I Hope iOS 18 Will Solve My Motion Sickness
Whenever I ride a bus and use my phone, I get motion sickness. It usually starts as a headache—sometimes it's relatively mild, just an annoying inconvenience that lets me keep using my phone. But other times, it's severe, with my head pounding, and the feeling sometimes lingers even after I get off the bus.
I'll admit, most of the time I'm just scrolling through social media—nothing too important. It could definitely wait until I'm not in motion, but I still do it. So, the first problem is that I try to fill the boredom of a commute with "easy" content, which isn't something I actually want to do. But then there are times when I need to use my phone for important things—answering messages, making plans, checking which stop to get off at, and so on. In those cases, I'm stuck choosing between doing what's important and risking motion sickness or waiting until I'm stationary to handle everything.
In May 2024, Apple announced that iOS 18 will include a new accessibility feature designed to help people like me with vehicle motion sickness. It works like this: the reason most people experience motion sickness in vehicles is due to a conflict between what the body feels (movement) and what the eyes see on the screen (a stationary screen). The solution is simple—the phone uses its sensors to detect physical movement and displays small dots on the screen that move in sync with that motion, reducing this conflict.
Since iOS 18 isn't officially out yet, I installed the public beta as soon as it became available and activated the feature, many named Vehicle Motion Cues. At first, it was frustrating—it was supposed to turn on automatically whenever motion was detected, but in practice, there were many times I was on the bus, and the feature didn’t activate, which was quite annoying. I think a recent beta update fixed this, as it now turns on more consistently with my movement, allowing me to test it more thoroughly.
So, does it help? Honestly, I'm not sure. I kind of feel like it does—Since activating it, I didn't experience a severe headache like before, where it lingered even after getting off the bus. But I still get minor headaches during the ride. The good thing is that this feature is not too disruptive, and I got used to it quickly.
I'll continue to use this feature, hoping it will improve over time and that eventually, I'll get better. Maybe one day, I'll be able to use my phone for whatever I want during my bus commute. And even if this feature ends up being just a placebo for me, I don't care—if it helps, it helps.