iPhone 4S screen tint

I'm glad i found this thread, i thought i was going mad, i got my iphone 4s last week from tesco, my serial begins with C38, i already have an ipod touch 4g and my wife has an iphone 4 and i can't say i actually noticed a yellow hue when i got it but what made me realise something was different was that when running the stocks app the graph section was a paler blue than the other two devices. Also the weather app when showing the nightime weather the two shades of purple are again paler when compared to the other two devices. For some reason all other colours are fine though. It just seems to be light blues and purples that are affected. So i found a web site that can display black, red, dark blue, green and yellow using the safari web browser and done a comparison between my iphone 4s and my wifes iphone 4. And they were all identical except the yellow, on my iphone 4s the yellow is stronger in colour. So i'm still not sure if i have a yellow hue screen as to me whites look white, but the fact that some colours are pale in comparison leads me to think i may have. Also my wifes iphone 4 does seem to have a better contrast as well and seems brighter for the same manual brightness setting.

I was going to take it back but now reading on here i'm not sure, i may get the same or worse.

Hey everybody, listen up. You guys are going to drive yourselves nuts with this yellow tint nonsense. If your iphone has a problem, it will look really yellow, not just a bit warm, or kind of yellow, really, really yellow. Don't go comparing it to any other screens, because all screens are different. just look at it, and it alone, and decide if it looks "normal". Color is always relative, and if you go back to the Apple Store asking for a replacement because your screen is a little warm, or "might" be yellow, they'll give you a new one and yours will unnecessarily go back for refurbishing, wasting resources and money and time. If you think you have a problem, wait a couple weeks. It will probably go away on its own or your eyes will acclimate. Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. The power of suggestion here is overwhelming.

Message was edited by: robogobo to remove caps and add bold for emphasis, sorry, didn't mean to shout.

If apple gave me an exchange phone with something in-between the cooler screen on the 4 and the mustard tint I have on the phone I just received I would be fine, this phone in particular just looks odd. I dont think wishing this away is the answer and the wait for the glue to dry theory is a bit of a stretch. Either they are good to go out of the box or they arent, just my .02 cents.

I do agree with you robogobo. However, I have an appt at the genius bar to satisfy my own curiosity in an hour. Comparing identical photos in PHOTOS, the 3GS has more acccurate color. Granted, the blue-white color in the 3GS tends a bit toward pink but overall more accurate. The retina display is otherwise such a vast improvement; it can be viewed at any angle. This is what happens when Apple has multiple suppliers and has to produce 5 million devices in a short period of time. I have Late 2009 iMac that had issues with screen color but that was a $2800 computer and it took multiple swaps to get one that was acceptible. My early 2011 MBP was delivered PERFECT.

But it's just a phone and will be retired in 23 1/2 months when my contarct renews again...I will be reaonable but i want to go and talk to them and see if their samples are like this or if they have a better display. otherwise, I'll just live with it.

so...

I have to disagree here. People are not so blind or picky that a *slight* yellow tint to a screen is going to set them off, we are talking major issues with discoloration in the UI and lack of color fidelity. The fact that many people have had phones with the issue and gone to the extent to compare them plus we even have pictures showing a major change is cause for concern. True, all screens are different, but if it were just that wouldn't we expect to see people mentioning some other range of color bias such as red or blue shifted phones? Intead, uniformly, we hear that the colors are washed out and *very* yellow tinged. Enough time has passed for those with preorders that if the problem were just one of drying epoxy then we would start seeing many reports of the problem correcting itself, and to my knowledge very few people are reporting this. I for one have compared my iPhone 4S with two in two different stores and the difference was amazing; the demo units looked nice and even with a slight blue bias. The "blue" in the UI background say for the brightness screen actually looks blue on my old phone; on the new one it is something like a yellowish grey. People pay good money for these things and quality of display is one of Apple's selling points. In time I believe this issue is going to be understood as either a design defect, a material defect, or a construction defect.

