iPhone 12 pro max keeps dimming

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

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.

Thanks for all the advice here. It’s basically come down to a known issue where the battery gets too hot playing certain games or apps (Probably graphic intensive). Apple has a safety feature” that dims the screen until the phone cools.

Basically, it’s garbage. Apple knows about it and is seemingly doing nothing to rectify it.

Since I changed to my original case the prob had disappeared completely!

I wonder if some of the after market cases hold some of the buttons down a little constantly? And this causes some extra heat

who knows

but changing to my original case has stopped it

If you have Auto Brightness, True Tone and attention Aware Features off, then it’s probably overheating (if the top back of the phone is warmer than usual) that’s why it’s dimming. It’s a ridiculous self protection feature. If you need it urgently put it in the fridge for a couple of minutes (just kidding). leave it alone it will be fixed even constant browsing will make mine heat up pretty bad so disappointed with 12 Pro Max. :-(

Blackboi40 wrote:

It’s crazy how common this is and people don’t even realize it. People aren’t stupid.. we know about auto Brightness. All brightness settings are off and the screen randomly dims well below screen brightness then randomly shoots to make screen brightness. It’s not a gradual climb and gradual fall like with auto Brightness.

Ummm, does everyone also know about Attention Aware Features? Do you know about this setting, that dims the screen when you are not looking directly at it and brightens it when you again look at it? As mentioned in the post directly above yours?

I found something that seems to be working with my 12 pro model - it definitely seems to be an overheating issue so what occurred to me is that my phone case acts as an insulator keeping the heat in the back of the phone. So I took the case off drilled four 3/4 inch holes and four more 3/8 inch holes offset through the back of the case. The intent was to let heat escape from the phone rather than be trapped and insulated by the phone case. So far that seems to be working and I haven’t had the screen go dim regardless of how long I’m using it.

Every time the screen dims due to back of phone starting to heat up, turn on power saver mode, and give it minute or two.

Phone will cool down even while using and screen will brighten back up.

I have found that this is a processor getting too hot it happens to me regularly but when I said it in front of my air conditioner I get my brightness back

Try this hack:

Accessibility > Displays & Text Size >Increase Contrast>turn off.. your issues will disappear… have no idea why, but it worked on my iPhone 12pro max… no more issues

Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Scroll to bottom and the "Reduce White Point" should be second from the bottom.

I have the same problem, I noticed when the phone running a certain application it heats up a bit and the screen automatically dims under a certain temperature. When it is cooled and idle for a while the screen gets back in its original condition.

That is inaccurate.. my phone has been force restarted many times with these settings set.. and they do remain the same.. the issue is that the screen dims even when the brightness is at Max, the issue isn’t that the setting changes.. the phone gets hot and the screen dims down. I work in mobile phone repairs and understand phone setting fine. This is a problem with the phones!

One thing that seemed to fix this issue on my iPhone 12 after also trying every trick in the book to raise brightness levels on the screen, was to toggle between Classic Invert back and forth which pumped up the brightness for me. I know, rather MacGyver of me, but merely reporting the results!

I believe this is [another] design flaw Apple will refuse to acknowledge. The dimming people experience is when the phone gets too hot. The screen will automatically use less power (dimmer screen) to prevent overheating. Poor design IMO because phones should be running at maximum brightness at all times if the user wishes.

Yes I checked if auto brightness is turned off (duh). Went into Accessibility > Display Text/Size to make sure everything’s off blah blah … I did all of the general tips and tricks you can find from the tech support and online and nothing worked.

Point is: Customers shouldn’t have to resort to digging this deep or look for “hacks” to fulfill something that should be STANDARD.

Here’s the proof: I currently have the iPhone 12 Max Pro. I kept my iPhone 10x Max. Both have silicone cases. I play one of those pvp strategy war games on both phones and the 12 definitely dims more often and stays dim more so than the 10. I played on the 10 just as long thinking the heat from my hands is probably adding to the problem, but no, the 10 stays nice and bright.

99% if iPhone users also use a case and Apple hasn’t figured out how to design better heat dissipation? A manual override for screen brightness?

Anyone have a true solution (other than another phone brand)?

I know there are various fixes; for me on my iPhone12 when the screen dims (when it gets hot/in bringer sunlight) I just go to accessibility/display & text size/classic invert… I keep toggling back and forth here and the brightness comes back … YMMV but it works for me. Best of luck all!