iPhone screen dims randomly

I have been in touch with Apple and they escalated my issue to the engineers. They requested analytics information from my phone and will be getting back to me Friday 4/13/18.

Once I hear back I will post my results. I’ve tried turning off auto brightness and that did not help.

Hopefully they will have an answer.

I received a call back. Engineers want me to record my screen when I’m using Waze and if it happens I need to send the video in. Of course today I used Waze and had no issues.

Once it happens and I send the recording to Apple I’ll update.

The weird thing is today it was very cloudy/overcast and I had no issues. It seems to only occur when it is sunny/bright out. Phone was still warm to the touch and it felt the same when the screen dimmed.

I have the same issue… I just got a brand new iPhone 10 and it is doing the same thing as my old phone. I’ve been on the phone with Apple tech-support for three days… This is so frustrating! I cannot use this phone outside… I cannot see the screen in the sunlight because it dims.

I have the dimming problem on the iPhone X. The screen is never very bright, but when it dims it is completely unusable in daylight. CVS drugstore has an app that displays a barcode on your phone that the pharmacy scans when you pick up prescriptions. Whether or not the phone is dimmed they always have trouble scanning mine.

Mountain-marimba wrote:

CVS drugstore has an app that displays a barcode on your phone

I use this app as well. My iPhone X has no brightness / dimming issues, but the clerk also has trouble scanning the barcode. I believe their scanner requires a very precise angle and somewhat precise distance for the barcode to be presented and recognized.

I’m having the same issues as well, with the screen dimming for anywhere between 2 and 30 minutes at a time. Mostly I notice it on brighter days when I’m using Waze as well, phone plugged into charger, but where phone is in my car is low, under stereo, and rarely in direct sunlight at all. Screen dims and makes it stupidly difficult to read on very bright days, and when driving can’t always reboot phone to fix the issue. All screen settings are set to the absolute basic, even turned True Tone off as a test the most recent trip I took. Seems like my screen dims to about 50%, and when I move brightness slider down from 100%, it doesn’t change til I’m halfway down, then will get dimmer from there, but brightness locks at around 50-60% and doesn’t go up despite setting at 100%

When it happens to you have you left the phone running and has the screen returned back to normal brightness? It happened last week so I left Waze running and after a few minutes the screen slowly returned to normal.

Still have not heard back from Apple. They have my videos/screen recordings so hopefully I will hear back soon with a fix.

In my case this issue of the screen dimming on its own is irregardless of Waze which I hardly ever use. In my case the screen dimming in its own happens seemingly haphazardly and in any app. I wonder sometimes if it has to do with the number of apps open and amount of power the apps are using combined or if it has to do with how much battery is left and the phone is trying to conserve. Whatever the case it’s very frustrating especially when I’m trying to read or use my phone outside and can barely see the words on the screen.

I have been to the Apple store and had my iPhone 10 replaced twice now. The first iPhone was backed up from my original phone. The phone still dimmed on its own. The second one I did not back up But ran as new device . This phone continues to DM outside and inside while plugged in. There is obviously a defect in the iPhone X screen that Apple either refuses to admit or could possibly be working on it.

I’ve been to the Apple store twice now. They gave me a brand new iPhone X the first time but backed it up from my old phone. The problem continued. I returned to receive yet another new iPhone X, but ran this one as a new device and did not back it up. This phone continues to dim While outside and will also dim when inside and plugged in. I believe this is a heat related issue.

hi AnthonyAllstate, i think i found out the cause of the screen dimming down. ok if you want to get it fix go to to setting/general/accessibility/display accommodations, within here you should have invert colours off, colour filters off, auto brightness off and the last thing is reduce white point should be off as well. Try that out.

I dont know about anyone else but I checked my Display Accommodations early on as did Apple Genius'. All the settings you mention have never been enabled therefore didn't need to be turned off. The problem with the screen dimming is not caused by settings. At least not in my case. I think it might have to do with low battery, heat or perhaps an app(s) doing something within the phone that is exhausting it. I have a lot of apps on my phone so I wonder if an app(s) (although the screen dims even when I might only have one app open) is/are not working properly with the OS. The other thing my phone does as I mentioned earlier, is close the imessage app mid-typing and open another app, randomly. Im a fast typer (not that that should be a factor) but it seems to happen when I type quickly.

This is my third NEW iPhone X. They all dim outside or indoors. It dims when plugged in and even when not. Bottom line is I was planning using this phone to operate a new drone and that will now be impossible!! Apple must know there’s an issue but doesn’t seem to Acknowledge or admit they have a problem.

I completely agree Pete193. Between online complaints as well as in store complaints they have to know by now. I wonder what percent it has to reach for them to say "if we don't acknowledge and respond appropriately the repercussion will impact us financially." The Genius' at the store have seen the issue. The last one I spoke to concluded that it had to be a software issue if replacing the phone didn't solve the problem. And that I would not be able to restore from backup if I wanted the problem resolved. Well, I want to utilize my backup, there's a reason it exist for all of us. And they should be working towards a fix rather than telling customers who have spent $1000 dollar on a cellphone that they can't have their existing data for that $1000 phone to work properly. There are other issues as well that I have encountered but rather than address them, the issues go ignored or bounced around until you get frustrated and just give up which I think they ultimately hope for.

I have the same situation with iphone 8 on the latest iOS. Auto brightness turned off, True tone could be off or on (doesn’t matter). So, brightness could by itself suddenly switch to 75% or lower, to 50%, however brightness setting set to max. It happens while gaming or watching youtube etc. Brightness switch from 75% to 100%, for example, doesn’t increase brightness, it stuck on 75%.

I have had such issue with my 6s and the problem was in certain iOS version, Apple released it last year for 6s to fix suddenly turn off issue (my iphone 6s was eligible for free battery replacement due to this) and there was a dependency with battery %. At 75% battery screen dims to 75% brightness, at 50% to 50% and so on.

Just now, writing this comment my iphone 8 was at approximately 75% max brightness and I couldn’t set it to 100%, it also was connected to the power from 60% battery, at the end of the comment iphone increased brightness to 100% 2 times and came back to normal, battery charged to 73%.

Considering this situation I can assume that this is iOS issue and made to prevent from overheating. I don’t like such approach, instead of doing everything well, Apple trying to fix the problems in a strange ways. Disappointed.