iPhone IOS update

JonnyT

I have an iPhone XS. It’s the only iPhone I don’t feel nauseous with. Had it for years, has new screen put on. I recently noticed on my iOS 15 that apps were no longer available and ones I really needed couldn’t be downloaded and last night I stupidly updated iOS. I now have iOS 18.6. I feel like I’m about to be sick. I feel so nauseous and dizzy and have had to cancel all my clients for today. Is there any fix? All my settings are the same (ie motion off, true colour off, reduce white point on, differentiate without colour on etc) but it feels like I’m using my wife’s iPhone 13 that always makes me ill.

My only hope is my brain will somehow get used to this. I felt this when WhatsApp changed to Green instead of blue and somehow within a week managed to get used to it. But this is extreme and I think I may throw up. If I can’t even use the one phone I have always relied on how am I going to live in this generation when phones are everything.

Sentiny

JonnyT Try to reset settings. It will keep all content. Worked for me from time to time.

tck175

JonnyT same here. I am using xs . I was fine when it was ios16. But after upgraded to ios17, I started to feel eyestrain and headaches. I am sure it relates to IOS update. But when I tested my friend's iphone 14 pro with ios15, i still felt eyestrain and headaches. I am very frustrated too.

G3RDAS

Welcome

JonnyT

Sentiny that won’t downgrade the iOS though will it?

ocean10

This has happened to many of us here. I’m lucky to have a SE3 on 16.1.1 that I can still use. Everything I’ve updated beyond that has made me sick similar to what you describe. It’s awful. Please write in to Apple Accessibility and let them know. Many of us have and maybe one day there will be enough critical mass for them to take a look at this.

AshX

ocean10

Have SE users had any luck pinning down what happened in certain versions of iOS 16 to cause issues? I’m guessing it’s likely the introduction of dithering? It’s so odd because each phone seems to have an issue after 2 generations of OS counting the one it shipped on. I have an iPhone 13 on iOS 15.6.1 and I’ve read accounts that people had issues starting with iOS 17 on it.

JTL

JonnyT It won't

JonnyT

JTL so what does that achieve out of interest?

Sunspark

Sorry you're having trouble.

There are only three things you can do at this point.

As you already said, possibly get used to it which is certainly possible.
Do a DFU firmware restore where everything is wiped and it is flashed from scratch. I have done this and however it is after, is whatever the software has. It's not hard, you just need itunes and to put the device into DFU mode.
Pick up a new model. Try the 16 Pro Max. My mother has one, seems ok at first look. The smoother scrolling is nice.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

since you have an XS, try Double Invert, it significantly improved my 14 Pro (mine is still on 16.4 though but i have tested it on some friends' iOS 18 phones and it still had a pretty decent effect)

Accessibility > Classic Invert > On

Accessibility > Zoom > On with Full Screen Zoom mode

Zoom out to normal, while still leaving the "zoom feature" itself activated in general (triple tap with three fingers)

Accessibility > Zoom > Filter > Inverted

If done correctly, there are two inverts running but the screen will look non-inverted. Red colors will be dimmer.

FYI, what Double Invert does is fully disables HDR and disables Wide Color Gamut — and noticeably improved the feeling of screen stability on my 14 Pro (it probably reduces dithering)

JonnyT

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs thank you very much. I’m currently trying this. The only problem is that I also need to use reduce white point that I usually have at 96% but unfortunately with the double invert that function doesn’t seem to work

Sunspark

I didn't do this on the X though though I did test it, but it made the reds too dark. I did turn off trutone & night shift, brightness at 50%, bold text on.

ITwebs

NEVER update to IOS 18. It is the most terrible IOS version since it not only causes eye strain but also make some people feel nauseous and dizzy.

JonnyT

ITwebs too late. I feel disabled. Can’t find any solution at all. Will have to find a new phone and move away from Apple I think

Clokwork

JonnyT this is the road many of us will have to take unfortunately.

JonnyT

I would happily go out tomorrow and buy a new phone if I could know it would be OK. I’ve been searching through messages here for safe usable phones but there is no consensus.

I feel depressed, people don’t realise how hugely this impacts our lives. Last week was a good week till this happened. Now I feel stuck and lost until it’s resolved.

JTL

JonnyT The grass isn't exactly greener on the other side.

AshX

JTL

Someone on Reddit was lambasting users for desperately trying iPhones. It’s not so much that many of us want to stay with Apple (some of it is the ecosystem and program compatibility for sure) but rather because PC and Android has a lot of these same issues and the variance is very, very high. iPhones and Apple products are in some ways the “devil you know” and because more of the hardware is made by Apple, it’s easier to isolate problems as there is some consistency across devices. It’s also frustrating to have an Apple device work on one version of software and then become unusable. I don’t use PC’s but at least with Macs and iPhones you can reliably block updates. It is indeed a mess, but potentially a solvable or manageable one.

JonnyT

Thank you! Good to know. However at the moment I’m stuck!

Has anyone succeeded in reversing the update? I don’t know what version it was on before I think 16 something

Sunspark

You could jailbreak the phone and then roll back. Jailbreaking will sacrifice features like the wallet though.

For future reference, should this be a concern, backup the firmware blobs before changing versions.. keeping the blobs allows you to roll back after Apple stops signing without jailbreaking.