Is there a way to make IOS device display more dark details?

[Jenny]

So, I always suffer on apple device screen when watch dark videos, and confirmed by this test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_correction#Simple_monitor_tests, the 2nd row(white number on black background) I can only see 5 numbers from right, and backlight level make no difference at all.
I can lower the gamma or lower the contrast of the picture, and both will make it much better. But there’s no way to change those settings for the screen system-wide? I really hate Apple eating away colors lower than level 15/255, are there ANY way to hack/force it?

[Halcyon]

If you want a customisable or "hackable" phone, forget the Apple iPhone. It's their way or no way for the most part. You're also at the mercy of their hardware, which is fairly ordinary even at the time of release.

[Jeroen3]

Turn on color blind mode in the accessibility settings.

[Jenny]

Turn on color blind mode in the accessibility settings.

Thanks you, but this does not have have any effect to the problem...

[Jeroen3]

Okay, for video's the VLC Player can play with the brightness, contrast, tint, saturation and gamma.
But remember that most video you consume on mobile is extremely lossy compressed.

[Bud]

The goal of video compression is to remove or minimize information that human brain is less sensitive to. Perhaps dark details of video scenes fall under that presumption used by the codecs, in which case one could try to reduce the compression settings to make those details less blocky. Whether this is possible on a particular device and/or on the video player side is a different matter.

[rrinker]

 "Fairly ordinary"? Despite all Qualcomm's efforts, Apple STILL has the fastest SoC. Pretty accurate displays, too. Check out Anandtech's recent amazingly complex camera comparison - overall, the iPhone is the tops even if the raw number of megapixels isn't the highest - it's not all about the megapixels, especially in small sensor sizes. 

[Halcyon]

"Fairly ordinary"? Despite all Qualcomm's efforts, Apple STILL has the fastest SoC. Pretty accurate displays, too. Check out Anandtech's recent amazingly complex camera comparison - overall, the iPhone is the tops even if the raw number of megapixels isn't the highest - it's not all about the megapixels, especially in small sensor sizes.

Modern iPhones have always lagged behind many flagship brands, Samsung being their main competitor. By the time a new iPhone comes out, it's already been beaten with better specs, better camera, higher resolution display, more memory etc... etc...

There is a reason why Samsung have most of the smartphone market with Apple trailing behind. Even the Chinese brand Huawei sells more phones than Apple.

For many years now, Apple's hardware (phones, PCs and laptops) has been just "OK", all things considered.

[Rick Law]

If you want a customisable or "hackable" phone, forget the Apple iPhone. It's their way or no way for the most part. You're also at the mercy of their hardware, which is fairly ordinary even at the time of release.

Something as simple as contrast adjustment that anyone could do easily even with the oldest CRT is such a rat's nest with these so called "smart" devices.  I should not rant so much, but this has been frustrating me for a while now.

I personally think it is the arrogance of today's designers for both Andriod and Apple phones.  This generation of designers seem to believe that their choices are the best and no one should even think of changing their perfectly selected settings.  What arrogance.

This is one area that I think Microsoft is a little better.  Windows has (had?) simple way to adjust mouse sensitivity.  Andriod?  I can't find a way adjust the touch sensitivity under the normal user interface.  The more they make the device "simple" to use, the more it is an idiot device.  I'd love to see a graph of user-IQ vs hours-per-day phone use.

Going deeper, it may not be simply arrogance.  It could be stupidity on top of arrogance.  I bet you those "designers" at Apple and Andriod can't make their own coffee if it isn't a "push one button and go" coffee machines.

[Jeroen3]

Contrast adjustment is not required since IPS-LCD technology isn't as variable as CRT used to be. Why bother end users with a settings they don't need to change?

Did you ever need to adjust touch sensitivity on a phone? I even doubt you can make it one settings. I suspect it is somewhat dynamic and self-adjusting.

Just a side question, do you drive stick?

