iPad Pro screen damage question

How rapid? What was the temperature difference?

All glass is subject to cracking very fast and very extreme temperature changes.

Unless the glass was below freezing and got heated up to a very extreme high temperature in a very very short time span, i.e a few minutes, it should have no real issues.

See here: Keeping iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch within acceptable operating temperatures - Apple Support

arthurfrommillbrook wrote:

Where I live in New York it has been bitterly cold recently. I wondered whether moving the device from the warm postal station to a cold truck several times during shipping could have cracked the screen?

Thanks

It is possible, but the truck had to be exceedingly cold, and the postal station exceedingly hot for that to happen.

Inside a box, the temperature is harder to change, since cardboard is quite insulating. So it would have had to have been a really massive temperature change in a very very short period of time. Otherwise the change would be quite gradual inside two boxes. The retail box, and the shipping box. It's hard to imagine the temperature would have changed that massively that quickly. Even as cold as it is in New York.

arthurfrommillbrook wrote:

Thanks for the reply.

I asked a question specifically because the item I received was in the Apple box but that box was not in the second box. it was in a plain mailing envelope. I was concerned that that might’ve made the problem worse.

Thanks again

If it was just in a mailing envelope its more likely it was dropped or hit, and that caused the screen to crack.

Was there any damage to the retail Apple box?

Was the crack in a concentrated location, radiating outward with several additional cracks?

Temperature related cracks would be wavy lines without extending cracks from them.

That's an impact crack. Corroborated by the box damage. Whoever delivered it should be responsible for it.

If it was shipped directly from Apple and this happened contact them too and tell them about it.