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

Same. It’s a lot better after turning on Night Shift setting it towards basically on 24 hours

but turning the level all the way down, turning reduce white point on and reducing that brightness all the way down, turning onto true Tone and I keep it left of center and then I had to turn off All three reduce motion in motion settings In accessibility which made a big difference for me

Read this (also today) to the end!

How to disable New Liquid Glass design fo… - Apple Community

Hello. What have you tried to help your eyes?

. reduce the brightness of the screen.

. every 10 min. or so look away from your screen. Look left for 3 sec., look right for 3, look up then down.

. use drops.

. use warm compresses.

. disable liquid glass, as per the link on this thread.

Same for me but I am on the iPhone 11 because my eyes cannot tolerate the liquid glass type OLED tech that is on the iphone 15 - 17. I had tried earlier this year for 6 weeks using them and had all of your mentioned problems so I went back to my iPhone 11 which had a iOS 18 version until I woke this morning to the iOS 26.1 and my eyes have been killing me since and I only looked at my phone on and off for about 20-30 minutes trying all of the mentioned options to reduce the brightness, sharpness, blurry icons/keyboard etc., but I think that there is tethering/flickering occurring in the background that our eyes are trying to focus on that we can't see outright causing the severe eye strain, headaches and vertigo spells. I really hope that Apple takes our complaints and concerns seriously issuing an update to toggle somethings to make it similar to the iOS 18.

cjshoes wrote:

Same for me but I am on the iPhone 11 because my eyes cannot tolerate the liquid glass type OLED tech that is on the iphone 15 - 17. I had tried earlier this year for 6 weeks using them and had all of your mentioned problems so I went back to my iPhone 11 which had a iOS 18 version until I woke this morning to the iOS 26.1 and my eyes have been killing me since and I only looked at my phone on and off for about 20-30 minutes trying all of the mentioned options to reduce the brightness, sharpness, blurry icons/keyboard etc., but I think that there is tethering/flickering occurring in the background that our eyes are trying to focus on that we can't see outright causing the severe eye strain, headaches and vertigo spells. I really hope that Apple takes our complaints and concerns seriously issuing an update to toggle somethings to make it similar to the iOS 18.

See if any of these suggetions help:

Liquid Glass - Love It Or Hate It - It's … - Apple Community

brentgrab wrote:

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.

What did your doctor say when you went to see them about your issue?

A few days ago went from Seqoia to 26 on iMac… no matter how I adjust settings in display, accessibility and any other display adjustment I am getting sore eyes, headaches and nausea. The folders on desktop went from the light blue color that have been there for years to a darker blue with very shiny irritating quality.

It is at the point I can’t use my IMac for longer than 10 minutes. Tinting glass quality does not help.

Anyone else experiencing this and has anyone found a solution.

I have the same problem I have sick since the updates constant headaches and pain. I have no problems before the updates

You probably need to check with a doctor and in the meantime disable liquid glass

Had the same problem. I had a eye check up and it was all normal.

in the meantime disable liquid glass

Since this is your recommendation, could you provide the correct steps for this?