I don't think Apple LCDs are inherently better than their OLED panels

Clokwork

I haven't been to an apple booth or store in quite some time. I did today after I was looking at televisions and I have to say the new base iPad gave IMMEDIATE symptoms. Not only was it instant, but the severity was some of the highest I had felt on a device. I am able to look at OLED televisions for longer in comparison (a minute or so) before having a reaction even close to that.

To compare apples to apples (pun intended), The iPhones OLED panel is near instantaneous as well, but not as blunt as the iPad display.

I recognize everyones experience will be different, but I am astounded how terrible Apple's displays/Gpus/iOS have become in their iPads. It appears I will never buy one again.

jordan

Clokwork Lcd apple devices are the absolute worst for me. I still haven't came across another device that made me feel as bad mentally and with my vision like apples LCDs. While OLEDs aren't perfect they are much more usable.

Clokwork

jordan I agree. It’s that insane? I can at least tolerate my mates iPhone momentarily to look something up quickly but can’t stare at a new iPad for more than a few seconds.

AshX

jordan

I’m glad both you and @Clokwork have said this. My experience is the same. The conventional wisdom around these parts and elsewhere is LCD is king and at least when it comes to Apple, this has not been my experience.

I’ll tell anyone who will listen my only usable screen of any kind is an iPhone 13. I have tried every modern MacBook or iMac and none of them work for me. I checked out the iPhone 17s the other week and they were…fine? How would I do with them for a few hours? No idea. But they didn’t immediately make me feel like someone punched me in the eyes. The iPad Pro M5 was a little less forgiving but I could actually read the text and check out Settings, Safari, etc.

Every time I even look at an Apple Silicon Mac it’s either vertigo (MiniLED MBP) or seizure aura (MacBook Air). The text on the iMac and MacBook Air is blurry and I can’t focus on the iPad Air or regular iPad screens at all. I’ve used Apple Macs and iPhones since the iPhone 3GS and I’ve never had an issue. The Intel Macs on Mojave and Catalina are far more tolerable. I don’t feel like I’m being assaulted by an over saturated hellscape and the text is actually legible.

Every time I look at an Apple Silicon Mac it’s like a countdown clock starts for how fast I can disable font smoothing, auto brightness, True Tone, battery saver, install Stillcolor and BetterDisplay. How the hell can looking at a device for 15 seconds trigger hours of “wow I can’t focus my eyes without my head hurting” and “wow did someone punch me in the eyeball?” Like…what?!

And all this does is delay the onset of symptoms by a little longer. What is going on with MacOS? I think I know because I’ve observed it with my own eyes: MacOS and Color Sync are always trying to re-enable dither and trigger HDR/EDR for all sorts of UI assets within the P3 wide color space. I’ve noticed this on my recently acquired 2011 Thunderbolt Display. Everything is comfortable and chill when I’m reading a website but then as soon as I open mission control or go to the dock it’s like the icons are trying to pop out of the screen - and it’s a true 8-bit panel! They look over saturated and blurry.

The only differentiator other than iOS not using the Mac font smoothing algorithm is that the usable devices are all OLED, and one would assume, closer to, if not actually, true 10-bit. That’s the only thing I can think of.

It makes sense in my mind because their hardware won’t have to rely on dithering as much as the LCD devices to render the 10-bit OS and P3 wide color. The only thing making them unusable is low PWM frequency with very high modulation. I don’t have another explanation.

LCD Macs f&$@ me up. They didn’t used to but now they do. Thanks, COVID. But I don’t think adding more and more dithering and thinning out screens is helping much either. Oh, and the ridiculous brightness.

P.S. There’s a special place in hell for Color Sync. Thank you for overriding the ICC profile to display P3 color when I don’t want it. 🙃

jordan

Clokwork I can look at OLED iphones if a friend is showing me something, my mom has quickly flashed her lcd iPhone to show me something but I won't look for more than a couple seconds since it'll trigger instant head pressure, dry eye, anxiety, and the list goes on. I remember I had bad unexplained anxiety and felt depressed all for no reason and it all went away when I stopped using lcd iphones. It was frustrating because I took Prozac for it and here it was the damn phone the whole time.. makes me wonder how many other people are affected like I was and think it's a "chemical imbalance" when it's not. I'm glad to be off it for years now without any of that returning.

