Q: Significant light leakage, few light botches on sides/corners  - defective?

Just returned from the Genius Bar at Bridgeport Village in Tigard, OR USA. This was my second visit for light leakage and I'm on my second unit.

The Apple employees were great and acknowledge the issue and said they have sent back all their replacement units at the request of Apple Corp. and ordered me a new unit from a production run without the issue. It may take 3-4 weeks, but I'm ok with it if I get a unit without the issue. They also said all their demo units had the issue at different levels.

I feel a little better that Apple understands the issue and is working to resolve it. I guess there may be hope for a resolution sometime soon.

Good Luck,

Mike

How do you or they know this to be fact?


"The Apple employees were great and acknowledge the issue and said they have sent back all their replacement units at the request of Apple Corp. and ordered me a new unit from a production run without the issue."

Just wanted to reiterate for this group, that I spoke with an Apple Store employee, and Apple Care, and they both said the production on the iFad II has been halted for quality control issues with the screen. Evidently shipping from the factory will begin again in earnest on April 21st.

Apple has sent hardware engineers from Cupertino to China to resolve the issues. All the iFad II's currently in the supply chain may have screen bleed issues, so it's going to take 3 or 4 returns to get it right !

I took mine back and asked for a full refund and got it. I'll wait a few months to see how this pans out......

I can only go by what they told me and the well documented Apple Work Order I have on my issues. Time will tell if Apple is right on this?

I had a Genius Bar appointment yesterday regarding this issue. They were very helpful and acknowledged the light leakage problem. I was given the option to do a quick exchange (but the exchange unit could have had the same issue) or come back in a few weeks when I was told the new service/replacement units would be available. I opted for the latter since the Genius said the issue has been targeted and the new service units would not have the same problem. He also assured me that exchanging my iPad in a few weeks would not be an issue since the defect is fully covered under warranty.

My 32GB 3G has 7-8 leaking spots all around the edges, however I'm not taking it back because I'd probably receive another bad unit in exchange.

I'll wait 2-3 months until the production issue is sorted out.

Thanks for all of your updates guys. It sounds like Apple recognizes the problem and is doing something about it. Part of me wishes they'd issue a recall.

I'll take mine in for an exchange in a couple of months.

Of course, in a couple of months we'll all be getting refurbished units, not brand new iPads.

ClayG -

I for one will not settle for a refurbished unit if thats what Apple tries to do which I doubt and hope they wont try to do...

I have an iPad2 that I purchased at 5:11pm on launch day that is defective, I went back to them and they cannot replace it with a new unit that doesnt have the defect..once they get ones in they will call me...if they dont give me a new one I will raise holy H*LL...

Dont get me wrong I have this in perspective, I dont need the ipad to live... and understand that as an early adopter these things sometimes happen...but its a $1,100 purchase what with accessories, Apple Care etc... and it should work properly..

Apple has always been very reponsive to my needs as a loyal customer, I dont expect them to stop now...they just need to get iPads in that dont exhibit this manufacturing defect and that will take a little time to make its way through the supply chain...

I can confirm this -- my ship date is April 21st and my online order date was march 18th. It can't be a coincidence that the dates line up and the huge delay between order and ship date...I just really hope that when the end of April rolls around and my 3rd iPad 2 gets delivered to my door that it is free of screen defects.

I hope you're right that they'll give us brand new iPads. I also bought my mine on launch day, and feel I should be entitled to a new unit without going through 4-5 tries without improvement like many other posters on these threads have reported doing. Fingers crossed.

Got my iPad 2 3G 32GB here in Sweden this friday on the release.

After I've unboxed the device I was so pleased with my purchase. But that didn't last for long.

I've got the back light leek all over the bottom by the home button when held in portrait angle.

For me this is totally unacceptable.

And the fact that Apple hasn't made a statement about this issue among others (at least not from what I know) is disappointing.

I am calling Apple tomorrow about this and hopefully they will replace it with a properly working iPad 2.

I think April 21 is the magic number. I order mine on March 18 (USA) and April 21, was the ship date. I decided I wanted the 32 GB instead of the 16 and ordered another one on the 19th. The ship date was 5 days later. It has now been switched to the 21st.

I don't understand why they allowed the European launch knowing about the problem. I guess they though that some people would not notice, or they could just fix it later. Seems like fixing it later is more expensive than fixing it before the launch.

It seems that the problem may be with all the units, with some people are not caring or not knowing this is not a normal condition.

I ordered my 64 wifi on Mar 17th and I have a April 21 ship date also. I am a bit worried about getting one of those with the bad leakage. This will be my first ipad, love the iphone 4.

I feel that them not delaying the international launch is deplorable.
They knew about the problem -- there's HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of reports.
It's just plain dishonest, and a disgusting policy.
This is not the Apple I knew growing up...that's all I'm going to say.