double invert is not enabled I have a familiar burning sensation between the eyes

                              Double Invert has made iPhone 14 Pro (stock LG OLED panel) tolerable for me in the meantime for around 6 months now while I'm still trying to find a better phone. It's still a really bad screen I would never recommend to anyone, but double invert made it OK-ish enough where it's actually a bit more usable for me than some modern IPS devices I can't use at all:

                              (such as SE 2020, Nord N30, OPPO A98 -- all of these give me LOTS of problems. BTW, SE 2020 wasn't improved at all with Double Invert, it was much more effective for the OLED iPhone).

                              Important to note that I'm still on iOS 16.4.

                              The caveat -- and the reason why I'm still searching for a phone -- is that even though it actually improved it enough where it's generally OK for "passive"/mindless use: I can coherently read an article on it if I need to, respond to a short text, take photos/videos, scroll through a social media profile, watch a video, order something online etc.) --

                              The issue is that the moment I try to actually do something "productive" on the device, i.e. something that requires more coordinated/complex eye movements instead of simply reading left-to-right --- such as: Taking notes, thinking about how to respond to a longer text while looking at the screen, moving something to a specific place on my calendar, sorting a bunch of photos into an album…

                              That's where the really strong strain still happens, even with double invert.

                              (whereas these "more productive" use cases are fine on my good devices.)

                              Double invert definitely reduces post-processing on the display though, as if I turn it off, I suddenly notice a ton of extra color fringing and shimmery rainbow-ish look to backgrounds, that are not as noticeable while using the strategy.

                              But of course, it's not a fix. However, it's a surprisingly OK stopgap though if you're currently stuck with an iPhone and none of the other settings worked for you, while you're still trying to search for another device.

                              For reference, I'm not actually sure if PWM is my main problem with the iPhone, because many PWM-free IPS phones also don't work for me, and sometimes are worse (such as the Nord N30)

                                Ivan_P

                                No, but I did try a iPhone 12 (standard) in the past that was really bad for me. Way worse than the iPhone 14 Pro even on an earlier iOS version (a 15 version instead of 16.4).

                                On the 14 Pro, even though it's still very straining whenever I attempt doing anything "productive" on the device instead of just casual browsing — at least it looks somewhat crisp instead of fuzzy, and I can read text and articles on it OK (when Double Invert is enabled) — unlike the 12 and modern Macs.

                                Will reiterate that my 14 Pro is on 16.4 though, and would probably be a lot worse on 17 or 18.

                                On the other hand, the iPhone 12 I used to have was bad to the point where I wasn't able to read any long text as I would constantly lose my place and consistently feel sleepy after.

                                When I had the iPhone 12 and experienced all those issues, was actually before I learned about screen sensitivity and thought I just had "severe fatigue" —

                                Of course, that turned out to not be the case, as I have no fatigue when using a comfy screen like my current TN laptop setup. And I still have the same issues if I try to use an iPhone 12 today, such as my friends' ones.

                                (The only reason why I'm on a 14 Pro now is when I upgraded was still a few months before I realized my issues were connected to screens).

                                iPhone 12 looks blurry despite having around the same resolution as the 14 Pro, and sometimes are uncomfortable simply by being in my field of view (which isn't the case with 14 Pro, the strain stops if I'm not directly looking at it).

                                Note that every single iPhone has a different panel lottery. IIRC, 12 is mostly Samsung and BOE OLED panels, and all 14 Pros (at least early ones) are LG

                                  NewDwarf The instructions are at the very top of this thread.

                                  Basically stack both the Classic Invert accessibility setting, and the second "Inverted" filter in accessibility Full-Screen Zoom, at the same time (zoom out after you set it so you can still see the whole screen but with the Zoom filter still enabled) —

                                  essentially stacking two invert color settings on top of each other which cancel each other out

                                  What actually happens though is that this has the effect of disabling HDR in all apps (including system UI elements like the brighter-than-white screenshot flash) — disabling the P3 color gamut — desaturating some colors — and IMO very likely disabling a part of apple's display post-processing pipeline (but not all of it)

                                  IMO works best on OLED devices

                                  The 14 Pro I've tested it on is also in 60fps mode instead of the default 120hz FYI, not sure if that makes a difference

                                      dev