iPhone 3G S has yellowish tint

michaelbb wrote:
I really hope that 5.2 million iPhone sales figure hasn't made them "take it or leave it" arrogant.

I also fear this is what Apple has become. Apple is doing VERY well at the moment, and even beat analyst's expectations for the 3rd Quarter, despite the global recession, as seen in this article: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Apple-3Q-beats-forecasts-apf-1693244157.html?x=0

One special item of interest mentioned in the article: +"*Apple said component costs weren't as high as anticipated*..."+

I have an idea where Apple cut costs on components, and I'm staring at one example of this on the front face of my 3G S right now. How nice cutting corners like this helped Apple's bottom line. I bet they laugh about this forum every time they make a deposit in the bank. I sure hope I'm wrong and quality has been improved, quietly and secretly behind the scenes. We'll see with more posts...

Also of note:

Apple admits iPhone supply issues:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8162798.stm

Looks like maybe the Chinese are making them *too fast*? Who would have thought?!

Hi everyone..

just compared my new 3gs (week 26) to a friends (week 28) and mine definitely has a yelloish tint... especially towards the bottom in daylight (not under artificial light)

Can we create a summary of problem factories and weeks (if possible) and also symptomes - (for instance mine is easier to see in natural daylight).

Also I wouldnt say my colours are "washed out" just there isnt as high contrast...

AntonioMX5 wrote:
cepth, Congrats on getting a good 3G S screen on your first try!

If you don't mind, would you please share with us the first two numbers of your 3G S's serial number? Those first two numbers are supposed to correlate with which factory it was made at, according to this website: http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html

Factory 83 Week 28.

For what it's worth, I went through the process of trying to exchange my week 27 3GS, which was notably more yellow and washed out than the floor models in the store and the 3G model. I ordered it at an AT&T store (no Apple store within 2 hours) and would have to wait another 3-5 days for a replacement so I went through Apple Tech Support.

The first technician had me email pictures of the phone to him, comparing 3G to 3GS. The difference was obvious and he was supposed to send them on to their "engineers". Needless to say, I didn't hear a word. I called back and got another technician who updated my case notes and that was about it. The third technician sent me a replacement iPhone (for $30) of the same type. It was a week 28 phone and it was worse than the 27 week phone.

Granted, I don't have uneven yellowing, but this is still a huge quality issue. I sent back the week 28 phone and am resigned for the time being that the week 27 is the best Apple is going to do.

The excuses I heard ranged somewhere in the following:

1) This is the first I've heard about a "yellow tint" (most popular)
2) The screen is supposed to be warmer (doesn't explain the floor models looking great)
3) It could be the manufacturer (that's comforting)

What a mess.

Message was edited by: ebip3gs

Well I am going to the apple store tomorrow. Here are the issues with my 10 day old 3gs. Half the screen has the yellow tint. The bottom half. The location feature on the googlemaps puts my current location in some other state. The 3g is worthless for voice calls. Can't even use it. 3g for data is unusable as well. While sitting in the same spot, with my hands off the phone, it will jump from full bars of 3g, to 0 to edge, and them back and forth with the same pattern. Did this for 10 min yesterday. My phone will not ring if I am on on the web or emails. On 3g or edge. The edge calls are dropping like flies. NEVER happened with my 2g iphone. When turning on the phone from the locked screen mode, the backlight does not come on all the time. Have to lock it, then unlock again to get it to work. The thing gets horrible battery life. Had I not already sold my orig iphone, I would ditch this thing and go back to the old. What a big dissapointment. Hopefully, the apple store will be able to help me out. And I am not interested in doing countless restores, resets with them either. I have done that too many times for it to make a dif.

Got an in store screen replacement...It is yellow tinted on the bottom 1/2 to 1/3rd of the screen...

This is not "within spec"... I have documentation from 5 replacements confirmed by geniuses it is not.

If this "internal communication" is true, Apple may have a legal issue.

I can understand a consistent screen warmth but not on one half of the screen. Plus, out of all the phones I've seen it goes from majorly yellow, to feint...Apple got faulty LCD's and is trying to pass the buck on us, but I say NO WAY!!!

Take care of your customers...We obviously took care of you this quarter!!

Ok - when you say 'yellow at the bottom' how yellow are we talking?

With mine you can see a slight yellowness mainly in daylight - and just a slight difference between the top and bottom otherwise.. not 'really yellow' ..

People who are seeing this.. Are your icons at the bottom yellow in all lighting conditions.. Or just slightly warmer??

Basically - do I need a replacement - or are there always differences in display brightness between the top and bottom?

mine is factory 84 week 21 and the yellow tint is specially visible from right angle but the colors look cool and blur from left angle??? :s

Message was edited by: macho_man

Hiyas - you say from the right angle - could you be more specific??

No problem...

Also for info purposes. My wife's 3Gs which has no yellow tint.

Factory: 88 (Shenzhen, China)
Production week: 27 (July)
Production number: 19080 (within this week)

I took a chance and got a black 32gb iPhone a week ago! The screen does look yellow, but I find this pretty nice! My screen is slightly yellow towards the bottom but this disappears if I tilt the phone so the top is a bit further away than the bottom.
Battery life is good, I use up about 50 to 100 % battery a day, but I like the games Worms and Assasins Creed 😉 considering how fast it charges I think it's one pretty power economic Device!
Also, using gps (or playing Worms) really uses a lot of power, you can feel by the heat that builds up.

Too bad I don't have 3G reception here, 3G works fine in the city though.

I believe my phone is a week 28.

I'm glad you like it.

Do you find it odd that you 'have' to tilt the phone to get an even look and feel?

I'm like you. No 3G right at my place (I live right in Denver), but two blocks north or south and I get 3G just fine. The part that gets me is that the phone doesn't easily switch between edge and 3G. There is a decent period where I the 'searching' function displayed and no reception at all.

kooredaan wrote:

Do you find it odd that you 'have' to tilt the phone to get an even look and feel?

Agreed. Not good enough Apple. Ridiculous.

< Edited by Host >

busbyjon wrote:
Can we create a summary of problem factories and weeks (if possible) and also symptomes - (for instance mine is easier to see in natural daylight).

Love the idea but just haven't been able to keep that much track of things myself. Perhaps someone else with a better mind for this can get a handle on it? The best I can do is simply restate that so far, I haven't heard of any bad week 29's and now, IIRC, both Factory 83's and Factory 87's seem to be okay (not a single bad screen I recall reading about here). Every other week and factory have had mixes of good and bad screens, so those batches are a matter of luck (lottery).

To confirm this somewhat - Anyone with a bad screen from either Factory 83, Factory 87, or Week 29+?