> This year in iOS 26, some UI elements use the HDR screen to make some elements and highlights brighter than 100% white.

Ooooh, that's why it looks so bad and annoying... Even turned on Reduce white point doesn't help...

https://willhbr.net/2025/10/20/light-mode-infffffflation/

Light Mode InFFFFFFlation — Will Richardson

Back in the day, light mode wasn’t called “light mode”. It was just the way that computers were, we didn’t really think about turning everything light or dark. Sure, some applications were often dark (photo editors, IDEs, terminals) but everything else was light, and that was fine. What we didn’t notice is that light mode has been slowly getting lighter, and I’ve got a graph to prove it. I did what any normal person would do, I downloaded the same...

I noticed that in general, the new iOS/macOS look disregard many accessibility settings or make them unhelpful. For example, reduced transparency makes everything black and super high-contrast on iOS, which makes it worse for my eyes.