iPhone 3G S has yellowish tint

My wife and I had the exact same issue. Her white 3GS has the "cooler" white and blue tint. My black 3GS is MUCH more yellowed and warm. I upgraded from a 1st gen iphone and I am hating the yellowed look. Her phone shipped from china 4 days before the 19th. Mine shipped overight from Memphis. I think you are right. This can't be something they planned.

I have had 2 - 3GS. Both have the "warmer" tone to them. Does not bother me. I can say I like the "crisper, bluer" look better though. I don't know if Apple can make it so the users have options or not. Not sure if the backlight for the LCD itself is what's causing it or calibration.

If people are having some that are crisp white and some that are warm white, not sure what is causing that.

Hey guys, I posted earlier that I wasn't going in to the store and compare screens, but I did. Found one on display that was a black back like mine and the screen seemed to be void of the yellow tint. I worked with a manager who was nice enough to let me look at two other phones and compare and I swapped for the one that was closest to the display. He was nice to let me do that. There were variations from one display model to the next. There were even white ones that seemed to have the yellow tint to them. Make sure to make an appointment with one of the geniuses. They are the ones that are supposed to do the swaps. They made an exception for me today.

This is so disappointing and I feel that I have been fooled. The quality of the color does not even compare to the last two versions. Did Apple think we wouldn't notice? I feel like the 3G S is a downgrade from my 3G. Apple may end up with a lot of bad press on this topic!

One thing I didn't write in my earlier post is that after showing me the two, the manager told me which one he thought was the closest to the display one that looked good to me. He said he could keep bringing out phones, but that I might not ever find one that would match that display one exactly. It was interesting to see that there were white ones on display with a yellow tint. The manager hadn't noticed the yellow tint until I showed him mine next to one on display. He said probably a lot of people are not noticing. I told him about this post. Just so you know, there are variations. Go with what you can live and be happy with. The one I walked out with was pretty close to the display one. The just swapped the phone, nothing else. They have individual phones in the back.

Its seems like the longer I surf the net etc the more yellow it looks. I cant stand this, Im afraind im going to have to take it back. And Imnot some color obsessed person either, but the screen just feels cheap with this yellow tint.

I have compaired my 3g and 3gs phones and there are some differences. The main difference that I have noticed is not necessarily the color. The 3gs seems to have a MUCH more aggressive auto-brightness setting then the 3G (3.0 software). I noticed this without a direct comparison but side by side if the lighting is dim the 3GS becomes much darker when the auto-brightness kicks in. If I turn on a bright light the 3GS comes up to about the same brightness as my 3G. If I turn off the auto brightness it is also about the same. With the brightness levels equivalent my 3GS looks almost identical to my 3G. With the auto-brightness on it is much dimmer and could have what would be considered a yellowish cast to it, but this is just the fact that its very dim.

I was initially put off a bit by this but then realized its probably to extend battery life and it is also much easier on the eyes. When I was sitting in the dark using it for a while and then turned off the auto-brightness the screen became so bright it was annoying to look at.

I dont know if this is what other people are experiencing then they say they have a yellow cast but just to make sure try turning off the auto-brightness just to remove this from the equation.

Yeah I dont think my phone shows the yellowish cast that your phone does. When the auto-brightness is on its much warmer and dimmer then without it but its not that yellow. When the auto-brightness is off I would even say my 3GS is slightly more blue then my 3G, if only by a very very small amount.

I was just hoping that it was something simpler for you then a real hardware issue.

I wonder why Apple engineers and QC didn’t see this happening? When the 3G came out, some phones had also a yellow screen, thousands of complains. Big stories on the web. Apple had to change the color of the screen then. Why should people NOW like yellow screens???

Sorry in advance if this has already been mentioned.

Do I remember hearing in the Keynote, the 3G S is made with arsenic free glass? Doesn't the use of arsenic have something to do with the tint hue in glass? If so, this may be the reason for the different appearance, 3G vs. 3G S.

I have a black 32g iPhone and it has a slight yellow tint on the bottom half of the screen when in portrait mode. The top half (or left side when in landscape mode) is more blue. I'm not too bothered by this and will keep the phone.

I'm inclined to believe this is a backlight issue.

I have taken my 3GS, which I thought was dimmer/yellowish, and compared it to the 3g. The 3g was brighter/blue-er, but this was only with dimming on and default level.

When I took both phones and turned up the brightness all the way and turned off dimming the 3GS looked brighter/whiter. But as soon as I put on dimming there is a noticable difference with the 3GS being dimmer.

I think this may be "part" of the "magic" to extend battery life, but this is just my experience...

I compared my black 32gb 3GS to a friend's 16gb black 3GS and mine is very yellow or washed out compared to his. His looks likes my old 3G. The colors are vibrant and the blacks are dark. I guess I'm going back to the store.

My iPhone 3GS screen looks just fine. Whites look white, blacks look black. Maybe it's because I don't have anything to compare it to, but this seems like a very trivial complaint. I have read that Apple has intentionally calibrated the screen to be warmer for improved color rendition and readability. If it improves those things, I'm all for it. It's the same reason I use warm white CFL bulbs in my home versus the blue/white "daylight" lamps. The blue/white light is just too harsh.

My screen is very yellow compared to my 2G and doesn't look good in comparison. AT&T basically told me to go pound sand so I contacted Apple and first rep said it should not be like that but the others I spoke to weren't sure. I am sending mine back to Apple not sure what good that will do.