iPhone 5 yellow tint screen!?

I agree that the tint changes with the viewing angle. On my iphone 5, the whitest screen is viewed from a different angle than yours: a very extreme viewing angle along the bottom left corner. At most angles, tge tint is more yellow than direct viewing.

Overall, my yellow tint has grown less extreme with time, but my iphone 4 screen has much better contrast and crisp white tones. The iPhone 5 screen is yellow. I've compared mine to many others and all the new phones seem yellow.

I'm so glad I found this thread. I had yellow tint issues with my iPhone 4S, which meant colours weren't rich and appeared wishy-washy, much like you described, goosel.

I was therefore delighted when I pre-ordered and recieved my black iPhone 5 32GB on release day and the screen was rich in colour, really crisp text with deep colours (looks very much like the colour tones on icon707's iPhone 4 picture a few posts above. My black iPhone 5 has a similar colour temperature and sharpness to my Retina Mac Pro.

I was considering changing to the white iPhone 5 and either selling my black one or keeping it as a spare handset for a family member etc, so I went to the Apple Store in Southampton (UK) yesterday where I had reserved a iPhone 5 white 32GB (took 8 reservations to get hold of one). After turning it on when I got home a couple of hours later, I was dismayed to see the screen had a yellowish tint, the colours weren't rich and the text was slightly hazy (all of this was particularly noticeable when you put the two iPhone's side by side). I took it back to the Apple Store two hours later and showed them the difference (a good example was putting them side by side in the messages app, or in brightness settings page). They declared it a DOA and replaced it immeadiately, but the same yellowly screen was present on the brand-new replacement (not a warranty replacement, a return and new purchase). The third new iPhone yesterday was the same, at which point when they offered to replace it once more but I refused and took a refund instead as I had had enough by that point.

However, this isn't an iPhone 5 issue across all the 5's produced because the display models in store were the same crisp screen as my black one is on both their black and white display models. Colours were rich and text was crisp on almost all models.

When comparing my crisp screen on my black phone to the yellowly screens on the white ones i was sold yesterday, it does look to the yellowy screen that it has a slight bluey colour temperature but it makes things more vibrant and look great.

The employees (the store manager and a separate iPhone specialist) agreed that there were large differences in the screens, and were very apologetic saying they had never come across such differences before and they would report it back (their 'surprise' at the issue is, I expect, because if I hadn't had a 'good' iPhone 5 screen I wouldn't have noticed the abnormalitily of the yellowly poor colouring on the ones they sold me and I returned yesterday).

I really want a white iPhone 5 with the screen I have on my black iPhone 5, but it seems pot luck due to the (perhaps) different screen suppliers they use?

Really dissapointed in Apple's Quality Control on this. I love the iPhone 5 white, but won't take it unless the screen is the standard I believe it should be, as evidenced on display models and my black iPhone 5 device.

The screen on my second white iphone 5 was very very good.

You give me confidence goosel, I will visit the Apple Store next week when they expect some more deliveries. There must be batches of good screens out there!

I live in NYC. Yesterday was the day I had to get an iPhone 5 with the same clarity of my iPhone 4S, which is in a blueish color, very crisp and nitid. Anyways, I got one in Grandcentral Appls Store, which was yellowish. I asked the guy to swap it, he seemed uneasy but he did. Second unit was the same with the yellowish screen. He said I could return it or live with it. I kept it since they said the glue hasn't set in blah blah blah, which is false because the screen is cheap and they try to blame it on the glue. Anyways, I return to the apple store now at Upper West side, they had the same yellowish display all over the display tables, I did not even bother to try o swap it because I knew I was going to get the same result. I went then to the apple store at fifth Avenue, same issue, although the phones at the display tables were blueish, the unit I got wasn't. at this point I just returned the phone and got my money back. I really wanted to get a ridiculous iphone 5 with a good screen so I went down to SOHO apple store to check them out....gues what???? SAME ISSUE... all iPhone 5's were yellowish.... freaking ridiculous at this point. I did not even bothered to buy anything at all, I knew I was going to get the same result....AGAIN....

So I gave up and went home iPhoneless....... It seems like apple control is really messed up. Where is Steve JObs really.... I always had a good screen when he was in charge...Anyways, the only store I missed was at 14st but I'm pretty sure I was going to get the same yellowish color.

Finally, I went to an At&t store in manhattan by the 5th Avenue, I explained my situation to the lady, she seemed to understand my frustration and offered to open an iphone 5 to see if It had a perfect screen, so I could buy it, but guess what??????? Freaking iPhone 5 was yellow too, I did apologize but I did not get it, she seemed ok with it but i felt bad that she opened it for nothing... anyways, I am very unhappy with this situation, I will give it a week to go back and buy a new unit again... but if it comes the same way, I will have to be moving away to some other alternatives such as samsung... ALL I WANT IS REALLY A CRISP SCREEN WITHOUT THE YELLOW TINT ON IT, NOT TOO HARD TO UNDERSTAND.... APPLE IF YOU READING THIS... FIX YOUR STUFF.... MORE LIKE GET YOUR S... TOGETHER FOR REAL. 😠

lunaedj you have my sympathies! In my search for a White iPhone 5, I will continue to return it when it has the poor yellow coloured screen to whichever Apple Store I purchase it from until I get one which I deem to be of an acceptable quality. They are out there, but as of yet I don't know where! When spending £599 ($1000) on an unlocked handset, it deserves to be of good quality.

