Remember when Apple introduced a parallax effect to iOS, giving the illusion that your icons are floating above the background? It was a cool albeit novel feature, but it also gave some users headaches. However, Apple gave users the option to disable it. Now, it looks like Apple is giving iPhone 17 users the option to disable PWM dimming .
You can disable PWM dimming on the iPhone 17
According to the iOS 26 release candidate, it mentions that there will be a toggle in the Display and Text Size settings in Accessibility that allows iPhone 17 users to disable PWM dimming.
Apple’s description reads, “Disables pulse width modulation to provide a different way to dim the OLED display, which can create a smoother display output at low brightness levels. Disabling PWM may affect low brightness display performance under certain conditions.”
Right now, it appears that it is only available for the iPhone 17 series , although we wouldn’t be surprised if it mades it way to the iPhone Air as well. We’re not sure if Apple has plans to bring it to older iPhones, or if there are some hardware limitations on older models that could prevent this. Either way, we’ll have to wait and see when iOS 26 is released .
Should you disable it?
One of the benefits of OLED displays is that it offers pixel-level control. This means that instead of a backlighting system like LCD, OLED has a greater degree of control. This is why OLEDs are known to have deeper blacks, because it literally turns off the light for pixels that are not in use.
This also adds to the energy efficiency of OLED. PWM is a feature that helps to quickly switch these pixels on or off to control brightness. For the most part, you might not even notice it. However, some users who are more sensitive to these changes may notice flickering at brighter levels. As a result, some users report problems like eye strain, headaches, and so on. At least with this option, users can finally do something about it.
