iPhone 12 OLED Screen Issue

Can confirm that after a week of getting a brand new replacement iPhone 12 pro max from Apple, that the issue is still persistent to the same extent. I see no point in getting it replaced again by Apple. I had an iPhone 12 with the same issue so hopefully Apple release a statement or solution for the issue. Contrary to news articles on the topic, I believe that all iPhones 12/Pro/Pro Max could be affected with the reason why everyone hasn’t detected it being that they don’t notice the issue

Source:

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/18/apple-investigating-iphone-12-display-issues/

They didn’t say they expect to fix that with software fix, they told macrumors not to service these iPhones but to tell people to keep iOS up to date instead, which suggests Apple hopes to fix this with software patch.

Noticed this last night while watching YouTube, not completely fullscreen, so the two black strips on top and bottom of the phone had a blinking lightning like effect. If you don’t touch the screen, it seems to go away after about 10 seconds or so. Also is noticeable upon booting up. Otherwise not so much. Wondering myself if it is the phone or a software issue, hopefully just a software issue. Running IOS 14.2.1.

Did anybody recognize that if the battery is empty and it shows the battery symbol when you try to start the phone it is perfectly black? Also when you start the phone and it shows the Apple Logo it is perfectly black until one point it starts to get green/grey and in the background of the Apple logo. This seems to me that on this point on the boot screen the software really starts doing something weird. If it would be Hardware it would be at the beginning of booting too, doesn’t it?

Yellow tint: I noticed the following on the window with good sunlight yesterday and compared it with an iphone x. The True Tone adjustment changes the color temperature on my 12 Pro Max very quickly and can be seen very well when you go from the sunshine to a room with warmer light. In bright light, however, one has the proof that the OLED of the 12PM can display the white perfect. With the iPhone X, however, the change can hardly be seen. This means that the 12PM would have to convert the signals from the sensor a little weaker via software and should not run into the yellow / warm so strongly.

Image flickering in black: I hope not, but rather believe that this is a hardware error. but if Apple can fix this with sw, that would be really great.

Today I should receive my send 12Pro, the first one was returned because the flickering (green/grey) was much more worst compared to the 12Pro max. In next couple of days I will decide if I will stay with the iPhone 12 pro Max or with the 12 pro.

I just got my new iphone 12 pro 128gb and can confirm I have this issue

I tested in a pitch black environment with an all black photo and it was actually perfect at all brightness levels, however once I played a pitch black youtube video it has the glow under 100% brightness as well as the flickering.

It seems to do this for a few second and then the OLED pixels seem to turn off again to allow true black.

I’m going to see if this effects my nightly use because I never leave my phone at 100% brighness, if it does I’ll be returning the phone.

Apple, you have to fix this it’s unacceptable for a premium product!

It seems like Apple doesn't want to comment on this as it's probably a hardware issue across all iPhone 12's - if they admit it, that would hit their sales worldwide pretty bad and now - Christmas time is the best time to sell - some people would just buy competitor's phones instead.

So the best move is to stay quiet, wait for all the people to get their iPhones to secure the sale and then "maybe" mention it in January (or not).

My current theory is that "its not a bug, it's a feature."

No seriously. I think they calibrated the screen to behave like this intentionally in order to prevent smearing and ghosting, and just kinda.. forgot.. that a lot of people like to use their phones in bed at night. I think they figured no one would notice that tiny bit of light, and they are almost right; the vast majority of people may never notice the issue. I'd guess that all iphone 12 series phones have this problem, and even the people who say they tested it and don't probably do, they just aren't seeing it. But either way it's unacceptable to advertise that your phone has an oled screen with pure blacks and have that just not be true.

If this -was- done intentionally to prevent smearing/ghosting, then they should give us an option in accessibility or something to disable it. For people who like to read in bed, this is making my brand new phone unusable.

my wife iphone XS MAX has pure blacks.... but when you turn up/down the volume there is a light shadow of the volume slider across the screen. Looks terrible , like a cheap LCD screen. So both phones XS MAX and 12 PM has issues on 14.2.1 . Hope Apple will resolve this issue soon

I didn’t even mention it was faulty, I just ordered a new one and said I wanted to return the bad one. I guess it’s just an issue with the early production models, every time I ask Apple support they say they have a fix coming and to stay on the latest update but this is just not right.

Sorry but how can I believe that they actually have a software fix coming when they said nothing official for a month now.

On a scale where every single iPhone 12 is affected they should at least say if it's software or hardware issue and give us an estimate when it's going to be fixed. Otherwise they're just delaying/ignoring the issue so people that are unaware will still buy the faulty iPhones...

I'm pretty sure it actually is software. When you restart your phone in the dark, the Apple logo appears against pure black, and then a few seconds later, the green glow appears right before it shows the lock screen.

This would suggest that the OLED panel itself is fine. During boot, it displays pure black, and once the OS takes over, the blacks are raised.

As I said in a previous post, I believe apple rather stupidly did this on purpose to prevent smearing and ghosting, thinking no one would notice, not realizing people like to use their phones in the dark.

Given that on boot it does not occur for a while, the panel isn’t the issue, it’s software based.

It seems to have been an intentional feature to reduce visible ghosting/smearing (compare to any other OLED iPhone, in dark mode try scrolling through settings really fast, it will smear, the 12’s will not).