“The zoom animations everywhere on the new iOS 7 are literally making me nauseous and giving me a headache.” That first post from an Apple support forum member on September 18th has since snowballed into a massive thread with over 640 replies and 57,000 views.
While it’s obviously a small portion of iOS 7’s 200 million+ user base, there’s a subset of the new operating system’s users that can’t handle all the zooming. Beyond the parallax effect, opening and closing apps is akin to jumping in and out of a mini vortex. “The whole look is just jarring,” said another forum member.
Apple released iOS 7.0.3 to the masses today, and nestled in the update is an amped up “Reduce Motion” option.
You’ll find it tucked away under Accessibility in the Settings app. In past versions of iOS 7, it only turned off the parallax effect for wallpapers that makes app icons look like they’re floating. Post 7.0.3, it completely turns off all of iOS 7’s navigation animations. Instead, a quick blur transitions you in and out of windows.
There have been jailbreak tweaks that have achieved this affect in iOS for years. Apple has finally included it as an alternative to its stock animations.
So if you feel inclined to grab a paper bag after using iOS 7, fret not and Reduce Motion.
