7 ms·

Why iOS 7 is making some users sick

56 points by jarofgreen 13y ago

LinaLauneBaer 13y ago
The parallax and blur effects can be turned off in the preferences (enabling high contrast disables the blur effect for example). If memory serves correctly both settings can be found in the accessibility tab.
- jarofgreen 13y ago
  Article says: "The lack of a solution is the bigger problem. Apple provides a "Reduce Motion" option within the iOS 7 Settings app, but it is poorly labelled; it merely disables the parallax effect, but doesn't stop zooming or sliding. Apple did not respond to requests for comment for this article. Which for now, leaves affected people on their own." (I haven't got iOS7 so can't check)
  - nwh 13y ago
    That's right, just the parallax effects are gone. The main annoying ones that take a full second or so are the ones in the unlock screen, and they can't be disabled.
  - LinaLauneBaer 13y ago
    Right. It is labeled badly. The "Increase Contrast" options is even more badly labeled because it in part increases contrast by disabling blur. I think that Apple does not want an explicit "Disable Blur" setting because down the road the blur effect may become outdated again. Then they had to rename the setting again. So I can see the reasoning: They name the settings after what their effect is not how those settings are implemented.
Synaesthesia 13y ago
The primary culprit is the app zooming effect, which can be rather disconcerting for users. Hopefully Apple will supply an update allowing one to toggle that particular animation off. I remember getting severe motion sickness the first time I ever saw Doom being played, and again with Quake, although those passed with time. It's very unpleasant!
- BHSPitMonkey 13y ago
  Stay as far away from the Oculus Rift as you can, then...
  - Synaesthesia 13y ago
    Oh yeah, I got over that nausea very quickly. I do wanna check out the Oculus!
longzheng 13y ago
Normally I am usually very susceptible to motion sickness from FPS games, reading in cars/trains and theme park rides which can all easily make me feel like throwing up, but I've not had effects of any degree from using iOS 7 since the very first betas.
- coldcode 13y ago
  I often have trouble watching many FPS games much less playing them. Been using iOS7 since the early betas and I never even considered any of this an issue, nor did any of my coworkers many of whom upgraded early as well. The parallax view is a pretty pointless trick. I wonder how much of this is real and how much is suggested by all the articles? It's hard to imagine that a real problem wouldn't have been seen by people at Apple and all the developers who like me have used it for months. It's strange to think a small device's virtual motion could cause that much reaction.
  - to3m 13y ago
    Perhaps these people are looking at it wrong?
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  Same for me. I get sick travelling and playing video games but I've been using iOS 7 since June and never had a problem.
- RexRollman 13y ago
  As someone mentioned elsewhere, what affects someone is going to vary from person to person. I've been lucky that iOS 7 hasn't bother me, considering I am the type of person who can't read in a moving vehicle.
nwh 13y ago
Settings.app > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion Doesn't remove all the whsihy in and out of Springboard.app ones though, so you'll have to wait for a jailbreak to be completely animation-free.
- return0 13y ago
  Can't find the setting on iphone 4 running 7.0.2
  - jensnockert 13y ago
    I think those animations are disabled by default on the iPhone 4.
  - thirdsun 13y ago
    I guess the animations are already reduced on the iPhone 4 due to Hardware limitations.
  - jeffwass 13y ago
    How do you find overall ios7 performance on the iPhone 4? I have a 4 but am reluctant to upgrade to ios7, fearing it may be too slow on the hardware.
    - nwh 13y ago
      It's slow at times even on the most recent iPad. >5 seconds of complete non-responsiveness when you change a wallpaper, for example.
    - chj 13y ago
      My two cents: don't do it. Sickly slow.
      - Mikeb85 13y ago
        Is this iOS 4 on the 3G all over? My wife refuses to ever update iOS because she saw what happened to my 3G (it became so slow it was barely usable)...
code_duck 13y ago
I find all of these visual effects to be disorienting... And superfluous at best. I was closing my eyes when switching apps for the first few days also. I'm disappointed Apple provided no way to disable the zoom animation - just like I would on a desktop OS, the first thing I tried to do was disable that option. The parallax scrolling of the icons over the background when the phone is titled on the home screen is bizarre. I'm not sure what Apple intends there.
- theguycalledtom 13y ago
  Yes, I felt a bit ill during the first day but I have since got used to it. However, I think it's mainly because I've subconsciously learnt to not pay attention during the animations.
joe5150 13y ago
I've already toggled "Reduce Motion" on, not because the movement was making me ill, but just because I thought the effect looked somehow bad. The parallax effect on the homescreen is nice enough, but far too subtle to justify having to also look at the dumb wiggling modals that it produces. I'd be interested in hearing if other people find the effect genuinely pleasant to look at.
acqq 13y ago
I feel some of the symptoms myself! Not as strong as some descriptions in the article, but definitely I do. I have an older iPhone with iOS 7, so I don't see the parallax, but as I wanted to talk about the parallax effect with somebody, I've searched for video with the parallax effect on YouTube -- and just watching the video made me feel slightly sick. Maybe holding the phone in the hand and seeing the parallax as the response of my own motions wouldn't produce the same effect but that video did. "OK it moves, now more under it should be visible, ah it's not" -- it hit some kind of an "uncanny" by me. Second, I have big problems with automatic sliding of the lower tabbar and upper urlbar in and out in Safari. For example I keep the finger on the text, wanting to scroll, but I read the top part of the page -- now the movement that should enable me to see more of what I'm looking at effectively causes the sliding in the opposite direction exactly obscuring what I want to see. So this effect where I do something in order to see more but the "automatic sliding" kicks in and "helpfully" obscures exactly what I'm trying to see also produces a strange feeling. I can't call it dizziness but certainly a conflicting one. Safari in iOS 6 never had such effects -- "obscuring" against the actions of the user never happened. Otherwise I don't have problems with iOS 7 animations, except that general impression that they take "too long," after using iOS 6. But maybe it's only on the older phones so.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
