iOS 8 was released with a plethora of new features last month, but one feature that hasn’t changed from iOS 7 is the notorious parallax effect.
The parallax effect was first introduced in iOS 7 and is a new feature making its way to iOS 8 as well. Essentially, it gives a neat 3D look to the home screen of your iPhone or iPad, so that while you’re holding your device in your hand while moving your head still looks like you’re looking at the wallpaper “around” the app icons, almost as if you’re looking at the iOS 8 world through a window.
However, this feature is nothing more than the gyroscope and accelerometer working together to create the illusion that you are looking through a 3D window, and while impressive to some users, most users lose the wow factor in just a few minutes. days.
Also, some users with severe motion sickness may find the parallax effect in action a little bit upsetting to their stomachs, and it doesn’t help that iOS 8 is full of all kinds of animations that can trigger motion sickness.
Therefore, disabling the parallax effect feature in iOS 8 is probably best for many users. Plus, it probably consumes processing resources, thus reducing battery life, but the good news is that you can disable the feature very easily.
Turn Off Parallax Effect
While it’s easy to turn it off, it’s extremely hard to find in settings if you’re looking for a “parallax effect” as you won’t find it anywhere in the Settings app.
To turn off the parallax effect, go to .
Tapping Reduce Motion will open another screen with a toggle switch. By default, the toggle switch will be greyed out. Tap the switch to turn on Reduce Motion so you turn the toggle switch green and turn off the parallax effect.
If you don’t know what you’re looking for, and as strange as it may seem, the setting is not under “Parallax Effect” but rather under “Reduce Motion”, which isn’t really. If you’re scanning for the words “parallax effect,” it’s the phrase you’re looking for.
In any case, once you find the setting, you can turn it on and you will no longer see your home screen moving in front of you. Also, Reduce Motion prevents app icons from popping in when you unlock your device and switch between apps. Instead, the movement will be reduced to simple fades in and out.
Other Accessibility Features
Turning off the Parallax effect requires you to go into the Accessibility features, but while you’re there it might be worth checking out some of the other accessibility features you can enable even if you’re not disabled in any way.