Okay I just got back from the Apple Store and every single sample white or black had the similar color calibration as mine. The color is warmer I wouldn't say it's extremely yellow however all iPhones had the warmer cast unlike the 3GS screen is slightly blue pink and tends to be a little artificial to me. True some of photos look better on the 3GS than the 4S. Every single 4S on display had this same color calibration like mine. The Apple genius associate told me that this is the color calibration that is being used for the iPhone for S so in my opinion enjoy your iPhones and forget about it unless you're this is extremely yellow. Dictated to Siri

I also returned just now from the Apple store and successfully swapped out my preorder iPhone 4S. Before my appointment I double checked with an in-store unit, and had my 3G along and in both cases the unit I had was distinctly more yellow. As pug1334 said, the iPhone 4S definitely has a warmer, even *slightly* yellow bias normally that I think might be the new polarized glass. The replacement unit I received is far more neutral and is closer to what is in the stores even if a bit yellowish. The difference is significant, and I don't pick up the phone now thinking yellow, even though it is more neutral than my 3G. FWIW, I had my preorder unit since the 14th, and there was no change in the color so I don't think the yellow issue in my case had anything to do with a slow curing epoxy. Overall I am much happier with the replacement unit and the more neutral color compared to the preorder unit. I would say however that there are new 4S units that appear distinctly blue-er than mine now, and it's clear Apple has several manufacturers filling orders and the more yellow screens may just have a higher incidence of color issues than the blue.

Here's my experience. I went through 2 iPhone 4's to finally decided on the prefered screen for myself a yellow one and a blue one. I finally settled on the blue screen which I felt was more clear and just looked better overall. The iPhone 4s I went through 3 phones before finally deciding. 1st one had a washed out screen 2nd one had a yellow screen and 3rd screen had a blue hue screen that while not as blue as my iPhone 4 was good enough to finally settle on and I'm very happy with it. I do realize apple has multiple manufactures that make screens it's to bad we all have to suffer through this. I wish apple would have a color standard implemented between manufactures so their product sold to different customers would end up with the same result.To me the screen is everything and clarity is the most important. My advice, I know it's no fun but don't give up exchange it until your happy you deserve it.

Ok so I figured an update was worth sharing, bear with me.

A little background. I've been using and purchasing Apple products since the early 90's. I've ran several computer (all Apple) departments for design agencies I've worked at. My wife and I own 12 Apple products between us. Needless to say I'm a fan and have ALWAYS had GREAT customer service. So much so that they replaced 2 of our out of warranty computers.

I too have had this screen issue with my new 4S, this is my 3rd iPhone btw, owned the 3G & the 4, no problems. I went to the Apple store on Saturday after I recieved mine in the mail and showed them the screen issue. The very nice Genius said they would replace it no problem but they didn't have any replacement phones in just yet so he kindly asked if I could come back next week. I live about an hour away from the store but I said sure no problem. So on the following Sunday as we were passing by coming home from Orlando I decided to stop and try to get it replaced. Mind you I called ahead of time and I guess they "aren't allowed" to tell you if they have any replacements in stock, so you have to go in....hmmm. I get there at 11:20, Genius attendant says please come back at 12:00. Ok sure no problem. I understand you guys are busy and no I didn't have an appointment, first available was 3:30, no can do, we had football to watch. 🙂 We go back at 12:00, girls says please come back at 12:50. Well being an hour away from home and football waiting on us on the 6 TVs I have in my living room, I begrudgingly said no thanks I'll come back.

Fast forward to last night, it gets better.....had an appointment at 6:30. Arrived on time, spoke with the Genius, he looked up my serial number, "yep gotcha right here sir, we'll get u replaced and out of here in no time". Very quick smooth painless process. We boot the phone up, compare it to my buddy's white 4S and it looks great! Hot ****. We then go grab a bite to eat in the mall (Cheesecake Factory, holy crap that Mac N Cheese burger is insanely good!). Just for grins I check my phone, low and behold it's "yellow" again. Mind you its not a HUGE difference but I can definetly notice it. (I'm a designer and paid for my trained eyes, but still, my friend was able to see it, as was anyone else we showed)

