User profile for user: LEDSTRAIN
LEDSTRAIN Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Apple Silicon Dithering Causes Me Migraine like Brainfog | Potential Brain/ Vision Damage?

I'm a video editor, have worked on Macs in Final Cut for the last 15years, 6months ago I bought my first Apple Silicon and for the last 6months I have been trying to get ontop of this issue or face the end of my career.


For 6 months I have been stuck with a 2019 MacBook Pro i9 on Catalina 10.15.6 as my only usable machine.


I have bought and returned approaching £10K or more worth of kit from the Apple Store in this time and have been through two Windows laptops... Windows also causes symptoms.


I repeat I do not get symptoms from 2019 MacBook Pro i9 on Catalina 10.15.6. BUT from buying and returning Intel Macs I believe that once you upgrade to 10.15.7 something is irreversibly changed at the Firmware level whereby I could not return to Catalina 10.15.6. without brain strain.


Every person I talk to says, glasses, monitor, on and on.. this issue is apparent on any and all external monitors, it is a GPU issue or at the BIOS type level.


But I write this today on an i7 Mac mini running Ventura, the important fix is I am using SwitchresX to switch from 'Billions of Colours' to 'Millions of Colours" and use 'Font Smoothing Adjuster' to adjust the default font smoothing I also have an external GPU running my monitor, a Radeon RX 5700


I have been on the phone with Apple for hours on two occasions, both times the person on the other end was full of compassion and took my story very seriously... And then disappeared, I can't seem to chase them on follow up.


Over the last 6months I can't comprehend how many days I have lost trying to get ontop of this issue and the toll it had had on my mental health facing the uncertainty of a video editing career not being able to use modern computers.


I do not know for certain if this fix is something I can live and work with, time will tell, but one thing I know for certain is; if I attempted to write this amount of text on an M1 or M2 Mac I'd have an excruciating headache by now.


Maybe you read this and don't have any symptoms and I hope you never have to endure this, but if that tech that you can use comfortably at present is doing this to my brain maybe it is doing something to yours too, you're just not aware yet.


Other sufferers are at LED Strain .org there's also a change.org campaign around this.


We are the canary's down the coal mine.


Google 'M1 Eyestrain' 'M2 Nausea' I am not alone in this.


Please if anyone at Apple reads this please please escalate this and enable 'Millions of colors' as an accessibility option, Please allow users to have less or no dithering at the expense of colour banding and battery life.


Please allow me at 37yr old with two young kids to stay working as a video editor.


PLEASE APPLE LISTEN TO US!!!



MacBook, macOS 10.13

Posted on Jun 23, 2023 02:05 AM

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User profile for user: djrtez
djrtez
User level: Level 1
19 points

Posted on Nov 29, 2023 07:30 PM

Hey bud, I’ll tell ya most of these folks that report this very same issue are perfectly healthy. You wouldn’t happen to work for Apple and are trying to protect their interests would you? I have seen so many posts such as yours trying to hush and downplay people’s complains about feeling eye stain and headaches when using these new silicon chip machines. Though it’s only a small population of Mac users that experience this unfortunate anomaly, it’s still “Thousands of people” in the grand scheme of things, maybe even millions? Shame on Apple if they have been brushing off these complaints thinking they can still meet their ambitious sales quotas. M1, M2, M3 in just three years? Jobs would be turning over in grave from how Apple is putting quantity over quality. Apple, being such the revered company that it is should make it priority to have this issue rectified asap because it’s causing physical harm to some of its most loyal and oldest long time customers. Why doesn’t Apple put together a group of these people that have first hand experienced this problem, and do some very thorough testing during the design of it’s next laptop or studio monitor so to make sure this issue is actually fixed before release date. I’m sure tons of these fine people are more than willing to participate. You must understand, these are customers that are loyal to Apple, through thick or thin. Apple has to hear the voices of these folks and make accommodations for them. What ever happened to the days when you had the ability to customize the type of screen you wanted with your Mac’s purchase? I trust Apple can do better as they are known for pushing boundaries.

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User profile for user: djrtez
djrtez
User level: Level 1
19 points

Nov 29, 2023 07:30 PM in response to Seallbay

Hey bud, I’ll tell ya most of these folks that report this very same issue are perfectly healthy. You wouldn’t happen to work for Apple and are trying to protect their interests would you? I have seen so many posts such as yours trying to hush and downplay people’s complains about feeling eye stain and headaches when using these new silicon chip machines. Though it’s only a small population of Mac users that experience this unfortunate anomaly, it’s still “Thousands of people” in the grand scheme of things, maybe even millions? Shame on Apple if they have been brushing off these complaints thinking they can still meet their ambitious sales quotas. M1, M2, M3 in just three years? Jobs would be turning over in grave from how Apple is putting quantity over quality. Apple, being such the revered company that it is should make it priority to have this issue rectified asap because it’s causing physical harm to some of its most loyal and oldest long time customers. Why doesn’t Apple put together a group of these people that have first hand experienced this problem, and do some very thorough testing during the design of it’s next laptop or studio monitor so to make sure this issue is actually fixed before release date. I’m sure tons of these fine people are more than willing to participate. You must understand, these are customers that are loyal to Apple, through thick or thin. Apple has to hear the voices of these folks and make accommodations for them. What ever happened to the days when you had the ability to customize the type of screen you wanted with your Mac’s purchase? I trust Apple can do better as they are known for pushing boundaries.

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Apple Silicon Dithering Causes Me Migraine like Brainfog | Potential Brain/ Vision Damage?

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