iPhone 12 OLED Screen Issue

I went there and explained the problem.

First they offered a software solution, they updated and reinstalled the firmware (not the OS) on both phones.

One of them (mine) stayed the same and the other one (my girlfriend’s) got worse.

They offered to replace the screen on both phones but they only had one so I told them to replace my girlfriend’s since it has gotten worse.

I’m waiting for them to call me when they receive more displays.

My girlfriend’s phone has been perfect since then. Pure black on all scenarios described in this thread.

Here’s my girlfriend’s phone after the reset.

https://youtu.be/hk_k133TObA

Both her phone and mine were on were on 14.4 presenting the issue everywhere.

I’ll let you know (the thread) after they fix my screen (supoosedly) later this week.

[Edited by Moderator]

What seems a little strange to me is this: How did you even show them / make them see raised blacks in the store by daylight for them to offer you a screen replacement? I also have raised blacks but I could never demonstrate this to anyone if we weren’t in a PITCH black room and at least gave our eyes a minute to adjust.

Same goes for the YT Video. If I’d record a video under the same circumstances you wouldn’t see any issues, just “perfect” blacks like in your video. BUT if I go pitch black with only black as background (no other bright elements on the display) you’ll see a slight glowing grey in the background.

Sorry for being suspicious but we had so many people lately who came back after a swap or repair who thought it was fixed for them only to discover a few days later after closer inspection that it’s still there. The only thing I read so far that really seems to be a good indicator of really being unaffected by the raised blacks issue is having a LG panel.

Maybe you can elaborate on that a little more. Thank’s for keeping us updated! :)

I suppose you just have to know how to negociate 🤷‍♂️

Of course, he asked me a lot of questions but I went there well informed and with my thoughts and knowledge about the issue well structured in my head.

Once I was there, obviously the guy that was assigned to me was not able to see the issue with all the bright lights (he even tried to see it by putting his finger on the notch 🙄 .. ) I showed him videos and told him to go to a darker room. He went to a dark room and came back. He told me he was able to see the issue and that the first solution was the software one (If they can avoid paying the screen they are going to at least try it) and that if that was not the solution they would replace the screen. I’m a CS graduate and I discussed with him about the firmware, the controllers, etc etc so i think that knowing about the issue helps.

When i got the phones back i told him that I was going to test the phones in my car (in the dark) and if it was not solved they had to replace the screen.

As I said the phone with the replaced screen is perfect and I’m really excited that the problem is finally solved (at least in one of my two phones)

can u try something to me , on the phone where u do not have any flicker, but not on videos, simple test , go in a pitch black room, start an TV show with the official apple TV app, when the show start press pausewhen screen is still black at 0:0 ty to change brightness once or twice , and maybe like me u won't see the flicker , cos on this app this doesn't happen each time, but weirdly enough i you flip the phone upside down while paused in landscape , i still 90% of the time have the grey flicker for a split second... so this issues seems related to the gyroscope, cos even without changing brigthness , most of time when u flip the phone like 10 times from having the notch on the right to having it on the left , the grey flicker will appear... i would be very interested if u can test this . thx a lot.

[Edited by Moderator]

Hello , if you are really bothered whether it’s a hardware or software issue , if you have a chance to replace your screen you should! If you have a chance to return and get a new phone , you can try that ! Hopefully the ones from 2021 have no issues as few people have commented here before !

I’ve been using my new 12 Pro Max for 4 days already and the issue hasn’t appeared.

The display is 100% perfect under every condition and test. Pitch black room no raised blacks, no green or gray tint and 0 flickering in Youtube videos at all brightness settings.

I know how the issue looks like because I had it on my 12 Pro which I sold about a month ago.

My 12 Pro was on 14.4 and my Pro Max is on 14.4 also but does not have the issue. I guess its hardware, how can one phone running the same software with the same display show different behaviours?

@s0nix13

Thx alot , that's reasuring, can u tell us in which country u live and what are the first 2 digits of the serial number ? is it an F2, FZ, G0 , cos each time i see somone who say's he or she got a perfect one, i'm temped to return back both iphone 12 pro max i have left and order my 11th and 12th ones..

can u please tell us the production week u see after entering the seiral n° here :

http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html

cos maybe yours was made in 2021... i dunno... but i'm very interested by what your next post will tell us xD

My serial starts with F2. According to the website:

Production year : 2021 

Production week : 2 (January) 

I have purchased it in Germany, its a EU model.

The serial on the 12 Pro which I sold started with DN which means October 2020

i dunno if I have to thank u or not, lol I’m tempted now to order two others 12 pro max to see if I get lucky and get one made in 2021 , so maybe Apple fixed the issue on their latest batch , the issue is even if I order 2 or 4 iPhones now I may get phones made in December ….. that’s a real bummer cos I’m tired of ordering and sending back phones. I will wait until the 9th of March to see if iOS get updated and all issues are fixed cos I have until this date to return both phones and ask for a refund.

at least we learned something interesting today , that the German website can tell us if the production week was in 2021… cos I started to have doubt about this

thanks again for helping us solve the puzzle

[Edited by Moderator]

Thank you very much for providing some more background info on how that went. Did you ever check the serial numbers of your phones panels? Would be very interesting to know if you got one of the LG panels or if there finally are Samsung panels without any issues also. If you’re on a Windows machine there’s a little tool

called 3utools which can do that very easily.

Same here: s0nix are you able to read out the serial number of your display? See my reply above this one. Would be very interesting if Samsung finally managed to produce some flawless OLEDs for the 12 series.

i have tried many times 3utools running in big sur with parallels desktop, and the app never detects my IOS devices despite habing the warning to connect it to the virtual machine... did u guys used bootcamp to do that ? or u didn't had the same issue as mine on parallels ?

[Edited by Moderator]

Hi guys.

I’m the one with 2 12 pro’s with the problem that had the screen replaced in one and was waiting for the other to be replaced.

Well, got the screen replaced on the other phone today.

I’ve been testing it and… so far… perfect.

Both phones fixed 😊

i've finally managed to try 3utools and i've got 3 iphone 12 pro max , and each have a display that start with G9... does someone remember what grade is it ? cos i know the info are somewhere in this thread , but cannot find the page..lol

You mean which ones are supposed to be the best / worst quality? I think the original information came from an Asian forum

post whereby G9N should be the best followed by G9Q and G9P (all Samsung). But this Information turned out to be inaccurate. On MacRumors you find reportings of good and bad panels of each serial number by a variety of users.