I recommend to watch the recent interview of Marques Brownlee with Craig Federighi and pay a detailed attention to what Craig says.

Code: (don't embed) [Select]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2aaCDNjWEg
So, I bit.

What phone do you have Jenny?

[Jenny]

If you want a customisable or "hackable" phone, forget the Apple iPhone. It's their way or no way for the most part. You're also at the mercy of their hardware, which is fairly ordinary even at the time of release.

Something as simple as contrast adjustment that anyone could do easily even with the oldest CRT is such a rat's nest with these so called "smart" devices.  I should not rant so much, but this has been frustrating me for a while now.

I personally think it is the arrogance of today's designers for both Andriod and Apple phones.  This generation of designers seem to believe that their choices are the best and no one should even think of changing their perfectly selected settings.  What arrogance.

This is one area that I think Microsoft is a little better.  Windows has (had?) simple way to adjust mouse sensitivity.  Andriod?  I can't find a way adjust the touch sensitivity under the normal user interface.  The more they make the device "simple" to use, the more it is an idiot device.  I'd love to see a graph of user-IQ vs hours-per-day phone use.

Going deeper, it may not be simply arrogance.  It could be stupidity on top of arrogance.  I bet you those "designers" at Apple and Andriod can't make their own coffee if it isn't a "push one button and go" coffee machines.

You actually make me laugh, I have the same felling as you.
However I think you can’t all blame developers, it’s just because users tend to choose “easy” designs.
Still miss the good old Windows Mobile phones(Not Windows phone), users don’t like them because they don’t have enough IQ.

[Jenny]

Contrast adjustment is not required since IPS-LCD technology isn't as variable as CRT used to be. Why bother end users with a settings they don't need to change?

Did you ever need to adjust touch sensitivity on a phone? I even doubt you can make it one settings. I suspect it is somewhat dynamic and self-adjusting.

Just a side question, do you drive stick?

I recommend to watch the recent interview of Marques Brownlee with Craig Federighi and pay a detailed attention to what Craig says.

Code: (don't embed) [Select]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2aaCDNjWEg
So, I bit.

What phone do you have Jenny?

The device is an IPad gen6 given by my friend.

[rrinker]

 Yes, I drive stick. I despise automatic transmissions. Boring. Yet I still use an iPhone. Because it just works and I don't have to screw with it all the time.

 Comparing hardware specs with iPhones and Android devices is pointless. The Apple SOC is higher performing, but in ther raw terms of RAM and other things - yeah, it seems obvious that the Android device has a better spec - ie, more of whatever. Except, it's not that simple. It's like saying my Windows PC is better than your Linux PC because I have 32GB RAM and you only have 8GB. Android simply requires more RAM to perform. That's why the 'flagship' Android phones now have 12 and 16GB RAM in them. IOS doesn't need that much to work well.

 It's fun looking at the comparison charts and seeing xyz Android (usually a Samsung - which an even bigger point, Samsung uses different SOCs in different countries, their own piss poor one or the latest Qualcomm in others - so even two otherwise identical model Samsung phones aren't actually identical) blow all the others away in benchmarks. All the other ANDROID phones that is. Stick in the latest iPhones and oops - what happened, Samsung? Real world's not much different.

 It doesn't matter which camera looks better on paper, if the supposedly 'lesser' one results in qualitatively better pictures and video. No one phone wins all the various photo scenarios, so all those tricks of cramming in 108 megapixels now, or periscope cameras, or 4 or more cameras in the phone are little more than marketing gimmicks to make the particular model sound more impressive even if it doesn't actually deliver results.

 

[Rick Law]

...

You actually make me laugh, I have the same felling as you.
However I think you can’t all blame developers, it’s just because users tend to choose “easy” designs.
Still miss the good old Windows Mobile phones(Not Windows phone), users don’t like them because they don’t have enough IQ.

Enough to say "great minds think alike" then.  We can now pretend we have the highest IQ around, and let's not tell anyone else.

