Q: Is anybody else getting a yellowish hue on their new iPad?

After waiting a few weeks, I went down to the Apple store and picked up another one.  DY, week 20.  This one also has a much better screen than any of the previous ones.  Except that it is yellowish on the top 1/3 of the screen in portrait orientation.  It is actually pretty minor, and it just noticable when the keyboard is up in landscape. The right third of it is yellower than the left 2/3.  I may actually keep this one, because the yellow is only noticable on a plain white screen, or when the keyboard is open.  If I have anything else on the screen (webpage, whatever), then I don't see it.  It is much more uniform than any of the others that I've had.  No dark edges, like most of the other ones.  No greenish top left corner, like the one before it.

No overheating.  Seems to charge up just fine.  It has the death grip issue, but I think that they all do, and that's just a function of the antenna position.

I have a week and a half to decide if this one's the keeper.  Maybe the yellow will diminish even more during that time.

I wonder why it's so difficult to get one that is 100 percent uniform, both in tint and in brightness.  At least it seems like overall screen quality is improving as time goes on.

The interesting thing is that my wife took over one of the earlier ones that I was going to return.  She didn't notice the dark left edge like I did.  I was using it the other night, and now that screen is completely uniform.  No yellow.  No weird tints.  No dark edge that I could see. 

Well, I just quit the lottery and asked for refund. After more than 10 returns I am sick of it. The last one was pretty much like the one that Usmaak is holding in hands. It was a DY, week 17. I gave it a try but the uneven tint never changed. Maybe I will try another Store in Frankfurt in a couple of days, weeks or months or never. Fact is: Never again I will open any box with the Apple apple without feeeling kind of uneasy. Imagine they launch the MacBook Pro with retina display during this summer (or on the 11th of June). Would you go and buy it? I would have done a couple of weeks ago. But now I am happy with my 2009 17'' MacBook Pro - just because it looks, feels and works as announced...

Fritz, I like you also gave up going through Apple.  I also have been very leary to open Apple products now for about the past couple years.  The last iMac I got had 3 replacments sent because of various failed parts.  iPads have always had to be switched out except for the first ipad.  That one was perfect!  Kept the first two we bought. 

I think as Apple grows the focus will become more on quantity and quality will take more of a backseat.  Customer service is also waining with Apple.  I've had some good reps, and a lot more terrible ones lately.  Apple techs simply don't know what they are talking about anymore.  3 years ago if you called in they were on it right then and there.  The tech guys knew a lot about stuff.  Now they seem to have simply hired fillers for much of their staff.

BarrettF77, you're right! This exactly is my perception.

Just thought I'd add my experiences with the new iPad. Like many others, mine had uneven colours. Top right hand corner in portait mode was sort of "dirty". Noticeable when scrolling text on a white background. My son also has a new iPad, and his seems fine, and plain white is whiter on his too. Anyway, took it back to the Apple store, and they couldn't really see anything, but suggested I took it back to the retailer I bought it from and swap it if I wasn't happy (only 3 days old). So I did that, and after the retailer (and I) spke to Applecare on the phone managed to get an RA and a new new iPad. This one? Dirty patch top left corner. Unevenness changes as you slightly tilt the display, like on the first.

So - another trip to the Apple store. Didn't tell them I was on my second one already. Genius took it out the back to show others, and then said it was within spec and they coudn't so anything. I kicked up a bit of fuss, and someone else was wheeled out who was, I guess, more senior. Went through the problem with him and he couldn't see it - really obvious problem to me. But he did offer to swap on condition that it wouldn't be swapped again for the same symptom. Happy with that, it took the swap. No better! Now dirty lower left.

I'm resigned that this really is the way it is with a lot of new iPads, maybe all those whose panels come from a particular manfacturer. It is a very slight problem, but annoying nonetheless! Bit disappointed, but I'll keep it rather than getting a refund.

I will have to agree on this. I bought a 2002 lamp iMac . After 7 years i bought a replacement just because I felt this is too old to be still used in 2009 . the only thing that failed was the burning capabilty of the dvd driivr. otherwise it was a rock. Now we switch on brand new Apple products and its faulty out of the box.

Everytime some one shows me their iphone 4 screen and how beautfiul and correct the color are my jaw drops and wonder why doesnt this happen with iPad? so sad... maybe Tim Cook doesnt care since with his pay he can buy a million iPads each month but we can only buy 1 iPad with our lower income, and that iPad HAS to work right

kingmohd wrote:

 

I will have to agree on this. I bought a 2002 lamp iMac . After 7 years i bought a replacement just because I felt this is too old to be still used in 2009 . the only thing that failed was the burning capabilty of the dvd driivr. otherwise it was a rock. Now we switch on brand new Apple products and its faulty out of the box.