eknkc 13y ago
I'm honestly curious about this, not trolling or something; How can a person survive the daily life if a couple of animations on a screen makes them sick? What I mean is, if the zoom effect makes someone dizzy I'd expect them to be dizzy around moving cars, approaching trains or watching sports, playing games etc.. But it seems that this is common enough. Is it the bright small screen itself causing such an issue? You know like some people getting nauseous when they read in a car. Or is it just that 3D effects?
- nxpnsv 13y ago
  usually it is when the movement perceived from sight doesn't match what sense of balance tells you. so you get sick while reading in a car in the back seat but not when riding in the front...
  - jarofgreen 13y ago
    Which is maybe why one of the things that can help with seasickness is watching the horizon, so that what you see with your eyes starts to match what your body feels as the boat pitches around.
- spongle 13y ago
  My father suffers from this (and vertigo if that's any correlation). For him, it's when perspective and shape transformations don't compare to reality. This is something that 2d graphics pretending to do 3d transformations is pretty good at screwing up. He can sit at quake 3 for an hour fine, but the effects in osx make him feel sick (so he turns them off). Edit: I just emailed him and iOS 7 is doing his nut in as well. He's switched back to his 4S with iOS 6 on it.
  - acqq 13y ago
    I also played Dooms and Quakes with no problem. It's hard to explain, Dooms and Quakes do move "consistently" the bad UI animations have something "uncanny." Just as an example the original "rubber band" animation in iOS is perfect, "natural," (the stuff reacts exactly as it should according to your actions) the iOS 7 Safari "animated buttonbar and urlbar slide" or Windows "hiding and showing taskbar" or "hidden menus" in old MS Offices just unnatural when you're doing something opposite. Interestingly enough, iOS didn't have any "distracting" animation (for me) until iOS 7. Nothing that I'd wish to turn off. It was just "slick" and "natural." It also had that "stability" of the interface -- once you see something then nothing disappears or moves "just so" or "creepily on its own" only as the result of your actions, so nothing had the "creepy unnatural slides or transitions" whereas Windows was full of exactly such ones since at least XP. I always believed it was only "MS just doesn't have taste." I think Jobs somehow had that deeper feeling how the things should behave (that can be traced back I think even to the influences from his work on video games with Wozniak as he was young -- knowing that the movement can be synced "properly" even with the slow processors and CRT screens, if you really care about it) and now the people who do implement the transitions don't do it to that "ultimate naturalness" goal.
skc 13y ago
I just get the feeling that someone at Apple probably should have spoken up but didn't. Who's going to tell Jony Ive that his UX might be causing motion sickness.
- gurkendoktor 13y ago
  I think that if nobody had spoken up, the "Reduce Motion" option wouldn't even exist (or bold text, for that matter).
  - skc 13y ago
    As far as I know, "Reduce Motion" only turns off the parallax effect which as the article states, is NOT the problem. But I'll concede that it's possible that simply nobody at Apple experienced any sort of motion sickness so they all gave it the thumbs up.
  - officemonkey 13y ago
    I can't wait for presbyopia to hit Jony Ive. The clock on the lock screen was nearly unreadable without my glasses until I found the bold text setting.
devx 13y ago
I don't have that problem myself, but just watching the videos of iOS7 made me think I'd be very frustrated to see all those 1 second animations long everytime I do something. I don't think I could handle seeing those animations hundreds of times every day, and for a couple of years of owning the device. I want my phone to do stuff fast, especially if it has a benchmark-breaking chip inside. What's the point of having such a fast chip, if you can't feel it's fast in everyday use? Whoever is in charge of the design of iOS7 clearly had no coherent vision about what iOS should do, like Scott Forestall (and Steve Jobs) did. The UI is all over the place, and it seems filled with random design gimmicks of the 2005-era (translucency, parallax, zooming in and out, very bright colors, etc) to make it "feel cool" or whatever. Reminds me of Vista and all of those crazy Linux environments. I want my OS to help me do stuff fast, and productively, not show me a circus on the screen, with everything I do.
agumonkey 13y ago
I wish I could see it live, on videos I find it cool and unsickening. It reminds me of holograms (probably mathematically similar), or the eye focus over interference patterns trick in physics book which let you see depth on a flat surface, again very similar to iOS7 parallax.
millerm 13y ago
I, for one, do not believe these complaints at all. But, I cannot speak for others. I just don't feel that the field is large enough, and the exposure is long enough, to actually disorientate or to confuse one's equilibrium.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
chilldream 13y ago
> ...with icons apparently floating above subtly animating wallpaper Now I'm wondering if I have a vision problem I didn't previously know about. I've been unimpressed with the upgrade myself, and one of my biggest complaints is that everything looks so flat that I have a hard time telling text and icons from the background.
crazygringo 13y ago
I find it rather bizarre, that for all the talk of flat design, simplifying, getting the interface out of the way, etc. in iOS 7 -- they upped both the "in-your-face"-ness and the duration of the animations. The effects don't make me sick or anything, but the zooming in and out of apps and folders seems just as superfluous and distracting as leather stitching ever was.
sixQuarks 13y ago
These people are going to have a really hard time with Oculus Rift. Sucks to be them.