I will let this smug idea sit for a while, kind of feels good even if it is just pretending.

[Jeroen3]

Contrast adjustment is not required since IPS-LCD technology isn't as variable as CRT used to be. Why bother end users with a settings they don't need to change?

Did you ever need to adjust touch sensitivity on a phone? I even doubt you can make it one settings. I suspect it is somewhat dynamic and self-adjusting.

Just a side question, do you drive stick?

I recommend to watch the recent interview of Marques Brownlee with Craig Federighi and pay a detailed attention to what Craig says.

Code: (don't embed) [Select]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2aaCDNjWEg
So, I bit.

What phone do you have Jenny?

The device is an IPad gen6 given by my friend.

I also have an iPad (2018), will report back.

Yes, I drive stick. I despise automatic transmissions. Boring. Yet I still use an iPhone. Because it just works and I don't have to screw with it all the time.

[Jenny]

I also have an iPad (2018), will report back.

Thank you, and since you have an iPad, may I ask 2 other questions?
1. Do you think it’s possible to unlock the other 2 cores of the A10 CPU?
2. I experienced some weird sound problem on another iPad(mini): if you play loud sound on speaker for a little while, the overall sound level will be lowered, and recovers after stop for a while...
To test No.2: Open https://onlinetonegenerator.com/, set 150 Hz sine wave, max volume on both the webpage and your device, you will hear the sound lowers after 1-3 seconds, sometimes with a pop sound in the way. You can try any frequency, the lower frequency you set, the easier to trigger the problem, but more difficult to hear because the response curve on both the device and human ear.
Do you guys with any apple devices have similar experience? Is it a feature to protect itself instead of an issue?

[Jenny]

Contrast adjustment is not required since IPS-LCD technology isn't as variable as CRT used to be. Why bother end users with a settings they don't need to change?

No offense, but sorry I have some different opinion.
First, even IPS LCD need calibration, lower end is factory only, higher end even need manual calibration by user.
Even for a perfect calibrated display, use environment will vary a lot, which will need different settings to perform better, let alone personal preferences differs.
I do understand phones are not computers after all, and it need to be simplified for user on many occasions to be convenient to use. 

[Rick Law]

"When you make it idiot proof, only idiots will use it."

Users don't NEED cell phones either.  They got along nicely with phone booths for a long time.  It is not a matter of need, it is a matter of improvement.  Present day smart phone isn't one from a user-interface perspective for significant groups of users.

It is Google/Apple/Whatever deciding for the users that "we made the choice, they don't need to change it" as being an acceptable attitude toward users that I conclude they are arrogant in their design.  Google's motto was "do no evil".  Nowadays, I can hardly think of anything they do that isn't.

"When you get your customers by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."

[Jeroen3]

I also have an iPad (2018), will report back.

Thank you, and since you have an iPad, may I ask 2 other questions?
1. Do you think it’s possible to unlock the other 2 cores of the A10 CPU?
2. I experienced some weird sound problem on another iPad(mini): if you play loud sound on speaker for a little while, the overall sound level will be lowered, and recovers after stop for a while...
To test No.2: Open https://onlinetonegenerator.com/, set 150 Hz sine wave, max volume on both the webpage and your device, you will hear the sound lowers after 1-3 seconds, sometimes with a pop sound in the way. You can try any frequency, the lower frequency you set, the easier to trigger the problem, but more difficult to hear because the response curve on both the device and human ear.
Do you guys with any apple devices have similar experience? Is it a feature to protect itself instead of an issue?

I looked at your gamma picture. So I suspect it's a cheap monitor. (there needs to be a reason the buy the iPad Pro right?)
I also looked at it on my monitor. Looks similar. (AOC I2490PXQU/BT)

It doesn't use all cores?

The 150Hz tone generator probably overloads the driver. It sounds clipped at first, which it corrects. As it should, since clipping is bad.
I have not enountered this on music or video. Perhaps if you list a lot of electronic then you could encounter this when with more pure synth segments.

