Eye strain from LED backlighting in MacBook Pro

Your solutions are very reasonable. They pretty much sum up what we discovered so far in this big thread.

If you want a fresh start, I would use Windows + NVIDIA, no room lighting, and a good monitor (true 8 bit, no FRC, "no" PWM, maybe low minimum brightness < 25 cd/m2). From my experience, using this setup you'll quickly know if the monitor is "good".

On Linux there's something else going on which I couldn't track down yet. It causes only mild eye strain and probably falls into the "other factors" category. There seems to be a difference in how the picture is sent to the monitor between Windows and Linux, no matter if you use Intel, NVIDIA, or AMD. WIthout that problem, Linux would be ideal since you have much more control over your drivers.

I bought my first Mac in 1991 and I've worked professionally as a designer/illustrator for decades with no problems.

I'm now unable to use my new iPad Pro for the same reason I returned an iMac about 4 years ago. The screen literally makes me sick. I won't go into specifics - Apple - is well aware of this problem.

I'm more than outraged to return to Apple's own threads and still find individuals asking for help as if it's their fault and others offering solutions that won't work. What will work is to have Apple product design admit it is a design flaw and address it.

Where is Apple's reaction to this problem? What is the product design department doing? Why no attempts to fix this since 2008? Why does Apple continue to make products that hurt us, and adversely affect our health and our careers?

How does this square with their corporate mission?

Unfortunately Apple won't address this problem until those affected band together and demand it.

Why does Apple continue to make products that hurt us, and adversely affect our health and our careers?

Why do you keep using a product you claim hurts you and adversely affect your health? I think most people stop using products they think affect their health. See a doctor and get a definitive answer as to what is affecting your health and why you voluntarily keep using a product you think negatively affects you.

As you can see from 160 pages of posts in this thread, the solution to your condition is not here. Get a health care professional's help.

Macs are the standard in my field, I can't just go into an office and work for my livelihood any longer. After 25 years+ I'm also heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem. Apps, music, documents, photos, etc. both personal and professional. So it's not a question of not eating peanut butter if you're allergic. It's a bit more complicated than you appear to comprehend.

david drede wrote:

Macs are the standard in my field, I can't just go into an office and work for my livelihood any longer. After 25 years+ I'm also heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem. Apps, music, documents, photos, etc. both personal and professional. So it's not a question of not eating peanut butter if you're allergic. It's a bit more complicated than you appear to comprehend.

Then continue complaining here instead of seeking professional help as I suggested. It will get you nowhere to complain here. There is nothing we users can do for you. Apple is not here so your complaints are not getting to Apple. If I was having your symptoms I would seek professional help to see if there is anything that can be done by you rather than just complaining here.

Dear Russ Martin,

God bless you.

When I increased the brightness to 100%, it seemed to solve the problem with my MBA, at least for now.

I hope, other people having (will have) the same problem with "LED-backlit glossy widescreen" will also reach a solution.

Many Thanks,

For me it's totally *** reflections on the glass!!!

If I change angle of the view and put ambient light there is no eyestrain or motion sickness. If I look direct on the screen my text is blurry!

But there is no issue on the IPHONE at all , only on MacBook Pro 2016! How screens differs?

How to fix this? Can film help or it will be more blurry?

Sorry for my English though

No eyestrain when watching movies, palying games, browsing pictures or the like!!!!

But the strain comes VERY quickly (usually within 10 mins) behind the eyes when read BLACK(not gray but pure pure black) texts against a white bright background!!!

White texts with black background are also trouble, a little less discomfort!!!

The problem seems to be the contrast

I tried to change GAMMA in system reference -> display -> color :: calibrate!!!

[Option key] + {CLICK on [calibrate]} opening the expert mode, and here's the SCARY part:

When I lowered down the gamma to 1.0 ( lowest point allowed), all tones that is not 100% black are washed out to a very very light shade that almost faded into white or light grayish, but NOT for those EVIL PURE BLACK texts, those evil texts were refusing to join the light!!!!!

SOLUTION::

I can NOT lighten the black, so I have to darken the light, I keep only 3 bars of brightness, thee contrast is now okay, although for such low brightness I have to put a matte film on the screen to minimize ambient reflection.

I can use the macbook again, going to see if it works in long term. If not, I am going to boost the brightness up to full 100 percent, and put a high quality, high translucent tracing paper on that matte layer, to filter out all the harshness of contrast!!!

UPDATED

I was "subjectively" convinced that the contrast is the key!

Until I redid the calibrate process, because I formerly skipped many steps before the gamma slide window show up, thinking those steps were just unimportant, now I changed each one of the apple logos to have a much lower contrast, so the dark color looks brighter/lighter even the brightness is low!!

Something has changed after that that I can't name it specifically, the black text is the same, but I'm 100 percent sure the text looks more "in synch" with rest of the space, for lack of better term.

My eye strain is cured, objectively. But I'm now finding myself in a more perplexing place.

I dont know what Apple is conjuring here, maybe some really really weird refresh tricks on the macbook display, is it interlaced, scattered or dithered flickering all combined together, that commercial class smartphone camera failed horribly to detect it, human eyes only sense "something is terribly wrong" but cant name why or how.

