Display manufacturers use pulse width modulation, or PWM, to make display panels more energy efficient, especially at lower brightness levels, by quickly turning individual pixels on/off to save more energy, and thus potentially extend battery life and even the display’s life span. However, that may come at a cost of overall user experience as some users are a bit sensitive to this “flickering”, which could lead to eye fatigues and other unpleasant symptoms.
To mitigate this, it appears that Apple is bringing an option to disable PWM, according to the iOS 26 release candidate, and here’s how the notes describe this toggle:
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.
You’ll find this new option in Accessibility > Display and Text Size section.
So far, MacRumors has confirmed that this will be an option on the iPhone 17 Pro, but it’s still possible that it’s coming to iPhone 17 and iPhone Air as well. We’ll update this article upon further confirmation.
