Q: Anyone else have flickering/ghosting keyboard on iphone 5?
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Oct 7, 2012 8:20 AMby vince0656,I think this may be hardware and or software based on what approach apple has taken with their new A6 chip as well as iOS6 (and whether or not I understand this fully) but it may not be the end of the world.
Lets take a step back. As others have mentioned, this is not something that happens all of the time right? And what do we know about the keyboard flicker? Well its very much the artifacting you would expect when you overclock a graphics card on a PC and the chip is at its limit. This cannot be the case here because the A6 will be tested and any falty chips binned. If you go and play the demanding Real Racing 2, do we see artifacting? No, because the chip works fine!
When could we also see artifacting and issues such as the ones we're seeing in the app store keyboard and folders with 4 or more apps? Well if we underclock and undervolt a GPU on a PC enough we could also achieve artifacting and that's where I think the issue lies. I think the clock speeds and voltages are not being managed well or are too agressive and so when the GPU needs to clock up or needs to do more demanding things (at least more demanding than being in standby, the keyboard in the appstore is transparent) the artifacting occurs either because the A6 chip is not reacting quickly enough or again Apple were too agressive in saving power that the standby voltage may be too low. This would explain why if you were to go and play Real Racing 2, close the app and download another you wouldn't encounter this issue because the clock speeds and voltages have been pushed up by Real Racing and will only go down after a period of inactivity (locking). You also wouldn't find this by cold booting your phone because like a PC, clock speeds only fall after there is no activity and there is quite a bit when a phone/PC is booting.
This is may not be 100% the right answer. I might be wrong but seeing as no body knows anything I thought I'd throw this out there.
So Apple would need to find a way by software to sort this (if i'm right) or they can just recall all of their phones...
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Oct 7, 2012 9:12 AMby olturbo,Nice theory , but at least based on my experience you can not stick the stand by pattern to this behavior , for me it happens also after intensive work of the phone (games ,watching video etc') the appearance is completely random , I can't say it happening under certain circumstances ....
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Oct 7, 2012 10:30 AMby dollsoflace,This issue is now happening almost every time I go into the App Store and have to put in the password. What I have noticed it doesn't happen when the keyboard is the one with the gray background. It's only the keyboard with the darker background.
As for when I open an app folder it doesn't happen as often as it does at the App Store (which is now at almost every login) but through the static lines I can see bits of whatever I had open last. So if I was looking at a picture and go open a folder I can see a resemblance to that photo through the lines.
At this point I'm very concerned. Why would the frequency worsen?
One question to everyone: did you have a screen protector installed? Was it Invisible Shield? Could the pressure of the application of such a thing be causing these faults? This screen is new technology and perhaps it isn't meant to be pressed too hard. I don't know. But the lack of answer from Apple makes me very nervous. It is an issue which far too many people are having and reporting.
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Oct 8, 2012 9:21 AMby WillGonz,I have had this happen to mine too. Black AT&T iPhone 5 64Gig. I haven't seen it again recently. To determine if it is a hardware or software problem.
When you see it messing up. Take a screenshot (Hold power and press home screen button). If the artifacts show up in the picture then it is a software problem and an update will fix it. If it doesn't show up in the screen shot then it is a hardware problem but maybe an update will still fix it.
