iPhone 12 screen brightness issue

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 🙌

I figured it out! A couple of weeks ago I had my camera open and put the phone down on a table for a bit and when I picked it up it was “super zoomed” and it would not respond to touch. After much fussing with it I got it to reset and when it came back that’s when the “dim screen” started happening. (Did not notice it right away as I was inside).

Finally put it together and when to “accessibility” and “zoom” was engaged - clicked it off and amazingly the screen brightened!

issue is resolved when in settings : accessability > display and text size > auto brightness is turned off

Omg i just followed you and turn off autobrightness in accessibility and I was in awe how bright the screen went i was like OMG i can use this screen to light my house hahaha no kidding the screen is soooo bright i had to reduce it in screen and brightness setting. So cool

UPDATE: - spent 2 hrs with a Certified Apple Technician at Best Buy, who got online with Apple. They ran some diagnostics, and determined my phone has a KBB (KNOWN back board) problem. They are going to replace the display board and see if it resolves the issue. However, the Apple Tech said this is a known problem with iPhone 12's, and it might continue having the same problem.... if so they will replace the phone, but I might still have the same problem because it is a KNOWN problem with the iPhone 12's... Not necessarily good news, but at least it's info. Might be worth it to take your phone in and get it checked with Apple's diagnostics and see if you can get some help...

I was having problems and it was really ******* me off but I finally found the answer for this in the forums. Go to settings, accessibility, Display and brightness and turn off reduce white point and auto brightness. It totally cleared up my problem

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.

…”

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

I am a Developer. Here is the bug folks: The phone is not technically dimming; the software is setting the maximum brightness to a lower level, in percentage increments. You can see this happen in stages, and when it does, go to your brightness gauge. You’ll notice that it will slide from top to bottom, but may only actually be working from 0% up to say 20% or 30%. Any manual setting of the slider higher than that level has no effect. You can see this happen in real time.

Sanity check: One iOS program’s feature that is unaffected by this “low-maximum” bug is the video setting in the camera. When the iOS software has reduced max brightness so low you can barely see a thing on the display, launch your camera to set it to take a video, and watch the phone magically light back up again and return to normal. Change the camera from video to photo and watch the max-brightness drop again right before your eyes. Switch away from the video activated camera app to anything else, even just the home screen and it’ll start getting darker. Switch back to vid-camera and illumination returns to full, as the vid-cam feature ignores/bypasses the current system maximum brightness value.

This is an obvious bug, an iOS bug when running on iPhone 12 Max Pro hardware; a bug that is dropping the max-brightness value, and by doing so decreasing general/global display luminosity to unusable levels. Even II it’s a design flaw with a sensor somewhere on the iPhone hardware sending the operating system bad telemetry data, the iOS could be written a patch to ignore the false readings if it detects its running on an iPhone model 12 Pro Max (or any other similarly defective iPhone models).

This is a bug.

A bug that should be treated as a P1-Critical PR in my opinion.

Marc

neily_boy72 wrote:

I completely agree! My issue is that Apple are ignoring everyone, denying there’s an issue when you go into a store and saying they’ve never heard of it, which is obviously untrue. I have had Apple phones since day one, iPads, Apple watches and this is the first time ever that I have considered looking elsewhere for a phone. Sad times and poor service by Apple.

Repeating what I just posted that you probably didn’t read:

Go to Settings/Accessibility/Face ID & Attention and turn off Attention Aware.

Try disabling dark mode, and all auto brightness options. Worked for me!

Go to Settings/Accessibility/Face ID & Attention and turn off Attention Aware.

maybe check if you have a zoom filter called low light on.

Check in

settings > accessibility > Zoom > Zoom filters

make sure it’s not on low light.

hope this helps.

There is a definite bug with iPhone 12 screen brightness IMO. Has happened multiple times quite randomly that screen suddenly dims to excessive levels and even dragging brightness manually up to max still results in a dull screen. This has happened indoors and outdoors; at normal temperature and heat; and happens suddenly and without any changes in ambient light. So the phone isn't responding to changes in ambient lighting conditions.

Today I corrected it by switch g auto I'm on amd off but I doubt this will be a lasting fix. Apply will need to fix this glitch with an update IMO

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.