K-Moss

The situation is that people tend to adapt to LCD where comfort improves over time. OLED tends to be the reverse, where discomfort worsens over time. The brain starts saying "no more" because of the continual strobing.

ocean10

I think it has something to do with the iOS versions and how they are rendering. People say it's dithering but I have no idea. What I do know is that I've never been able to use an Apple LCD if the iOS version is later than 16.1.1 or if they have any later security patches for devices that can't go beyond iOS 15. There "might" be later versions as I've not tried every single one but I've yet to find one beyond 16.1.1. I have an iPhone SE3 on 16.1.1 that I can look at for HOURS with no symptoms. I've tried multiple iPhone SE3's beyond that version and they all make me immediately sick as you describe above. I also have a 1st gen iPad Pro on 15.4 that gives me no symptoms. But I have an iPhone 7 that I let do a security update to a recent iOS 15 version (they did security updates for devices that can't update) and it went from something I could use for years to being completely unusable.

For some of this obviously there could be other factors in play as well (maybe I just have a "better" screen on my "good" phone or something like that. I know some people do better with certain screen manufacturers). But I absolutely have found that certain "good" devices can be ruined for me by an iOS update.

Clokwork

ocean10 Yeah, this has been a known issue and its highly unfortunate. Apple and other companies seem to not be transparent about their updates. Nothing is ever listed about changes related to color, display function, etc…

AshX

ocean10 But I have an iPhone 7 that I let do a security update to a recent iOS 15 version (they did security updates for devices that can't update) and it went from something I could use for years to being completely unusable.

This is what is most perplexing to me. You’re not the first to report security updates making devices uncomfortable to use. I wonder if there are any visible changes you’ve noticed that could account for it? Dithering being added would be evident in deeper colors and less banding.

I’ve noticed that HDR seems to be a big trigger on Apple LCDs that I don’t see discussed a lot. The 13” MBA M1, iMac M1, and Mac Mini M1 don’t seem to have HDR support based on Apple’s spec pages for each device. But the 13” M1 MBP Touchbar has. A few users have shared positive anecdotes about the aforementioned 3 devices being usable over the years.

ITwebs

ocean10

Even a security update can make such a difference? It is daunting to update phone now…

JTL

AshX This is what is most perplexing to me. You’re not the first to report security updates making devices uncomfortable to use. I wonder if there are any visible changes you’ve noticed that could account for it? Dithering being added would be evident in deeper colors and less banding.

They can certainly add other (potentially undocumented) changes to a mere "security update". Same goes for all sorts of updates really.

AshX

JTL They can certainly add other (potentially undocumented) changes to a mere "security update". Same goes for all sorts of updates really

It’s too bad Apple doesn’t include a more in-depth sort of “patch notes” regarding display processing changes.

JTL

AshX It’s too bad Apple doesn’t include a more in-depth sort of “patch notes” regarding display processing changes.

Not just Apple, but the industry at large.

Think of it like this, if there is a security vulnerability in a graphics driver (not as far fetched as you think), and in the process of patching it they pull in external code or library changes that by itself might not be enumerated in the patch notes, that's how you get some of this problem.

AshX

JTL Think of it like this, if there is a security vulnerability in a graphics driver (not as far fetched as you think), and in the process of patching it they pull in external code or library changes that by itself might not be enumerated in the patch notes, that's how you get some of this problem.

I had never considered a graphics drive might have a security vulnerability. I suppose this may also extend to older security updates, like MacOS Ventura 13.2.1 vs. a 13.2?

I’ve found it curious that the two recent older Macs I purchased sealed, new were pre-loaded with different versions of MacOS Ventura despite being an M1 and M2 machine from 2020 and 2022. They should have been on MacOS Big Sur and Monterey respectively, but clearly they were manufactured in 2023/2024, or at least that’s what their serial numbers indicate. I’ve also seen an influx of iPhone 13’s manufactured for smaller wireless carriers with 2024 and 2025 copyrights on the back of the box.

