Some success fixing Iphone Temporal dithering (SE 2020 / iOS 17)

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

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).

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

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs @Ivan_P Sorry for noob question… What means “double invert” and how to use this trick?

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

NewDwarf maybe you got lucky with the panel supplier on both of your SEs.

for reference the SE 2020 I tried (and hated, wayyy worse than the already non-ideal 14 Pro) came with 17.2.1.

BTW my symptoms trying to use an SE 2020 are legitimately the same as the original post in this thread. Like to the point where I would have used the same words to describe it as they did. Given this, I think it's basically certain that the original poster and I's SE 2020s have the same panel supplier, but maybe yours doesn't

(In addition, @jordan has also had a similarly bad experience with the SE 2020)

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

Do you reckon that some older OLED (say iPhone X) with double invert would be better than the SE 2020?

I'm thinking of replacing the SE 2020 17.6.1 secondary phone with something else, because it really feels like looking at some blue welding (even with double invert)…. I'm not kidding. Even a short time it "breaks" my vision now where I don't "properly see" things for a couple minutes…

So obviously that has to go. Now the OLED iPhones at least look like a solid color…. and if dithering is removable … on SE 2020 the dithering it's still quite strong especially on Lock Screen, Control Center etc.

So basically, does the double invert on OLED work significantly better than on SE 2020 or LCD, to the point where it's negligible? What would you say

sdkjbfakgljbafkjb Yes, iPhone 14 Pro with Double Invert is like 10-15x more tolerable than the SE 2020, it doesn't cause as many residual effects afterwards aside from blurred vision and sometimes feeling burnt out if I tried to do something "too productive" on it.

(and those effects go away after I stare at a good screen like my working TN panel PC laptop or old VA monitor setups for about 20 minutes.

Note you need an "truly reliable" screen you're confident about, AKA also involving good software/graphics chip/drivers etc., for this kind of "quick recovery" to be possible though)

Doesn't make the whole world distorted like the SE did.

I've found that only IPS (and IPS derivatives like mini-LED) screens aggressively "break my vision" like you described.

I dislike OLED too but have found it's less likely to cause long term effects for me at least if it's if used in moderation.

On the SE 2020 I legit can't read any article without the whole room spinning and I often couldn't process what I'm reading at all.

On 14 Pro + Double Invert, at least for "passive/mindless" tasks like reading articles or browsing social media I can understand the text. Short videos are also OK.

Although, trying to do any sort of more "productive" tasks that require more eye movements (i.e. more complex than just staring at a image/video or smoothly reading text left-to-right), is where the strain and headache starts though — so of course I'm certainly not calling the 14 Pro a "good screen". I still have issues with it of course.

But yeah it's at least getting me by until I find a comfortable phone.

Again, note that mine is on iOS 16.4.1. Also the frame rate is reduced to 60fps in settings. Light mode, no true tone, no night shift.

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I also have brightness pretty low which makes me assume my issues with all modern screens are mostly not because of PWM flicker, but rather something else, like image processing.

Flicker does affect me though in lightbulbs, but doesn't seem to be as much of a factor for screens.

This is also likely why the SE 2020 was way worse for me despite "having less PWM than the 14 Pro", because the image looked sooooo messed up to me on the SE, overprocessed and overly smooth, everything had a shadow around it, I couldn't focus on anything.

(By image processing, I'm referring to the mysterious blurry/hazy "fake 3D depth-enhancing effect" that's mentioned many times on this forum, yet seems distinct and likely unrelated to "dithering flicker"… BTW the SE 2020 had the worst instance of that depth effect I've ever seen on a phone — so, no wonder I had so many issues with it.

14 Pro still has a similar effect, but it's noticeably less with Double Invert, actually a bit less than the ones seen on modern IPS screens in general)

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BTW since I already have a comfy laptop setup, I've noticed it's a lot less whiplash to move from that good screen to a quick thing I have to do on the 14 Pro. The strain doesn't start immediately but slowly increases. (Whereas the SE 2020 I was dreading even turning it on to look at the time.)