56 points by jarofgreen 13y ago

The parallax and blur effects can be turned off in the preferences (enabling high contrast disables the blur effect for example). If memory serves correctly both settings can be found in the accessibility tab.

jarofgreen 13y ago
Article says: "The lack of a solution is the bigger problem. Apple provides a "Reduce Motion" option within the iOS 7 Settings app, but it is poorly labelled; it merely disables the parallax effect, but doesn't stop zooming or sliding. Apple did not respond to requests for comment for this article. Which for now, leaves affected people on their own." (I haven't got iOS7 so can't check)
- nwh 13y ago
  That's right, just the parallax effects are gone. The main annoying ones that take a full second or so are the ones in the unlock screen, and they can't be disabled.
- LinaLauneBaer 13y ago
  Right. It is labeled badly. The "Increase Contrast" options is even more badly labeled because it in part increases contrast by disabling blur. I think that Apple does not want an explicit "Disable Blur" setting because down the road the blur effect may become outdated again. Then they had to rename the setting again. So I can see the reasoning: They name the settings after what their effect is not how those settings are implemented.

Synaesthesia 13y ago

The primary culprit is the app zooming effect, which can be rather disconcerting for users. Hopefully Apple will supply an update allowing one to toggle that particular animation off. I remember getting severe motion sickness the first time I ever saw Doom being played, and again with Quake, although those passed with time. It's very unpleasant!

BHSPitMonkey 13y ago
Stay as far away from the Oculus Rift as you can, then...
- Synaesthesia 13y ago
  Oh yeah, I got over that nausea very quickly. I do wanna check out the Oculus!

longzheng 13y ago

Normally I am usually very susceptible to motion sickness from FPS games, reading in cars/trains and theme park rides which can all easily make me feel like throwing up, but I've not had effects of any degree from using iOS 7 since the very first betas.

