14 DAY TRIAL // An Apple forum thread that has been visited more than 20,000 times in the past week has caught the attention of the media, as users seem to report “motion sickness” when using iOS 7.
We’ve already quoted a few Apple customers on the matter, and it seems the issue is real, but now a physician chimes in to say, “There’s some validity to this, for people who are susceptible.”
However, Dr. George Kikano, division chief of family medicine at UH Case Medical Center in Ohio, tells FoxNews that it’s not the zoom animation that causes the problem, but rather the “parallax” effect which simulates a 3D environment on the iPhone’s Home screen.
Kikano likens the effect to the sensation perceived in an IMAX theater, explaining that “The inner ear is responsible for balance, the eyes for vision. When things are out of sync you feel dizzy, nauseous.”
“Some people get it, some people don’t, and some people get used to it,” says the physician.
But not everyone agrees. Charles Oman, a former director at NASA who has studied motion sickness for over 15 years, tells ABC News that he’s not buying the whole motion sickness thing.
“It takes a couple minutes of sustained stimulation to activate motion sickness,” he says.
“If it were an immersive environment, like a headset or an IMAX screen, then I can believe it, but it's a little harder to believe on the small screens,” says Oman.
Regardless, the forum thread discussing the matter is chock-full of reports from users who claim iOS 7 is affecting their state of being.
If Dr. Kikano is correct – in that Parallax is causing the problem – there’s an easy fix to this. Simply go to your iPhone’s Settings module, tap General, Accessibility, and switch on “Reduce Motion.”
Some users, however, firmly believe that it’s the zoom in/out feature that’s causing them the nausea.