iPhone 5 yellow tint screen!?

According to http://bgr.com/2012/09/13/sharp-iphone-5-screen-shipments-begin/ the 3 manufacturers for iPhone 5 screens are LG, Japan Display and Sharp.

Compared my i5 with a friend's one today, his did not have the same subtle green-yellow tint issue. So I am assuming a different screen manufacturer.

I am trying a replacement from the online Apple Store. At least their pick up and delivery service is good – they give me the new one before picking up the old one so I won't be without a phone.

I do fear that both phones might be from the same batch though, so maybe the same screen manufacturer. If that's the case, I will try buying from a local Apple Store.

@thesheep

I'm also in the UK and I had this problem. I purchased and had replaced five iPhone 5 white handsets from the Apple Retail Store in Southampton over a period of two weeks during two different stock deliveries and then gave up and got a refund. Each handset screen was yellow (although interestingly some were more yellow than others, but all were distinctly yellow). Some of the display ones were also yellow, while others not.

I then purchased one from the Apple Online Store, it was yellow (see pics in my earlier post) and had it replaced, and the replacement was yellow so opted for a refund.

I have now given up. Luckily I have an iPhone 5 black with a gorgeous display (which has been instrumental in quality testing the screens on the white iPhone 5 I'm trying to purchase). I consider it really poor quality control on Apple's part to allow such huge variance is screen quality.

It is a demonstration of how overstreched Apple are, in not being able to cope with the demand for their products. As they increase output of several product ranges, comprises happen and these comprimises I deem unacceptable given the price Apple charge for their 'top quality' products.

I also purchased an iPad Mini with a distinctly yellower screen than those on display in store. However it's not Retina so I have more of a tolerance for its imperfections, hence I'm chosing my battles and letting some drop.

However I've now given up trying to get hold of an iPhone 5 white with a good screen, and the process has left me thoroughly bitter.

I’m in Germany and I have seen approx. 50 yellow screens over here but never a white display. I used my iPhone 4 and iPad 3 as a reference. In comparison ALL new iPhones looked darker and exhibited a yellow cast.

So according to Samueldethierry a small percentage of iPhone 5 have good displays.

But it is a lottery game to get a good iPhone5. I bought 7 »tickets« and returned them with bad luck. Now I wait for the 5S and start the ordering/returning process and hopefully win next time!

My new 2012 iMac 21,5" also has a yellow screen! I couldn’t believe it. Here it is against a 27" 2011 model:

Something is going on at Apple with all those yellow screens... ;-)

I have now submitted some feedback to Apple (http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html). I'm sure they won't do anything in a hurry, but it might help the issue get noticed at some point.

I told my situation and posted some photos about a comparison among iPad, iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 before. iPhone 5 has officially started to be sold by distributors in my country. I tested their iPhones today. There were two iPhones. One of them was white, and it's screen was worse than my iPhone's screen. It's screen was more yellowish. The other one was black, and had the perfect screen. When I saw it, I completely understood that yes, there are iPhones which have the perfect white screen, so yellowish screen is faulty screen for sure!

I got a replacement phone delivered this morning. I'm happy to say, it does not have the subtle, sickly yellowish cast that the first one has. I was able to compare them side by side and close examination of some colours (e.g. mid grey) reveals some yellow tint on the first phone, but not on the second. The colours are still not as blue as my iPhone 4, but at least I don't feel sick every time I look at my home screen! Quite a relief.

@ thesheep: WHich size is it and is it black/white. Maybe this is a good chance to get a similar phone when buying the same size/color?!? :-)

Black, 32GB. Good luck!

Also, worth re-iterating again for anyone who hasn't read all the comments before: the differences here are fairly subtle. For example, my wife glanced at the first phone and didn't see anything wrong with it. I expect some people would never notice. But I'm a designer and work with colour all day long, and I really did notice. Actually I noticed it unconsciously first (hmm, something too sickly about the green iMessage icon here) then only realised the actual problem on investigation.

Thank you for the info. I will report, if my 32GB/black also has a better screen as soon as I have it.

It would seem that there is reasonable evidence from this and many other related posts Apple perhaps need to re-visit what they define as the colour white when describing their iphone displays? As colour and degree of warmth can be very subjective from one individual to the next I am sure there are many who find no issue and thats ok. Also like others have mentioned, I have found the Apple store iphone units surprisingly whiter in many cases and used this in one instance to show the stark difference on an older iphone 4 I was trying to exchange. With my iphone 4 incident I tried 3 new units before finding one similar to the store display.

After waiting some time for the dust to settle I purchased a new white iphone 5 today (White 32GB) only to find the infamous yellow tinted display. I had hoped having experienced this in previous models of the iphone Apple rectified the supply and QA issues with the release of the iphone 5. I can only speculate why this matter keeps popping up. At least if there was consistency in the display colour people could make their own mind up whether they like the display that way or not.