Something changed after 2022 with Apple’s LCD and OLED panels, and the comparison is clear to see for me at least, comparing my 2021 manufactured iPhone 13 to the 2023 models. I suppose the same can be said for the security updates added to older OS.

Your post unfortunately seems to confirm to me that I will have to start doing quite a bit of DFU downgrades and upgrades to test some of these theories. I worry as I believe someone here posted that they did a DFU downgrade from a Mac from Tahoe to Sequoia and it did not return the previously usable device to its original state. I don’t know how that is possible. DFU is supposed to downgrade both the OS and firmware to the corresponding IPSW file. Unless that user performed it incorrectly (reviving instead of restoring, perhaps) I don’t see how that’s possible. Do you have any theories?

JTL

AshX I had never considered a graphics drive might have a security vulnerability. I suppose this may also extend to older security updates, like MacOS Ventura 13.2.1 vs. a 13.2?

Certainly. This is about NVIDIA and Windows, but many of the same concepts could apply to other platforms.

Staycalmsyndrome

AshX That is because after a downgrade you need to disconnect the battery also to clear all values. That is my experience with a windows laptop at least.

AshX

Staycalmsyndrome

So you have to physically remove the battery? Is this even possible on a MacBook?

axhng

For me at least, iPhone/iPad with LCD screens strains me eyes way quicker and way more than some phones with OLED screens these days. I can even look at a newer OLED iPhone longer than I can an LCD iPhone before I HAVE to look away. But, i think for those who are strictly only sensitive to PWM flickering alone and nothing else, I think LCD iPhones would be better than OLED iPhones.

AshX

axhng

I have the same experience. I assume it is due to dithering, which is utilized more on the LCD panels by virtue of their more limited hardware characteristics and no longer being flagship products for iOS.

axhng

AshX i'm assuming so too, though i recently i realised that they might have been doing dithering on their iphones for probably way longer, even when flagship iOS products were still their flagship product. i used to think that it was just slightly newer versions of iOS since my iphone SE 2022 went from being usable at iOS 14 to unusable when i made the stupid mistake of updating it to iOS 18. but recently i've been looking for older iphones to try to pin point if that's really the case, and it seems like my eyes can't really deal with it these days too. saw an iphone 8 plus with iOS 14 at a used phone shop and almost immediately felt the symptoms. i dug out an old iphone 7 with iOS 15, same deal. even found an iphone 5 with iOS 10 and it was also causing eyestrain. recorded a slow mo clip under a microscope, and there was very noticeable dithering, especially near the edge of text. I guess that at some point in my life, probably due to age and eye health deteriorating, i've become a lot more sensitive to PWM and TD than I used to be.

AshX

axhng even found an iphone 5 with iOS 10 and it was also causing eyestrain. recorded a slow mo clip under a microscope, and there was very noticeable dithering, especially near the edge of text. I guess that at some point in my life, probably due to age and eye health deteriorating, i've become a lot more sensitive to PWM and TD than I used to be.

I have an iPhone 5 on iOS 9 and it also dithers. I had an image from 2016 with a lot of gray and put it under microscope and it seemed to be dithering, too. Video I took: https://streamable.com/1etj4p

COVID is what made dithering and certain PWM frequencies really problematic for me. I didn’t have as severe issues before. I will say that the dithering on older Intel Macs and older iPhones and versions of iOS are nowhere near as painful or aggressive as modern MacOS and iOS versions. The hardware FRC is also way worse on Apple Silicon Macs than the Macs with Intel and AMD GPUs. The older stuff will bother your eyes after a while, but the newer stuff causes really severe neurological symptoms and seizures in some of us. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, specifically their MacBooks.

K-Moss If dithering is your issue, try the Moto Edge 2024 and try the Moto Edge 2025. The former dithers not at all. The second dithers heavily. That will get to the bottom of how sensitive you truly are to dithering

Thanks for the suggestion, K-Moss. I’ll put that on the list of things to try.