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iPhone screen dims in sunlight

When Auto Brightness is turned off, the phone screen dims in the sun. In the shade, it does not return to normal over time. To restore the original colors, you need to turn Auto Brightness on and off or reboot the phone.


Happens mostly when the phone's brightness is turned to maximum when there is no Auto Brightness turned on. Black colors seem to turn gray.


[Re-Titled by Moderator]


iPhone 13 Pro Max, iOS 16

Posted on Jun 6, 2023 3:26 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 6, 2023 6:28 AM

None of these are factors. It's a bug in the software somewhere. And it's very annoying. Auto brightness off, night shift off, and true tone off, and it still dims to like 50% brightness when I am in the sun.


Why won't you guys believe us that this is a bug in the software? We know how to work the phone. We know not to leave it in a hot car. No one said, hey, my phone is blazing hot and the screen dims. No... we go outside or get out of our cars, and the screen dims for no apparent reason.

51 replies

Aug 16, 2024 2:07 PM in response to relsson

How to conclusively determine if your I Phone has a software bug:

Two methods:

(1) Go to Settings, click your name at the top, then scroll down until you see the model number of your phone. If it starts with an "I", your I Phone has a bug.

(2) List your symptoms on this forum. If the mediator repeats previous, ineffective instructions, or, if the mediator goes radio silent, you have a bug.


Aug 24, 2024 2:09 PM in response to John Rose6

A new development.

Today I went out biking with my iPhone, and saw that it turned nearly black in the sun. I moved to a shaded area (a gazebo with trees by one side) to try to change a Music playlist, still unreadable.

Then by chance I turned it to landscape orientation and suddenly I could see it better. My polarizing clip-on sunglasses made it dark in portrait orientation. I took them off and it got even better.


My old Motorola Android phone was polarized the opposite way. I could see it in portrait mode with my sunglasses well enough to use a speedometer and geo-tracking app while it was mounted on the handlebars, but not in landscape orientation.


That choice of polarization on the iPhone screen seems like a design flaw to me.

My old iPod touch has the same polarization as the iPhone, but it's not so dramatically dark. It just turns purple.

Aug 26, 2024 2:37 PM in response to Tom Oviedo

I personally don’t think it’s a heat issue but instead an ambient light issue. I’ve done every thing that has been suggested and I still have the issue. I will turn the phone off and then turn back on with decent brightness but almost immediately it starts to dim, it goes in stages a few seconds apart.

The phone is not hot, it’s actually overcast and it still does it.

True Tone and Automatic are both off. It still dims but for some reason the manual sliders doesn’t change its position, it is still set at max. Shouldn’t this slider move as the screen dims?

At any rate the screen should not dim on its own with True Tone and Automatic disabled.

I can understand the screen going to black because of excess heat but outside of that the brightness should not change.

Basically its nearly unusable in the outdoors.

Nov 8, 2024 12:37 PM in response to Tom Oviedo

Exactly. My TrueTone is off, brightness, all the things. It literally just happens randomly and inconsistently. My phone is not hot right now. It suddenly turned down, and then suddenly turned down again, and then turned up again. No light changes in the room (plus this isn't relevant because I have the setting OFF). It's a bug!


If this is an overheating thing, you should have a message indicating such (like when charging gets put on hold), and you should allow us to turn that setting OFF. Because clearly it's doing it at the wrong times. I need brightness and contrast to see what I am doing, and I imagine it is an accessibility issue for many people.

iPhone screen dims in sunlight

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