iPhone 12 screen brightness issue

It s happening to me when I am under the sun for 30-40 minutes. Gets significantly darker without any reason (brightness settings are all max and manual with True Tone disabled). If I go to the brightness menu settings still brightness is at max level but I cannot restore brightness at this level and the screen is significantly darker

Hi all!

Just check that you've switched off the Auto-Brightness feature (please don't confuse with Settings->Display & Brightness->Automatic !).

You need to switch off these features here:

1) Settings -> Accessibility -> Display & Text Size -> Auto-Brightness

2) Settings -> Accessibility -> Display & Text Size -> Reduce White Point

(frankly speaking, turn off all features in the Display & Text Size).

The iPhone 12 Pro's display is amazing in compare to iPhone 11 Pro.

Cheers 🙌

Question : Can anyone tell me where can i report this issue so Apple geniuse developers can fix that ? or does it happen after updating to ios 14.5.1 ?

It does happen for me as well. To reproduce it you can follow this steps :

1. Put 100% btightness on your iphone 12 pro
2. Place your iphone screen under any kind of lamp ( source of light can be sun as well xD )
3. turn on and off your lamp many times in a row
4. now, you have to move/ shake your phone up and down few times (this must happen)
5. watch how your brightness goes to 50%

from 100%

The summer is coming so this should be fixed apple? how can we report this?

Hey Anxious Turtle, I experienced the same thing few times flying my dji drone too, also just using the phone extensively after period of time under the sun. I just talked to Apple support this morning, they confirmed my suspicion. It is the phone’s feature to prevent it from overheating. I knew it because last time I foolishly left my phone on my car dashboard, in the sun for navigation. After 20 min driving or so the screen got dark, so dark I can barely see and screen brightness was to the max, then eventually the screen turn completely black and say it’s too hot to operate.

here is the link

“If your device gets too warm

If the interior temperature of the device exceeds the normal operating range, the device will protect its internal components by attempting to regulate its temperature. If this happens, you might notice these changes:

• Charging, including wireless charging, slows or stops.
• The display dims or goes black.

…”

This is exactly what I experienced a week ago which prompted me to do a factory reset and a fresh setup. It didn’t help. Today, while outside taking photos, the screen dimmed again. And while trying to pull up the brightness back, I dragged the level to the lowest and the whole screen turned black and I could not do anything to reset back the brightness. I waited for a few hours indoors before it magically brightened up a bit enough for me to find the controls and pull up the brightness.

not sure if this is a bug or I have a lemon..

Same issue, I set my iPhone 12 Pro down on my desk for 30 mins. Pick it up to use it, and the screen is noticeably dark. I turned brightness up all the way in control center and it was 1/2 bright as normal. Restarted my phone and it appears to be back to normal. But this has consistently happened 3 days in a row now. Must be a bug. Please fix apple!

I Bought 2 iPhone 12 Pro Max,

One’s Display Is Having A Green Tint On Black Background, Other One’s Pefect. iPhone Is Also Suffering From Keybord Issue, Like My Notifications Are Set To Show Preview When Unlocked,So Suppose I’m Wearing A Mask And ForceTouch A Whatsapp Notification And Unlock iPhone With PassCode, Then Keyboard Isn’t Showing Up, Display Dims Suddenly And Having Yellow And Green Tint Issue

Compared my old XS with new iPhone 12 mini brightness is very dull .. looks like warm background light. There is no sharpness in picture taken when compared two phones. Apple Hyped too much on iPhone 12. Hope they release some fix for this ..otherwise no use paying premium price

Yes, this is exactly why I went in the Apple store today. I was taking photo on a holiday vocation on a sunny day, and the phone suddenly got so dim that I can’t see anything on screen. I hard reboot the phone, the brightness seems to restore at first 10 second on the restart, but after 10 second it will go dim again, but not as dim as the time while I was taking photo. It went down like 20 percent brightness, whereas it went down for like 90 percent when taking photo. I had a iPhone 8 bedside me and used it to take video of the screen dimmed after 10 second of reboot. The brightness of iPhone 8 are much brighter than that of iPhone 12 Pro Max.

I do realize when it go down it brightness is when the phone starting to get hot, the temperature do not have to get to extremely hot, but you can feel the heat go up a bit.

Also to point out it has nothing to do with ->accessibility -> auto brightness or the or the reduce white point. As I read thru the comments, it seems when phone get a bit hotter it does go dim.