What I meant with the typical LCD tech now is that you don't need to recalibrate the contrast when the temperature drifts a bit. It doesn't walk around like it used to be.

[Jenny]

I also have an iPad (2018), will report back.

Thank you, and since you have an iPad, may I ask 2 other questions?
1. Do you think it’s possible to unlock the other 2 cores of the A10 CPU?
2. I experienced some weird sound problem on another iPad(mini): if you play loud sound on speaker for a little while, the overall sound level will be lowered, and recovers after stop for a while...
To test No.2: Open https://onlinetonegenerator.com/, set 150 Hz sine wave, max volume on both the webpage and your device, you will hear the sound lowers after 1-3 seconds, sometimes with a pop sound in the way. You can try any frequency, the lower frequency you set, the easier to trigger the problem, but more difficult to hear because the response curve on both the device and human ear.
Do you guys with any apple devices have similar experience? Is it a feature to protect itself instead of an issue?

I looked at your gamma picture. So I suspect it's a cheap monitor. (there needs to be a reason the buy the iPad Pro right?)
I also looked at it on my monitor. Looks similar. (AOC I2490PXQU/BT)

It doesn't use all cores?

The 150Hz tone generator probably overloads the driver. It sounds clipped at first, which it corrects. As it should, since clipping is bad.
I have not enountered this on music or video. Perhaps if you list a lot of electronic then you could encounter this when with more pure synth segments.

What I meant with the typical LCD tech now is that you don't need to recalibrate the contrast when the temperature drifts a bit. It doesn't walk around like it used to be.

Thank you.
The problem is not with hardware, because as I said, a simple picture tuning can make it appear as full color scale on the same screen, so I want to have that tuning system-wide, which seems impossible on IPadOS. You can test this on your AOC monitor, I bet you will success.
About disabled cores: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad_(2018)
2.34 GHz quad-core (two used)
Thank you for testing with me, I can also feel the volume change in normal media, just not as obvious as the test tone.
Jenny

[Jeroen3]

Poked around in my screen settings. But I can only make the colors look fake.
But then also I wear glasses with terrible prisma effect, so my eyes are not very good at this.

Guess you should just buy the iPad Pro then.

my ultra cheap second acer monitor shows better gamma in between all the washed out spots. 

[tooki]

"Fairly ordinary"? Despite all Qualcomm's efforts, Apple STILL has the fastest SoC. Pretty accurate displays, too. Check out Anandtech's recent amazingly complex camera comparison - overall, the iPhone is the tops even if the raw number of megapixels isn't the highest - it's not all about the megapixels, especially in small sensor sizes.

Modern iPhones have always lagged behind many flagship brands, Samsung being their main competitor. By the time a new iPhone comes out, it's already been beaten with better specs, better camera, higher resolution display, more memory etc... etc...

There is a reason why Samsung have most of the smartphone market with Apple trailing behind. Even the Chinese brand Huawei sells more phones than Apple.

For many years now, Apple's hardware (phones, PCs and laptops) has been just "OK", all things considered.

One can argue about features, but when it comes to performance, iPhones are now more than a generation ahead of Android phones. As in, literally, whenever the best new android comes out, its performance is not even quite as good as last year’s iPhone. It’s been this way for a few years now.

People really, really need to learn that higher numbers in specs (clock speed, number of cores, amount of RAM, etc) are NOT indicators of performance, as there are other factors that make even bigger differences.


As for sales numbers: Apple has never chased market share. They’ve never chased the low end market. That’s why in units, they’re widely outsold. But by focusing on the midrange to high end market, where there’s profit to be made, Apple continues to rake in the lion’s share of industry profits, even on their “small” unit sales. This also is nothing new. (Some years ago, Apple and Samsung combined took in 108% of the mobile phone industry’s profits. The surplus is because all the other guys were losing money...)