So far I've had nothing but support from Apple's employees who have been both sympathetic, apologetic as well as rather embarrassed!

Today I received my 3rd iPod Touch (that has the same display that the iPhone 5 has). And guess what? Again a dark and yellow display. Here’s the comparison photo to my iPhone 4:

I wonder, what Apple thinks about this issue? I wrote an email and received an answer call from a "corporate relations" person. I sent him the pictures and he was surprised! He told me that I shouldn’t hold my breath for a quick solution and that he will pass the info to another department. He won’t give me fedback.

Maybe the whole yellow display problem isn’t a problem to Apple?

Maybe it’s just a matter of price, availibility or production technique?

Maybe energy efficient LEDs are yellow?

Maybe the guy responsible for the purchase of the displays is color blind (no joke)?

Maybe the yellow is the only way to make the displays 500cd bright?

Maybe the polarizer that makes the vivid color and strong black produces a yellow white?

Maybe the yellow display tone should match the creme white of the white iPhone?

I have NO IDEA!

I just hope to get an iPhone 5S with a bright white display in 2013...

<Edited By Host>

I know that Apple use several suppliers for their displays, and given that this problem was present on both iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S (some displays being more bluey, making colours richer and text sharper and then some more yellowy displays being hazy), I believe Apple must regard it as within an acceptable scope of variance.

I do not consider the difference between the two displays to be acceptable, but there is no evidence to suggest that Apple has done anything about it (they have been aware of the differences since 2010).

<Edited By Host>

@ samueldethierry: It’s interesting that in both our messages a similar part has been edited out by the Apple host. You know what they don’t want the public to know ;-)

@ all: So it seems only the white iPhone 5 has the yellowish tint, correct? I just got mine about a week ago. It's hard to tell, if you look at it without another device to compare to, the white of the screen looks alright. I have to say my old iPhone 4 had a very blue-ish (cold) white tone (as already mentioned in here). I'm not sure which white is the REAL white, cuz to be honest, the blue iPhone 4 was almost too blue-ish. Oh well ...

@TheWeasel

The yellow screen issues affect both black and white iPhones, as evidenced by comparing them in stores (you'll see some black ones with sharper screens and other black ones with the yellowly screens also). The yellow vs. slightly blueish tints are due to the fact that Apple use two different suppliers for its Retina LCDs and whether you get an iPhone 5 with a screen sourced from Manufacturer A or Manufacturer B is just pot luck.

However, having put two iPhone 5's together, here is a picture I took demonstrating the difference (click on the picture to enlarge it and see the difference upclose)

Note in the white iPhone 5 (white) with the yellowy screen from Manufacterer A, the colours are much more faded (see 'New Message' banner at top) and text is hazier to the eye than the iPhone 5 with screen from Manufacter B (right - although the hazier text is hard to demonstrate in a photo).

Alright, ok. Thanks for the photo. Mine isn't hazy at all, but the white is definitely warmer than on the 4... also compared to my iPad 3, which has the blue touch. I guess I'll just be waiting a little and compare it to other 5s.

What kinda got my attention though is, that in Messages the blue button and bubble when sending an iMessage looks perfectly normal, but when sending an SMS (green button & bubble) has a neon-greenish tendency.

I got my iPhone 5 a few days ago. It took very short time to notice my iPhone 5 has a yellow screen compared to my iPhone 4. I have been searching the web about this yellow annoying screen for two days. Generally, people say because of glue, these phones have yellow screen, and after couple of weeks they will change. At the beginning, I wanted to believe that, but now I am afraid these yellow screens are permanent because after I noticed my iPhone 5 screen is yellow, I wanted to compare my iPhone 4 and iPad 3th generation, and saw my iPad screen is also between yellow and cream. Since I did not notice this situation by this time, I was surprised. The fact is I got my iPad 3-4 months ago. If yellow screens were temporary, my iPad would not have yellow screen. Now I have 3 different types of screens; iPhone 4, white one, iPad 3th generation, cream-yellow one, and iPhone 5, yellow one. That is so ridiculous that I always thought Apple has good quality products, but I can see now even Apple does not have a standard. The worst part for me is there is no Apple Store in my country, and I got my Apple products from different countries(US, UK, and France etc.), so I do not have a chance to exchange my products because I'll be in my country for a long time. I'll try to upload photos of my 3 devices and differences between them.

These are the photos that explain my situation about which I talked.

Great photos! They do show the differences.

I keep wondering why Apple doesn't put in a screen calibration setting as we have on our MacBook Pros, Airs. Being able to adjust the screens would go a long way to amerliorating these concerns!

I've found that higher brightness overcomes much of the creamier color but likely at the expense of battery life. OTOH, spend lots of time with the cream-yellow and the blue looks too blue, even surreal!

I tried an iPod Touch 5G and discovered it had a yellow-cream tint. But how it handled old apps was more of a concern than the tint.

But I know exactly how irritating and distracting the screen tints can be, which is why Apple really needs to step up to the plate and incorporate a color calibration setting into its iOS!