iPhone 12 OLED Screen Issue

It's not complicated I posted plenty of pictures of my iPhone 12 before I returned it showing there is a very strong green tint at all brightness levels making the rest of the colors look incorrect. It's like having nightmode enabled all the time, which gives a very strong yellow tint, also making all the colors look wrong! At least with night mode and truetone you can disable simple enough but not green tint since most likely hardware issue due to poor QA or maybe relaxed QA standards due to pandemic! Might be a fix for that as there was for the iPhone 11 depending on how widespread issue is and how many returns or complaints Apple gets would be my guess.

I hope fingerprint reader is not on the screen and on the power on button like the iPad Air 4! Having it on the screen will just cause more display issues not to mention worse screen uniformity from reviews of screens that do have fingerprint reader built into the screen!

I'm also using an iPhone SE atm since I returned my iPhone 12 and waiting for Apple stores to open back up to try and buy in person and return if new phone screen as bad as one I had. I don't know if I want to wait another year to replace the SE because even though it's ok the camera is way inferior and slower to focus than the on the iPhone 12!

To be honest think the majority of iPhone owners won't notice just as they don't notice true tone or nightshift automatically turning on and shifting colors majorly on the display.

The random flickering is what most will notice and complain about and even that only really noticeable at lower brightness.

Also doesn't seem to be iPhone 12 alone that has strange greenish glow in dark area since Samsung display that scored highest score also has it which makes me think it's an issue unique to OLED technology and how it deals with its green pixels near black. Further, when playing dark content (as in a nighttime video scene for

example), an unusual artifact appeared in dark areas — a flat green

shade creating a green halo effect, as seen in the photo illustration

below https://www.dxomark.com/samsung-galaxy-note20-ultra-5g-snapdragon-display-review-takes-top-ranking-from-its-brand-sibling/

Further confirmation that I probably made the right choice going back to the IPS display used on the SE, since I have 0 complaints as far as the display, goes since I got it which I can't say for the iPhone 12 in the time I had it :(

Guys, we should just stop messing with our brains pointlessly: it’s not hardware-related, production week and serial number have NOTHING TO DO with raised blacks/ flickering and green tint.

It’s absolutely software-related.

All we can do is submit feedback to Apple. The more we are the sooner they will address and (hopefully) solve this issue. I found a forum online where people last year in August complained for the 11 Pro having green tint issues. Problem solved with an update.

Don’t waste your precious time returning phones or asking for replacements.

I figured since the 11 was experiencing the green screen and it was resolved with an update, the 12 would be as well. I pulled the trigger 2 nights ago on a 12 PM and noticed that with a pitch black video on YouTube, I get a little bit of flickering in the top left corner of the screen that goes away after a few seconds.

Since I purchased the phone with a credit from the apple store and I paid nothing out of pocket, I might just keep it and wait for an update. Worst case scenario I get a replacement under warranty. If it gets worse, which it hasn’t so far, I will return it and wait until the 12s/13. But for now I love the phone.

if it was software my 12 would be affected too. I think it’s the panel or the control board faulty or needs a software update on pro and PM lineup. I had the PM and can’t justify the extra $270, so got the 12.

Well, mine is a standard 12 and I have flickering/ raised black and green tint issues. It’s a replacement unit, the one I returned was as bad as my current one.

The behaviour is always the same: very subtle issues at first until they get worse and worse over the weeks. Why? And how did they fix the 11 Pro issues via software?

They'll just mess with the default whitepoint on all iPhones to make it less green looking. Problem with that though is will mess up all the phones that already look good or don't have very bad green tint!

This is why I went back to LCD display until Apple can get whitepoint correct for the newer OLED displays!

So, it's safe to say it might take Apple a while to nail the whitepoint as good as it did with the old LCD panels.

https://www.phonearena.com/news/iPhone-XS-True-Tone-yellow-how-to-fix_id112619

Hi guys, i'm just written to Apple support. I was told that Apple knows this problem and they are working on a software solution. The fact that support reply to me that Apple knows the problem is a big step

@s0nix13 can you please show us how is the green tint/glow issue of your phone looks like?

and others who have similar issues reading this post, can you please also post a pic of the green tint/glow issue of your phones?

for us to compare them all

i hope somebody will post theirs because i just recently posted mine before this comment, and i wanted to see yours too 😔

It's not hardware... Do you really think a certified Premium Apple Support provider would be lying to me? Especially since they received this information from Apple? I don't think so.

@reynard273

I still don't have my phone I suppose I'm gonna get it back tomorrow then I'll try to show it. It basically looks like greyish (faint green) tint when looking at black color in the dark. Basically pixels are not shutting off like they should and only happens below 100% brightness. This was already discussed many times before here. I myself wanted to know what are they going to tell me after they "serviced" the device and that's what I got as an answer. You can all calm down, stop comparing these serial numbers and stop asking for replacement devices because it's pointless.

Given these displays are calibrated warm to begin with they should start using the True Tone feature to turn the display cooler under bright and cold ambient lighting instead of the usual like they used to do with lcd screens.

I think we are mixing the issues here:)

warm / cool tone of the displays is totally different to blacks not switching off immediately.

Agreed , this year’s screen tone is calibrated to be on the warmer side. That has its own advantages and disadvantages ! But we shouldn’t mix that with the raised black /green tint issue. Apple may try to fix the issue of raised black/green tint with a software update , but be assured there won’t be a software fix coming to change the display calibration for this year . Some devices may be bit too warm than others, but they would fall under Apple’s manufacturing tolerance level ! That’s why we call it an display lottery ! It’s the same with all manufacturers, when you are shipping millions of units !

I personally was talking exclusively about the raised blacks issue aka pixels not being turned off below 100% brightness, that's the main issue I got on my device and also the flickering in Youtube which is basically the same - pixels not turning off.

I know it was off-topic (just like part of this comment is going to be :) ). I was just replying to that one specific comment. I am not entirely bothered about the tint on my display. I am okay with it in most cases. I think it’s is a industry trend toward warmer display calibration. Even Samsung phones seem to be more yellow than their previous generations. I just stopped using the True Tone feature altogether. I think Apple should either fix it’s behavior or eliminate the feature altogether and and use that resources to improve other things. No point in making a warm display even more warmer.

To make it more on-topic, I can’t personally speak for other models in the iPhone 12 line up , but looking at this discussion all models have also been affected. I can tell you this problem of flickering and green screen is affecting all iPhone 12 Pro Max. I have personally tested 7 12 pro max , 3 of my own replacements and 4 from friends, and all of them have this issue. 5 of them manufactured at different factories and different weeks.

My latest 12 PM also has an uneven tint across the screen from top to bottom. The Apple store and online support both say even this is related to the same “backlight” issue as the green screens and are holding off on repairing or replacing the phone and they are advising all customers with “backlight” problems to keep updating their devices as Apple is trying to fix this software issue. When they are acknowledging that it is a defect but asking customers to hold onto their devices they better fix it soon.

I spoke too soon. Mine got significantly worse overnight. By this morning, the whole top of the screen was green when reducing the brightness to 0% (with or without True Tone, white point reduction off, auto brightness off). I just returned the phone to apple and the employee at the store said they are well aware of the issue which should be resolved with a software update. Until then I will stick with my SE