I avoid black text on iPad air 2 like it is eye virus, it literally is and I can do nothing about it.

Now I can bravely dare into those pure black text only 4 inches from my beautiful macbook pro retina screen that I would not bother doing before, only to be puzzled no end.

What are you conjuring Apple?

UPDATE:

I have bad news , after a recent talk with a friend of mine about this problem, he said as far as he knows no matter how hard you have been trying to trick yourself to "believe" otherwise, if you have ever experienced a very uncomfortable swelling pressure at within the back or rear of the eyes sitting before your mac what it means is that it is most likely something is wrong with the (graphics) driver that causes sort of a flicker very aggressive to the optic nerve, and since Apple has the tight control over the driver hardly anything you can do about that.

He said just boot in Recovery mode (Command + R), then open Safari by choosing get help online, try spend some time there at whatever sites you like, the eyes should then feel perfectly normal. Strange?

Restart to OS, feel that familiar contraction like a muscle deep in the eye started to accumulate the tension very quickly then.

So, some driver escaped under Recovery from straining the eye?

Have you tried Flux for mac? You can download it at Cnet: http://download.cnet.com/F-lux/3000-18487_4-10908885.html

I experienced eye strain from hours of editing but now it happens only occasionally after using the flux program. I know there are other programs like it too...

Maybe Recovery Mode disables GPU hardware acceleration. You could try to disable it (if possible on Macs) within the regular environment to see if it helps. Judging by Windows 10, Android, iOS, and modern Linux distros, I bet the whole Desktop is GPU accelerated, and maybe it feels more sluggish or less smooth in Recovery Mode. That'd be a clear hint that it's turned off.

Yes it does feel less smooth in Recovery mode, all the lags of page cascading.

Can't find a way to cancel GPU acceleration in OS anywhere I can think of, I don't think it's possible?

My friend has his "trick" too: use a higher than native resolution, that's it. , he's been sticking with 1440 x 900 ever since he found its alleviation effect, for strange reasons. (a "diffused" strain rather than a "focused" strain in lower Res),

I didn't see any dramatic differences right away, maybe the contrast is too low already on my macbook, going to give it more time.

By the way it just seems less and less people are posting on this issue? Maybe human eyes adapted to it gradually and eventually ? I remember in those early days I could not stand WiFi for too long without feeling sickness or dizziness in the head, no kidding, within half an hour at most I had to put my tablet away, but now I literally feel nothing at all glued to it all day!

Maybe when I finally get used to it I can't tell if it is my new "tricks" that just work or it is my eyes that are "compromised" in order to grow on new products.

Don't know if that is good or bad thing, but I have to say to live in this era I feel like equally blessed and cursed. There are times I look around at all these gadgets, with all this penetrating technologies like 4g, 5g, wifi, AR, VR, AI as a intertwined big big web entangling the world's every last inch no escape no end, that makes the world more and more "unreal" to me and this scares me no end. I'm blessed I have a loving family and a loving girlfriend I feel more real when I'm with them be honest yet it also so happens at more and more occasions I find myself to be forced into "unreal" alternatives for lack of real alternative. Sentimental? Maybe, last time I put on a VR I easily went motion sickness in minutes if not seconds, I can see a day I finally feel like home at it and this scares me and saddens me even more. This is an "artificial" evolution some part of me cheers for it while the other part chills. Over reacted? Maybe, but suddenly at this point is it not a concern anymore whether this macbook eye strain can or can not be resolved by mighty fruit which you think is not a religion in disguise already?, either way, in the long run, it does not really make that much of a difference. Nite.

Ok so this is the solution for me: Avoid Intel Iris cards!

I was going crazy from the nausea the late 2013 mac pro was causing me so I decided to test several models to see what can be.

Late 2013 mac pro whit intel iris card: after 1h of use extremely nauseos whit very red eyes. Installed matte filter for display , changed fonts , resolution , external display nothing worked.

2015 mac air whit intel hd: even after 5h whit no pause i was feeling fresh.

2015 12' macbook whit intel hd: daily use for few months without issue

late 2016 13' mac pro touchbar whit iris pro: same nausea and headache after 1-2h of use, a little better than 2013 but still serious enough that i had to stop using it.

late 2016 15 pro whit intel hd 530 (amd 450 model) : daily use up to 6h/day without any problem.

So as you can see I was very surprised when I realised the only problem is the Intel Iris pro card (probably drivers).

I am sure many users that have problems use a mac whit iris pro card, try to switch to a HD model and I bet you will see the difference.

UPDATE::

My colleague just updated the MacBook Air from 10.12.5(came out of the box) to 10.12.6!

And eye strain occurs (a very mild one)!! But I can notice too.

Guess I'm now a self trained strain teller, I use fast read scan method

Same lighting on the test site, nothing changed environmentally.

tested for a good 3 days now, eye strain by strange subtle "flicker"!

Now it's infected!

BE WARNED,

for mid-2017 MacBook Air owners out there,

Time Machine it before update or skip it all together.