And just now, I was playing game war and order, while watching YouTube, and jumped in the discussion thread, and as I read thru the comment, the screen suddenly dimmed and phone started to heat up, then I went to the setting and turn of auto brightness and kept reading thru the comment (at this point of time I am not playing the game or YouTube) then the screen started to brighten up 3 time in within 10 second with brighter each time, last bright up was to it full brightness that make my eye felt uncomfortable. And I can feel the phone cools down as it go brighter.

I have showed the video of me taking the phone going dim while on holiday, and was replied this is may be a software issue and wait for later update. But it puzzled me that an iPhone 8 can operate under the same environment without heating up or going down in brightness, I truly felt a bit disappoint when this is my upgrade from 8 to 12 pro max, hopefully the next patch could fix this problem.

Case: 101316616810

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201678

If your device gets too warm

If the interior temperature of the device exceeds the normal operating range, the device will protect its internal components by attempting to regulate its temperature. If this happens, you might notice these changes:

> Charging, including wireless charging, slows or stops.

> The display dims or goes black.

> Cellular radios enter a low-power state. The signal might weaken during this time.

> The camera flash is temporarily disabled.

>Performance slows with graphics-intensive or augmented-reality apps or features.

Additionally, if you're navigating, the device might show this alert and turn off the display: "Temperature: iPhone needs to cool down." Navigation still provides audible turn-by-turn directions. When approaching a turn, the display will illuminate to guide you through the turn.

HuuHunq wrote:

Now I remember it’s only happened when my phone is overheating too, thanks for pointing that out, then it’s definitely a hardware problems.

If your device gets too warm

If the interior temperature of the device exceeds the normal operating range, the device will protect its internal components by attempting to regulate its temperature. If this happens, you might notice these changes:

(…)

The display dims or goes black.

source:

Keeping iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch within acceptable operating temperatures

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201678

Again, the iPhone 12, like all smartphones, is designed for use within the following temperature ranges:

Operating ambient temperature: 32° to 95° F (0° to 35° C)

Nonoperating temperature: −4° to 113° F (−20° to 45° C)

iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini - Technical Specifications - Apple

This is because of the use of completely different display technologies: OLED vs.LCD.

Most of Apple's current offerings, like most premium Android phones, use OLED technology where colors are more vibrant, contrast is higher, and dark areas darker but at the cost of some heat generation as each individual pixel is lit by itself; if it is black it is off, if it is to be on, it's on at various brightness levels as needed to form colors on-screen.

If you want a phone where the display will stay on at full brightness all the time, look for a phone with a backlit LCD display where LEDs light the area behind the LCD display and you see the areas of light the LCD lets through.

Of the current iPhones, only the iPhone SE has an LCD display.

Another alternative if you need a backlit LCD screen would be to use a cellular-enabled iPad as your mobile device.

Note that most premium Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and Google Pixel 6 have also moved to an OLED display for the same reasons Apple did; to get an LCD display you have to move to a smaller or lower-end model or a tablet just as you need to with Apple's devices.

Complaining you can't have the phone at full brightness for long periods of time is like complaining you can't drive your car with the gas pedal floored all the time.

Most importantly, if using your phone becomes a hazard to driving, turn it off and put it away until you reach your destination.

(I'm frankly still amazed Uber and Lyft haven't yet been sued for their drivers being distracted by having to have their apps on. Also food delivery services.)

This is an extremely irritating and inconvenient thing. It is definitely a overheating problem. I tried every single suggestion on various forums.

Its starting to become a safety and can cause a financial loss.

• When driving using Maps / GoogleMaps it dims so dark that I cant see a thing and you have to drive on voice prompts
• Flying my drone busy with cinematic or documentary shots and I cant see a thing. I have to use the Return to Home because I cant navigate it to the starting point.
• Charging - same thing
• Try to take a photo using the flash when the screen is dim; you get the message that you cant use the flash- wait for iPhone to cool down.

When this happened yesterday I was busy with a cinematic shot of power-plant turbines, needing precision flight and the screen blacked out. (dimmed, extremely dark)

I turned on my car’s AC on full blast holding the phone’s back at the air vent and the screen went bring within about 30seconds.

I started removing the cover to see if this might prevent the phone from overheating.

This is not what a R30 000 phone should do.

This has happened to me twice since I got my iPhone 12 a few weeks ago. I went to Settings - Display & Brightness - Display Zoom (all the way at the bottom) - change to ‘Zoomed’. This seemed to work, then I just changed it back to Standard Zoom. This assumes that your screen is dark but you still have a tiny bit of visibility to see your apps. It’s a crap workaround, but it has worked both times I did it.