For me I just plan to take the iphone 5 back and get a refund. I have reached a point where there are more important things in life than wasting any more time trying to gamble I will get a better display. Its also not the fault of the folks in the Apple stores whom I have found really helpful over the years and so I do not want to bother then anymore.

I do hope Apple can take the Display consistency matter in hand an come forward with a solution soon. It really is spoiling a great product. I really like the new iphone 5 design, which makes it hard to part with. Maybe someone has some tips on conditioning the display to remove some of the yellow tint. Its probably inherent in the glass itself and not correctable. Cheers

Then we should not talk to each other here. Let’s send an enhancement request to Apple: http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

Maybe if all unhappy customers report about all the returned iPhone just for the yellow cast displays, Apple will forward this enhancement request to the engineer that is responsible for the displays in the iPhone 5 and iPod Touch 5G.

"Where is Steve JObs really.... I always had a good screen when he was in charge"

Sorry, but Google back a few years and you'll see the very same thing, the very same complaints with the iPhone 4!! While our man Steve was still on this Earth and still very much in charge of things.

It is a shift in color calbration-- the creme-tint produces more natural photos, but is jarring to those of us used to the bluish-white tinted screens. OTOH, spend some days with a creme-white one and then go back to a bluish-white screen, it'll look horrendous, outrageously bluish! Of course, having said that, I went through several iPhone 4s before landing one similar in hue to my iPod Touch 2G-- and was bothered by the tint on the new iPod Touch 5Gs. But I also know that I could get used to it.

Apple needs to include a color calibration, warmth control, as we have on the Macs. That would end the complaints and solve the problem for all of us.

It is a shift in color calbration-- the creme-tint produces more natural photos, but is jarring to those of us used to the bluish-white tinted screens.

That may be true overall, but it doesn't explain why there are these differences between screens of the same model. Is it a factor with all LCD screens and I've never noticed before? Might be interesting to compare a whole load of MacBook Pro screens and see if they a similar disparity. My guess is they would be more conistent, and maybe this problem is with the new pioneering screen technology used in the iPhone 5.

(I'm a designer, and amateur photographer) In the first week of the iPhone 5 release I noticed that my screen was slightly yellow. But not as yellow as my brother's. I compared my phone to the various display models in three UK Apple Stores and they seemed whiter, with better contrast, deeper blacks and with a higher brightness level, with phones set on maximum brightness.

A collegue at work also had an iPhone 5 that had better white and contrast.

It is important to note that the iPhone 5 does *inherently have a warmer tone* compared to iPhones of old, but some phones are overly warm as reported by some users here. My seemed to be in the middle ground.

After several weeks of ownership of the same phone, I returned to an Apple Store for a re-evaluation, and compared mine to the display models again. Surprisingly my phone is no longer that yellow.

So two scenarios might have played out.

1. My iPhone has become less yellow, which I think it has (although I am aware of the possibility that you can become 'used to' the display) hence my desire to benchmark again with the display models.

2. Apple have started displaying more yellow representative phones rather than the previous white phones, so they can manage expectations and reduce complaints/returns of yellow phones.

For users of an iPhone within acceptable limits of yellowness (the inherently warmer display) I think it is important not to *just focus on the white*.

While in store, I compared the same photographic images on my iPhone, and Mac Book Pro std, Mac Book Pro Retina, 13 and 15 inch, Apple Display, iMac and at home compared to iPad Retina and iPad std, and generally Apple have gone warmer or warmer than the iPhone 5. None of the devices offered higher contrast or brightness levels than the smaller iPhone 5 screen. The Retina laptops were particularly disappointing against my iPhone 5, images were totally flat, and contrast of text low. I used sample images from www.dpreview.com

I also compared my iPhone 5 to my wifes iPhone 4S which had a cleaner white,- and photographic images lacked contrast, depth and colour range compared to the warmer iPhone 5. Yes, whites compared to the 4S aren't as 'clean' but in the grand scheme of things and compared to other devices it definetly appears superior.

I've also compared it to my work Thunderbolt 27 inch display, and the iPhone 5 has better brightness and is less yellow. The Thunderbolt display which I haven't calibrated is quite 'yellow' out of the box compared to iPhone 5. I've adjusted the Thunderbold display using the standard controls and it's still more yellow than the iPhone 5 and Mac Book Pro 15 inch std I have. I've even compared it to my older iPhone 3GS, which is really blue, too much so, and the photographic images are lack lustre compared to the iPhone 5.

So as I said in the grand scheme of things, the naturally wamer iPhone 5 screen for photographic images isn't bad at all. There are variances of warmness, and obviously there is an acceptability level for individuals and for Apple.