coldcode 13y ago
I often have trouble watching many FPS games much less playing them. Been using iOS7 since the early betas and I never even considered any of this an issue, nor did any of my coworkers many of whom upgraded early as well. The parallax view is a pretty pointless trick. I wonder how much of this is real and how much is suggested by all the articles? It's hard to imagine that a real problem wouldn't have been seen by people at Apple and all the developers who like me have used it for months. It's strange to think a small device's virtual motion could cause that much reaction.
- to3m 13y ago
  Perhaps these people are looking at it wrong?
k-mcgrady 13y ago
Same for me. I get sick travelling and playing video games but I've been using iOS 7 since June and never had a problem.
RexRollman 13y ago
As someone mentioned elsewhere, what affects someone is going to vary from person to person. I've been lucky that iOS 7 hasn't bother me, considering I am the type of person who can't read in a moving vehicle.

nwh 13y ago

Settings.app > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion Doesn't remove all the whsihy in and out of Springboard.app ones though, so you'll have to wait for a jailbreak to be completely animation-free.

return0 13y ago
Can't find the setting on iphone 4 running 7.0.2
- jensnockert 13y ago
  I think those animations are disabled by default on the iPhone 4.
- thirdsun 13y ago
  I guess the animations are already reduced on the iPhone 4 due to Hardware limitations.
- jeffwass 13y ago
  How do you find overall ios7 performance on the iPhone 4? I have a 4 but am reluctant to upgrade to ios7, fearing it may be too slow on the hardware.
  - nwh 13y ago
    It's slow at times even on the most recent iPad. >5 seconds of complete non-responsiveness when you change a wallpaper, for example.
  - chj 13y ago
    My two cents: don't do it. Sickly slow.
    - Mikeb85 13y ago
      Is this iOS 4 on the 3G all over? My wife refuses to ever update iOS because she saw what happened to my 3G (it became so slow it was barely usable)...

code_duck 13y ago

I find all of these visual effects to be disorienting... And superfluous at best. I was closing my eyes when switching apps for the first few days also. I'm disappointed Apple provided no way to disable the zoom animation - just like I would on a desktop OS, the first thing I tried to do was disable that option. The parallax scrolling of the icons over the background when the phone is titled on the home screen is bizarre. I'm not sure what Apple intends there.

theguycalledtom 13y ago
Yes, I felt a bit ill during the first day but I have since got used to it. However, I think it's mainly because I've subconsciously learnt to not pay attention during the animations.

joe5150 13y ago

I've already toggled "Reduce Motion" on, not because the movement was making me ill, but just because I thought the effect looked somehow bad. The parallax effect on the homescreen is nice enough, but far too subtle to justify having to also look at the dumb wiggling modals that it produces. I'd be interested in hearing if other people find the effect genuinely pleasant to look at.

acqq 13y ago

I feel some of the symptoms myself! Not as strong as some descriptions in the article, but definitely I do. I have an older iPhone with iOS 7, so I don't see the parallax, but as I wanted to talk about the parallax effect with somebody, I've searched for video with the parallax effect on YouTube -- and just watching the video made me feel slightly sick. Maybe holding the phone in the hand and seeing the parallax as the response of my own motions wouldn't produce the same effect but that video did. "OK it moves, now more under it should be visible, ah it's not" -- it hit some kind of an "uncanny" by me. Second, I have big problems with automatic sliding of the lower tabbar and upper urlbar in and out in Safari. For example I keep the finger on the text, wanting to scroll, but I read the top part of the page -- now the movement that should enable me to see more of what I'm looking at effectively causes the sliding in the opposite direction exactly obscuring what I want to see. So this effect where I do something in order to see more but the "automatic sliding" kicks in and "helpfully" obscures exactly what I'm trying to see also produces a strange feeling. I can't call it dizziness but certainly a conflicting one. Safari in iOS 6 never had such effects -- "obscuring" against the actions of the user never happened. Otherwise I don't have problems with iOS 7 animations, except that general impression that they take "too long," after using iOS 6. But maybe it's only on the older phones so.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

eknkc 13y ago

I'm honestly curious about this, not trolling or something; How can a person survive the daily life if a couple of animations on a screen makes them sick? What I mean is, if the zoom effect makes someone dizzy I'd expect them to be dizzy around moving cars, approaching trains or watching sports, playing games etc.. But it seems that this is common enough. Is it the bright small screen itself causing such an issue? You know like some people getting nauseous when they read in a car. Or is it just that 3D effects?

