Rendering issues on iPhones 16 & 17

[ciwik]

SPECIFIC ISSUE ENCOUNTERED

On newer iPhone models (16 and 17) running iOS 26, Google Cardboard VR rendering behaves incorrectly

The same app build:

• renders correctly on older iPhones (11–13)
• shows double-rendering (see screenshots) on iPhone 16 / 17
• and after applying workarounds, produces a significantly dimmed final image (only on iPhone 16 / 17; again, always works correctly on older iPhones)

I figured it may be a device- or OS-level rendering behavior change that affects Cardboard XR on newer hardware

SMARTPHONE:

• Device: iPhone 16, iPhone 17
• OS
  • Android
  • iOS
• OS version: iOS 26

Tested devices and results:

• iPhone 11 Pro, iOS 18 — ✅
• iPhone 12 mini, iOS 26 — ✅
• iPhone 13, iOS 26 — ✅
• iPhone 16, iOS 26 — ❌ double-rendering / dim image
• iPhone 17, iOS 26 — ❌ double-rendering / dim image

EXPECTED BEHAVIOR

The VR scene should render once per eye with correct brightness and color, consistently across all supported iPhone devices

VERSIONS USED

What version of Google Cardboard are you using?
Cardboard XR Plugin 1.3.2

If you are using Cardboard XR Plugin:

• What version of Unity are you using?

  • 2021.3.45f2 (primary version)
  • 6000.0.65f1 (tested as workaround)

• Select in which graphics API you can reproduce the bug.

  • OpenGL ES2
  • OpenGL ES3
  • Metal

SCREENSHOTS

Double rendering:

Dimming:

Expected:

ADDITIONAL CONTEXT

I found 3 workarounds to fix the original "double-rendering" issue, and they all helped, but led to the "dim image" issue:

1. Setting XRSettings.showDeviceView to false
2. Adding an extra camera to override pixels on screen areas outside the VR lenses view:
   • Depth higher than XR Camera
   • Target Eye = None
   • Solid black clear color
3. Upgrading the project to Unity 6 LTS

With all these fixes, the double-rendering is gone on iPhone 16 / 17, but the final image becomes significantly dimmer. Older iPhones still render correctly in all setups I tried

[victorveleze]

Hi @ciwik
Thanks for reporting this. One of your workarounds is actually the solution. We no longer support Unity 2021.3 neither 2022.3. We encourage our users to use Unity 6 or 6.2. However, I tested the sample app using the iPhones 16 and Air and it works as intended. There's no dimming either.