This lesser-known Apple feature reduces motion sickness
What's the story
Apple's innovative "Vehicle Motion Cues" feature, introduced in 2024, is designed to tackle motion sickness caused by using iPhones, iPads, or MacBooks in moving vehicles. The feature leverages the accelerometer and gyroscope of your device to create a more comfortable experience. It works by placing dots around the edges of the display that mimic the vehicle's movement. This way, when a car turns or brakes, these dots move accordingly on screen.
Mechanism
Syncing visual cues with physical movement
The dots are designed to counteract a common cause of vehicle motion sickness: the discrepancy between what your eyes see and what your inner ear senses. When you look at a stationary screen while your body feels the car moving, it can lead to nausea. Apple's Vehicle Motion Cues tackle this by syncing visual cues with physical movement, effectively reducing or even eliminating motion sickness.
Personalization
Customizing your experience
Apple's Vehicle Motion Cues can be customized under accessibility settings on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Users can choose to enable or disable the feature manually or have it activate automatically when vehicle motion is detected. You can also adjust dot size, color, and density according to your preference. However, it's worth noting that these dots may sometimes interfere with maps, text, and imagery on long straight roads where they remain stationary.