iOS 26 is causing eye strain, headaches, and nausea when viewing my iPhone 16

iOS 26 on my iPhone is hurting my eyes, giving me headaches, and causing nausea. Is anyone else having this problem?

Something with the white point and intensity of the brightness. My eyes hurt so bad and I am getting headaches which I never do. I noticed the brightness immediately after the update. No matter what settings I do in accessibly, display, contrast, white point, etc it’s still either way too intense to see properly or very dull but less eye strain.

Does anyone else have this issue? I don’t know what to do. It’s actually causing a lot of issues for my daily life now and I can’t keep having this. Hoping for a fix.

Posted on Nov 12, 2025 6:34 PM

23 replies

Dec 16, 2025 10:37 AM in response to lobsterghost1

lobsterghost1 wrote:

LD150 wrote:

When I fired up the MBA tonight I honestly didn't notice much difference in MacOS 26.

The only real noticeable change on a MacBook is the Lock Screen, which has more transparency in the Time displayed.

You both confirm my impressions (always good!). I never pay much attention to the lock screen other than to see what user account I'm signing into.

LD150

Level 10

100,233 points

Dec 22, 2025 1:27 AM in response to IdrisSeabright

I only fire up the Mac once a month to clean up Photos, straighten up spreadsheets that ipadOS has mangled, and do Time Machine backups.

Apart from when they changed from Preferences to System Settings I never noticed any difference year on year. I have given up testing new versions, boring .