Hey,

I wrote Apple accessibility a while ago about temporal dithering. They wrote something back, but I don't think they are in charge of it. Another person writing Apple Accessibility was told to use the Apple Feedback online form instead.

So PLEASE if you are affected by Temporal Dithering or PWM,

Write 2-3 rough sentences how Temporal Dithering or PWM affects you personally on Apple Feedback (apple.com/feedback), it takes perhaps 30 seconds. It's an online form, no email needed…

…and you could write something very rough. It can really be anything, could just be that you get watery eyes from it.

I don't think they read it manually but at least they aggregate it (and probably analyze the severity of it).

It's at apple.com/feedback

Perhaps if they hear it again over time, they will eventually change it because it's really an easy thing to fix for them : )

  • JTL replied to this.
    sdkjbfakgljbafkjb changed the title to PLEASE WRITE APPLE FEEDBACK (online form - takes 30 sec - no email needed .

    sdkjbfakgljbafkjb Not to sound like a downer or anything, but as I've alluded to before in other threads without empirical evidence of the cause and effect of certain issues people at "big tech companies" are largely going to express disinterest and platitudes and unless they experience it themselves or are REALLY bored, it's not going to make any solutions come faster. In fact reports without a clear cause and effect relationship may indefinitely stall progress towards possible internal research or solutions.

      Well, if we do nothing nothing will happen

      If we do something, something may happen, or nothing

      The cost-benefit ratio is pretty good (cost: 30 seconds?. Benefit: they do aggregate-analyze it and at some point it may surface in their accessibility meetings, because they do look at least to some degree what people write and if people cannot use the phone entirely it is taken more seriously at least than random feature requests

      They did improve PWM a lot after there was some public attention about it (even though we still cannot use them) (quite a lot of people complaining online, some blogs writing about it etc.) so they may do something eventually…

      I did this when they discontinued the SE 3rd gen saying that I now no longer have an upgrade path within the Apple ecosystem since they no longer sell LCD phones and none of the current accessibility features of the Oled phones make them usable for me. I also sent a similar message when I couldn’t use the iPhone X. I got a response both times.

      Idk if they will do anything but given how seriously they seem to take other accessibility issues, maybe they will eventually. They have slowly but surely in-housed the engineering of other critical components such as the cpu, gpu, and now cellular modem. Maybe eventually they will take control of their display supply chain. At the moment they seem to be beholden to buying screens from OEM suppliers who all use pwm dimming and various tricks to increase color depth.

      I have to think “old apple” would eventually say “to hell with it” and make screens that don’t flicker and are actually natively 10-bit (or whatever p3 requires). Apple made some of the most tolerable screens for a long time - up through the early to mid 2000s. Given how critical of microscopic differences in fonts and minor UI elements Jobs/Ive etc were I’d have to think that if they looked at a display and got symptoms they’d send it back to the drawing board and not ship it. But unfortunately those folks are long gone. I often wonder if some of the issues we experience with modern screens are why apple stuck with traditional LCDs for long despite the whole android ecosystem going down the whole OLED rabbit hole. I distinctly remember looking at early Samsung phones with OLED and my eyes going crazy and being thankful that Apple still used 60hz LCD screens despite OLED being touted as “better”. As we now know, it’s not really “better” perse - at least the trade offs for deeper blacks be better contrast aren’t very useful if you can’t look at the screen comfortably.

        Yeah Steve would probably have eyed any display with a magnifying glass, and also insisted to have "solid colors" (given how persistent he was even on sth. such as how iPhone internals look should you open it). And then the strong focus on accessibility was probably also him. (Although he apparently did not care about some other things)

        But yeah with Tim Cook Apple seems more like a shareholder company. Oh well

        asus389

        For what it’s worth, every time I’ve explained PWM and dithering issues to people at an Apple Store, they’ve been very kind and genuinely wanted to understand. Perhaps it’s that this all started after I got sick, so they’re more willing to listen. It’s obviously not higher ups, but I’ve never had someone he dismissive at a store. If anything, they want to help and just don’t know how. After all, it would make the difference between making a sale and not making a sale.

        I’m more surprised that Apple hasn’t addressed this given that most of the people on this forum, the subreddit, and other forums are professionals who spend 10+ hours sometimes using screens. It’s not so much hobbyists or people who just want a computer for regular use - not that that should make a difference as to whether Apple addresses this problem. My point I suppose is that for a company that once catered a large swath of their product line - their “Pro” line” - to professionals, you would think this would have gotten their attention years ago. But as others have commented, I suppose they are not the same company.

            AshX Yeah I agree the employees at the store are sympathetic. Some of them are aware of the issue. But they have no solution to offer as they don’t engineer the product. Some suggest blue light glasses, color changes. Etc. but none of that stuff helps if it’s the flicker that causes the issue.

              I submitted. Probably with very limited results but you never know. Critical mass is always possible! I left feedback at: apple.com/feedback

              dev