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Why iOS 7 Is Making Some Users Feel 'Sick'
dryriver sends this story from The Guardian:
"The introduction of fake zooms, parallax, sliding and other changes in Apple's new iPhone and iPad software has a very real effect on people with vestibular disorders. ... It makes frequent use of zoom and slide animations; the home screen boasts parallax, with icons apparently floating above subtly animating wallpaper. And it's making people sick. Triggers and symptoms vary, but TidePool mobile app developer Jenni Leder's experience is not uncommon. A self-professed power-user, she frequently switches apps; but on iOS 7, this has caused headaches and feelings associated with motion sickness. 'I now have to close my eyes or cover the screen during transitions, which is ridiculous,' she told The Guardian, adding that there's nowhere to hide: 'It's not apps that affect me, but accessing them. Tap a folder and the view zooms in. Tap an app and it's like flying through the icon and landing in that app's micro world — and I'm getting dizzy on the journey there.' Reactions to screen-based systems — especially those utilizing 3D effects — aren't new. Cynthia Ryan, executive director of the Vestibular Disorders Association, says 3D effects can cause 'intense nausea, dizziness and vertigo,' sometimes from general vision problems, but also from visual-vestibular conflict. She added symptoms 'manifest more severely if a viewer already has a disorder of the vestibular system.'"
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Probably because of Apple's extremely annoying policy that you cannot downgrade iOS anymore a couple of days after they release a new version. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHSH_Blob for more details. The ability to downgrade to iOS 6.1.3/6.1.4 was disabled around 22 September.
Since iOS 7 was only released recently, there are probably still quite a few devices with iOS 6.1.3/6.1.4 in the channel, and that person probably got such a device in exchange for his iOS 7 "upgraded" one.
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In a nutshell, vestibular disorders are weird and the triggers are subtle. Certain movements won't bother most people, but if you smooth them out, adjust the speed, tweak the effect, things get weird.
I went through an episode of labyrinthitis (an inner ear problem) a few years ago, and it was crazy what would and wouldn't trigger problems. For example, I could watch videos of someone running a dog in agility, but first-person video of any kind was nasty and when that tsunami trashed Japan, I nearly hurled trying to watch footage of the waves on Youtube. I could actually run my dog in agility, spinning and sprinting and and dodging and pretty much anything physical while standing up, but being in a moving vehicle or even just bending over... ugh.
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The zooming and sliding is dramatically different. The zooming used to be always centered, and the sliding used to always be faster. Now the zooming comes from different angles and seems designed to induce nausea. My phone (iOS 7.02) doesn't even have the reduced motion option (possibly because ios7 doesn't do parallax on iPhone 4). And I never feel motion sick in a car or other vehicle, but my phone made me feel weird before other people mentioned it made them sick. Not nausea for me, but something.. unusual.
I've noticed that setting "increased contrast" seem to help with the speed of the zooming and sliding.
I've got other beefs with ios7 though, like the too-thin font for the clock on the lock screen, the annoyingly slow fade in/out, and safari constantly hiding/showing controls when I scroll a webpage (down vs up). None of which seems configurable.