nxpnsv 13y ago
usually it is when the movement perceived from sight doesn't match what sense of balance tells you. so you get sick while reading in a car in the back seat but not when riding in the front...
- jarofgreen 13y ago
  Which is maybe why one of the things that can help with seasickness is watching the horizon, so that what you see with your eyes starts to match what your body feels as the boat pitches around.
spongle 13y ago
My father suffers from this (and vertigo if that's any correlation). For him, it's when perspective and shape transformations don't compare to reality. This is something that 2d graphics pretending to do 3d transformations is pretty good at screwing up. He can sit at quake 3 for an hour fine, but the effects in osx make him feel sick (so he turns them off). Edit: I just emailed him and iOS 7 is doing his nut in as well. He's switched back to his 4S with iOS 6 on it.
- acqq 13y ago
  I also played Dooms and Quakes with no problem. It's hard to explain, Dooms and Quakes do move "consistently" the bad UI animations have something "uncanny." Just as an example the original "rubber band" animation in iOS is perfect, "natural," (the stuff reacts exactly as it should according to your actions) the iOS 7 Safari "animated buttonbar and urlbar slide" or Windows "hiding and showing taskbar" or "hidden menus" in old MS Offices just unnatural when you're doing something opposite. Interestingly enough, iOS didn't have any "distracting" animation (for me) until iOS 7. Nothing that I'd wish to turn off. It was just "slick" and "natural." It also had that "stability" of the interface -- once you see something then nothing disappears or moves "just so" or "creepily on its own" only as the result of your actions, so nothing had the "creepy unnatural slides or transitions" whereas Windows was full of exactly such ones since at least XP. I always believed it was only "MS just doesn't have taste." I think Jobs somehow had that deeper feeling how the things should behave (that can be traced back I think even to the influences from his work on video games with Wozniak as he was young -- knowing that the movement can be synced "properly" even with the slow processors and CRT screens, if you really care about it) and now the people who do implement the transitions don't do it to that "ultimate naturalness" goal.

skc 13y ago

I just get the feeling that someone at Apple probably should have spoken up but didn't. Who's going to tell Jony Ive that his UX might be causing motion sickness.

gurkendoktor 13y ago
I think that if nobody had spoken up, the "Reduce Motion" option wouldn't even exist (or bold text, for that matter).
- skc 13y ago
  As far as I know, "Reduce Motion" only turns off the parallax effect which as the article states, is NOT the problem. But I'll concede that it's possible that simply nobody at Apple experienced any sort of motion sickness so they all gave it the thumbs up.
- officemonkey 13y ago
  I can't wait for presbyopia to hit Jony Ive. The clock on the lock screen was nearly unreadable without my glasses until I found the bold text setting.

devx 13y ago

I don't have that problem myself, but just watching the videos of iOS7 made me think I'd be very frustrated to see all those 1 second animations long everytime I do something. I don't think I could handle seeing those animations hundreds of times every day, and for a couple of years of owning the device. I want my phone to do stuff fast, especially if it has a benchmark-breaking chip inside. What's the point of having such a fast chip, if you can't feel it's fast in everyday use? Whoever is in charge of the design of iOS7 clearly had no coherent vision about what iOS should do, like Scott Forestall (and Steve Jobs) did. The UI is all over the place, and it seems filled with random design gimmicks of the 2005-era (translucency, parallax, zooming in and out, very bright colors, etc) to make it "feel cool" or whatever. Reminds me of Vista and all of those crazy Linux environments. I want my OS to help me do stuff fast, and productively, not show me a circus on the screen, with everything I do.

agumonkey 13y ago

I wish I could see it live, on videos I find it cool and unsickening. It reminds me of holograms (probably mathematically similar), or the eye focus over interference patterns trick in physics book which let you see depth on a flat surface, again very similar to iOS7 parallax.

millerm 13y ago

I, for one, do not believe these complaints at all. But, I cannot speak for others. I just don't feel that the field is large enough, and the exposure is long enough, to actually disorientate or to confuse one's equilibrium.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

chilldream 13y ago

> ...with icons apparently floating above subtly animating wallpaper Now I'm wondering if I have a vision problem I didn't previously know about. I've been unimpressed with the upgrade myself, and one of my biggest complaints is that everything looks so flat that I have a hard time telling text and icons from the background.

crazygringo 13y ago

I find it rather bizarre, that for all the talk of flat design, simplifying, getting the interface out of the way, etc. in iOS 7 -- they upped both the "in-your-face"-ness and the duration of the animations. The effects don't make me sick or anything, but the zooming in and out of apps and folders seems just as superfluous and distracting as leather stitching ever was.

sixQuarks 13y ago

These people are going to have a really hard time with Oculus Rift. Sucks to be them.