I'm getting to the meat, hang tight. So I book another appointment with the Apple store for 8:00. Again show up on time. Have to now wait until 8:20 before I get to see good ol' Ben the "Genius". Could not have been a day over 20 and feeling pretty entitled about his Apple employment status. He was very quick to judge me and the phone and say this issue is a NON-issue. It's within our specs. I say BS, in a nice way, he says ok let me go talk to my manager. Comes back 10 minutes later, says nope we can't exchange it, nothing wrong with the phone. I insist to speak to said manager. Manager comes over with a very smug look on his face, obviously not happy. Gave me a half hearted greeting and asks what the problem is. I explain. He says he sees NO DIFFERENCE. At this point I'm not pleased and telling myself I'm not leaving here w/o a 'good' phone. After a lot of back and forth, unpleasant rudeness from both the manager and Ben, and me keeping a cool head the entire time, oh and I might have mentioned that if Steve Jobs was standing here he would see the difference 🙂, he agreed to exchange it one more time. So I roll the dice.

It bears mentioning as I was waiting I found all of the sites including this one mentioning this issue that they say is a non-issue on a nearby iMac, nicely asked good ol' Ben to come have a look. One of the sites happened to be Youtube, he quickly replied in an extremely rude fashion, "that's YouTube, that's NOT Apple". I quickly replied and said, no Ben that's just one of the many sites, over here is the Apple one and there's no need for you to be so rude about it.....

At that point my new phone was ready but it seems our good friend "Genius" Ben couldn't get it to work. With a couple suggestions from me about how to fix it, we were up and running. Yeah! Checked the phone and the color was perfect! I'm thrilled.

So, arrive home, check the phone, comparing it my wife's phone and what do ya know, it's yellow once again. 😟

At this point I'm perplexed, not really sure where to go from here. I certainly won't be getting another phone from the nice folks at the Brandon Apple store. I plan to call Apple Customer Care, explain the situation and see what they say. But again I'm afraid it's a crap shoot to see if I get a "good" phone.

The saga continues.....

Sorry, Sarno, I'd have to side with the Geniuses on this one. You paid a lot for your trained eyes, and surely during that training they taught you how they operate. I assume you know about computers, use computers, and are familiar with monitor behavior. Monitors change. Even the best, most expensive monitors change color constantly. That's why they have to be calibrated all the time. And right now you're complaining not about a high end studio monitor, but a phone screen. You just wasted time and resources swapping out two perfectly normal phones. You even said so yourself. They looked fine in the store, and once home they looked different. Well, that's going to happen again, and again, and again. Montiors change over the day and over the years. They break in, burn in, burn out. Your expensive eyes also change, based on your surroundings, ambient light (which is not the same in your home as it is in an Apple store), and based on what they're "calibrated" to at the moment. Look at something blueish-white long enough, and a neutral white will look yellow, and stay that way as long as you insist the blueish white is "white". I'm almost certain they taught you this in Design school.

Give it some time and you'll be fine with it. It's nobody's fault. I'm sure they Apple guy went home and told his wife how smug and rude you were with your designer eyes.😉

The defective phones look extremely yellow, people. It's not a matter of comparison or opinion. The defects are waaaaaay too yellow. You'll know for sure if you have one, and so will the Geniuses. They have no interest in sending you home with a defective iPhone.

That is a very interesting story, indeed. Thanks for sharing. It is very strange that the color seems to shift to yellow after a few hours of use. Maybe there are some chemicals in there that evaporate once the battery gets warm. Ok, maybe not 😉

I compared my replacement 4S last night with one of my friend's 4 and he thinks that mine still looks yellow. Yes, maybe a little warmer than his but definitely not yellow!

Anyway, I'm keeping a close eye on mine to make sure it doesn't turn yellow on me. As of now I don't believe it did. Even when I hold it in an angle, the screen maintains its normal color. My pre-order 4S looked very mustard yellow when I looked at it from the left side and a lot less from the right side and just too much yellow straight on. It was unacceptable and it wasn't a matter of getting used to. It was just too yellow, period.

Oh, did I mention the home button on my replacement is slightly rotated? No big deal I guess but I know Steve (R.I.P. my friend) would roll over in his grave if he saw this. On the other hand, my new 4S seems to have much better battery life than my first 4S.

A reply I posted on another side. Hope this helps:

CONFIRMED: my 4s's yellow screen is definitely fading!