 

Everytime some one shows me their iphone 4 screen and how beautfiul and correct the color are my jaw drops and wonder why doesnt this happen with iPad? so sad... maybe Tim Cook doesnt care since with his pay he can buy a million iPads each month but we can only buy 1 iPad with our lower income, and that iPad HAS to work right

Thats well said ! Yes !  Looks like Tim Cook Doesnt care ! He has got his pay secured. Even I envy when someone shows his Pristine iPad to me and I kick myself saying Gosh why cant even I have this, even after paying the samething that he has paid.

Dear All,

I am from the UK and am new to this forum, so please excuse me if this has been queried before.

I too am in possession of a yellow tinted ipad 3 and went today to an apple store to try and sort it out. It first came to me when I was using it one evening and then it suddenly looked very yellow. I took it today to both my local John Lewis department store and my local apple store and compared it with about 7 of their ipads on show. My ipad was yellow in comparison to all of them and to be fair, both the JL employee and the apple genius agreed. So they went to get me a brown box replacement, and it was the same. We went through 3 of them and they were all of the same colouration to my original and different to the ones on display. I wasnt happy and the genius kept feeding me the same rubbish that there are variances in the displays. For a company like Apple that excuse just sounds cheap and lame. To me, if the product you get is different to the one that is advertised when its not meant to be, then it is a faulty product. Also, if there were truely "variances" then surely out of the 7 I compared with, at least one or two would have had the same yellowish colour?

I didn't accept a replacement and they have ordered me in another one, which im 99% sure will have the same problem so it is going to be a wasted trip. But what struck me is that all the replacements im sure were DY manufactured. I actually had one before which was DM manufactured (but swapped due to fingerprint under LCD) and I dont recall that looking yellow. So could this all be a production line fault in the DY plant? I didn't check, but it would be interesting to see if the ones on display in both the apple store and JL were from the DM plant.

Anyway, i'm unsure what to do. Either wait a couple of months and see if the problem irons itself out, and hope to get a DM replacement (although im sure its not restricted to the DY plant) or just sell the ipad altogether to someone who is not bothered by the shoddy quality control by apple. This is my first apple product, and coming in with such high expectations it has left me bitterly deflated and disappointed. All I know is that the ones on display had a brighter, and nicer colour (especially on white backgrounds) and I will not give up until I am 100% happy.

butty123 wrote:

 

Dear All,

 

I am from the UK and am new to this forum, so please excuse me if this has been queried before.

 

I too am in possession of a yellow tinted ipad 3 and went today to an apple store to try and sort it out. It first came to me when I was using it one evening and then it suddenly looked very yellow. I took it today to both my local John Lewis department store and my local apple store and compared it with about 7 of their ipads on show. My ipad was yellow in comparison to all of them and to be fair, both the JL employee and the apple genius agreed. So they went to get me a brown box replacement, and it was the same. We went through 3 of them and they were all of the same colouration to my original and different to the ones on display. I wasnt happy and the genius kept feeding me the same rubbish that there are variances in the displays. For a company like Apple that excuse just sounds cheap and lame. To me, if the product you get is different to the one that is advertised when its not meant to be, then it is a faulty product. Also, if there were truely "variances" then surely out of the 7 I compared with, at least one or two would have had the same yellowish colour?

 

I didn't accept a replacement and they have ordered me in another one, which im 99% sure will have the same problem so it is going to be a wasted trip. But what struck me is that all the replacements im sure were DY manufactured. I actually had one before which was DM manufactured (but swapped due to fingerprint under LCD) and I dont recall that looking yellow. So could this all be a production line fault in the DY plant? I didn't check, but it would be interesting to see if the ones on display in both the apple store and JL were from the DM plant.

 

Anyway, i'm unsure what to do. Either wait a couple of months and see if the problem irons itself out, and hope to get a DM replacement (although im sure its not restricted to the DY plant) or just sell the ipad altogether to someone who is not bothered by the shoddy quality control by apple. This is my first apple product, and coming in with such high expectations it has left me bitterly deflated and disappointed. All I know is that the ones on display had a brighter, and nicer colour (especially on white backgrounds) and I will not give up until I am 100% happy.

Sad to hear your story Mate ! But surprising you say this, that all the iPad’s that you have tried before which had tints were made out of DY Factory. I am reporting this from India, I mean not from the entire country but here in Mumbai atleast from the day the New iPad was launched all the units that I have checked which have been shipped here are from the DY Factory and almost none of them have a tint. Almost none, I have not seen the DM units here in Mumbai. But you will find this contradictory that I am contractdicting my own statement. Unfortunately when I bought even that was a DY and it had a minor, very, very minor Green hue to it.