Received mine on 10/20 and today's 10/26. Comparing to my brother's 4 it definitely had this yellow tint problem. I was going to ask for a replacement right away but many people said replacements also had yellow tint, and I didn't want a refurbished one since the one I have right now have pretty good backlight and zero dead pixel.

6 days later, I definitely see that the yellow tint has faded. I put 4 beside my 4s in completely dark room, maximum brightness, auto brightness off, and I no longer see white as yellow. 4 got cooler color but the white background even seems a little blue, rather. What's important here is that the severe yellowness actually goes a way with time. Trust me, it's not my eyes accustomed to this new screen.

Here is what I did:

-I found displayed 4s in Apple Store usually do not have yellow screens (some actually did). I confirmed with a friend who works @ genius bar that they don't purposely select good screen to the display. They just pull randomly selected 4s's out of delivered boxes and put them to display.

-It is true that displayed 4s's in Apple Store got settings set at maximum brightness and auto brightness turned off. And people touch them all day long so screen is almost always on.

-I did the same: For the last 3 days I set the brightness to maximum and turned off the auto brightness. I even brought on pure white wallpaper photo, no auto-lock, and kept the display on for 2-3 hours every day (for the last 3 days). Also played some videos in full screen as well even if I wasn't watching it. Basically I tried to keep the screen on the maximum brightness as long as possible.

Now, I no longer find my phone to be yellow. I believe if I keep using the phone on the maximum brightness for the next few weeks it will get better (though I'm already satisfied with my current screen).

IMPORTANT: Also, when you compare your screen with others, make sure the screen protector is off, especially the anti-glare or anti-fingerprint ones. They DO make your screen look less sharp and some even give yellow color.

Lastly, when screen is seen from the left it's more yellow than facing from the front. When seen from the right, it's more blue. I checked most of 4s from the Apple Store displayed ones, they were all the same in this aspect. My friends' and family's 4's all got this viewing angle difference.

I hope my observation and experience have helped you a little.

And there was another guy who wrote:

"I can't believe I'm honestly saying this, but the yellow does fade.

I have also been running my brightness at full blast for the past few days with autolock off and the screen is definitely becoming more neutral. I'm a display snob and calibrate everything, I understand how LED backlighting works and why we get colors we get. I just assumed the color temp on the phone was overly warm and this "glue" nonsense was ********.

It's warmer than my iPhone 4.....rather my iPhone 4 is ridiculously blue and I never noticed it. It makes the UI look good, but everything else is flat. The only issue I'm having now is that the backlight/color is a little uneven. More pink on the left and more green on the right. Hoping this evens out too."

Refer to this thread:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1251205&page=7

went in to an apple store today to swap out my white 16gb 4S ... the replacement had the same yellow tint. it also was a C38 serial number like my original.

i went and looked at the floor models... all the floor models with C38 serials had the yellow tint. the ones with C39 looked normal like my 4. there was also a white one with a DNP serial and that one looked fine too

i asked the geniuses if they had any C39 or DNP replacements but all they had were C38's ... AppleCare is sending me a new one in the mail. hopefully its not a C38 haha

I have the same problem, and it's quite a nuisance!!! I actually don't mind the "yellow tint" as mine isn't as yellow, it's a little on the green side but that's not the bad part. What I'm bugged out is the overall display, it looks as though HDR was turned on somehow on the whole phone and everything looks washed out, faded, slightly blurred. It's as though there's a layer of smoke under the glass. I want the crisp and vibrant display from my iPhone 4 but too bad I sold it on eBay so that I could get the 4S and i'm totally disappointed.

Accusing me of affiliated with Apple, huh?

I think you're really obsessed with this screen thing, have no patient, no knowledge in technology - just ignorant and mentally ********.

Just because I feel pity for your ignorance, here's some information you can dump in your brain: 3Gs used TN penel while 4 and 4s used a totally different kind. It's just not right to compare 4s with 3Gs.

Also, am I the only one experienced this? No.

Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH2KtkH6ZjI

This guy was complaining badly a few weeks ago, and if you play his video, on the top left corner you'll see that he wrote it got resolved in two days.

It is your brain that's defective turbo95eg6.