Fortunately for you guys where Apple has its own store, you guys are atleast lucky to go through the series of Exchange till you are satisfied or worst case scenario you can ask for a full refund within 14 days of your purchase but imagine the plight of we guys here in this part of the world where Apple does not have its store and the Resellers are absolutely non-committal there policy is simple if the manufacturer i.e Apple does not support you with your tint issue, how the **** do you guys expect us to help you. They just shoo you away if you go there with this issue. It is bloody well Lottery here ! I had a terrible experience dealing with the Tech Support then the Customer Relations in Singapore, Ireland then finally shot a mail to Tim Cook but all in Vain. They just refused to exchange it saying we cant do anything if you develop such a "perception" that your unit has a tint., Finally I had to sell it off to a person who was not bothered about such a minor tint . So...

Hey Mate can you also post your week of production ? Just curious to know !

Here I photoshoped an image to show you how I see the screen on my iPad 3 and to the left is how its supposed to look. I exagerated theh colors a TINY bit just so no one would tell me I see nothing wrong. At first glance sometimes you wont notice(in real life) it but the more you look at it the more obviouse it gets, so thats why the exageration (a tiny bit!) :

whoever thinking about an ipad, wait some months until there are no more issues. Make your buying cycle 5 months after launch not same month of launch

That's strange. There are some serious production discrepancies here. I just hope they are not making all the new ones with this same discolouration, because I for sure am not happy and it just doesn't look natural. White is not white, it's a sort of washed out coffee stain colour.

My production week is 13 (early April) and my first replacement unit is actually older than the one I bought originally. Are they still rushing them off production line or has demand and supply levelled out now? I think I'm going to phone apple directly today just to moan at them and tell them what I think.

I am so sorry to hear of the continuing screen tint issues. 

As I have posted before, my original launch day new iPad had a dirty washed out looking screen with yellow, green, pink and grayish splotches all over.   I returned it and waited until May before trying again. I decided against buying from Apple and went to Best Buy instead.

This one is perfection. The screen is bright and clear, the whites are white and there is no discoloration whatsoever.  To respond to your question, it is Week 16 manufacture with a DY serial number.  I know a lot of people over on the MacRumors boards felt the DY factory solved the discoloration problems but that is apparently not the case.

From a personal standpoint, I would not have accepted this second one if it hadn't been perfect in MY eyes. It is way too much money to spend on something inferior.  There are good ones out there.  Keep up the pressure to get one of these!

That's a good depiction of what mine looked like as well, and what I've been seeing on many of my friend's. I mostly read books and the web on the iPad, so the constant shifting from pink to green was too distracting.

Because of all these discussion here and after 2 replacements of iPad 3 i compared an iPad 1, 2 and the 3rd iPad 3.What is your opinion ? left iPad1 - middle iPad 2 - iPad 3

For some reason, I've become the iPad guru for my friends getting iPads.  Maybe because I had a few bad ones.  I had one friend get one on Thursday, and he thought that there was something wrong with it and wanted me to look at it.  I asked him what was wrong, and he said that the screen looked bad, and that part of it was yellowish green.  Not all of the screen.  He wanted me to look at it and point out what I saw.  In landscape, the top right of the screen all the way to about the middle was greenish.  I didn't see any yellow, but it was definitely green.  This one was a DYTHP.  So week 20 if I'm not mistaken.  He's returning it and getting an iPad 2.  Said he doesn't want to go through what I did to find a good one.  Or maybe he'll buy my iPad 2 that will be going on sale once the return period for my new one is up.

And I did finally find a good one, I think.  I got it at Target, and have had it for about a week and a half now.  The screen is even.  It's like a completely different screen from all of the others that I've seen.  No weird color tints at all.  At least that my eyes can see.  One thing that I've noticed is that the keyboard seems more bright grey than my wife's.  Her keyboard is darker, with a little more blue in it.  I don't know.  It's not always easy to describe colors.  I'm not sure if that means that I landed on one with a yellowish screen tint.  But whatever.  The most important thing to me has always been an even screen, and this screen is just as even white as my original iPad.  And I looked at all the grey/white color scales going around, and it seems much more even from top to bottom.  And I looked at all the color scales going around, and the colors all look right.  And other than the keyboard, I can see no difference at all between mine and my wife's.

So I'm happy.  It took way longer than it should have, and it was a lot more work than it should have been.

DYTHQ.  So week 21.