Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iPad I believe the iPad 4 has a serious display flaw.

jonnyb098

jonnyb098

macrumors 68040
Nov 16, 2010
3,982
5,421
Michigan
GabeA said:
Yes, any dark video will show this behavior. Most noticeable in a dark room. I tried to get used to it over the past week, but its only gotten more on my nerves. It's morbidly hilarious to see bright white subtitles come up in a dark scene...they dim to a dark gray due to the backlight changes and then occasionally pop back to being white and off-white every few seconds... This is terrible. And I haven't even gotten to the color changes on walls and faces in dark scenes. Absolutely unwatchable on any dark movie source. Grain or no, live action or not. It's a "feature" enabled in iOS6 for A6 (and A5?) SoC's. That's right, after some reading on the SoC, I've depressingly concluded "it's a feature, not a bug." Welcome to post-Jobs Micr-apple logic.

The whole backlight keeps pumping in addition to the blatantly fluctuating contrast and tint. This is a much poorer implementation of battery saving than the Tegra 3 uses (pump up colors/saturation and turn down backlight according to some absurdly naive algorithm to save a few % battery). Like much of iOS6, it has turned out to be depressingly half-baked and untested. Without Steve, it seems QA has fallen so low I don't know whether to laugh or cry. The device (software-wise at least) has clearly fallen from its "premium" pedestal while keeping the premium price. Having paid $600 for a device to play crystal clear video only for it to absolutely ruin the video...I think I'm leaning toward sadness here.

Funny thing is it can all be fixed in a software update (same with Maps, messages glitches, etc), even by placing a single toggle in the Video Settings, but I'm really losing hope it actually will be. It will decrease Apple's rated battery life, and if some consumers are happily ignorant to the issue (I do video production), they have even less motivation to fix it. I have a feeling they really just don't care anymore. Heck, they still don't even have HDR in the iPad camera even though people were complaining since the iPad 3.
Click to expand...

Would you mind linking to the information you found about the A6 chip contrast "feature" ? Hope this gets fixed too. At least Netflix is ok.
 
I

Infinite Jest

macrumors 6502
Nov 2, 2011
282
14
Harrisonburg, Va
WilliamG said:
That's news to me. I tested and re-tested my iPad 3 via 6.0.1 and didn't see an issue.
Click to expand...

That's odd. The only reason I posted in this thread is that I googled this issue after noticing it in this iPad I bought 2 weeks ago (first iPad, not first tablet) and stumbled across this thread. My screen has a yellowing issue in one corner so I'm probably going to get it swapped out in a week or two. I'll report back if the next one doesn't have this issue.
 
W

WilliamG

macrumors G3
Original poster
Mar 29, 2008
9,922
3,800
Seattle
Infinite Jest said:
That's odd. The only reason I posted in this thread is that I googled this issue after noticing it in this iPad I bought 2 weeks ago (first iPad, not first tablet) and stumbled across this thread. My screen has a yellowing issue in one corner so I'm probably going to get it swapped out in a week or two. I'll report back if the next one doesn't have this issue.
Click to expand...

Call me a cynic, but if you can show me a video of your iPad 3 exhibiting this issue, it would go a long way...
 
L

Larce5401

macrumors newbie
Dec 4, 2012
2
0
WilliamG is right. Try his method at 0:17s and you should get it easily

Since WilliamG mentioned something about the brightness levels 'fluctuating' I thought I was the only one experiencing this until I tried his method at 0:17 in the same Dark Knight trailer 4; it's the easiest way to replicate the problem. Try to make sure the Apple logo is on the bottom right with as much 'black' possible on the screen with no iOS icons. After pausing it for about 5 seconds hit the Home button and you can see the brightness problem especially on the FaceTime icon mentioned before. What most of you people aren't getting is that this problem didn't exist with the iPad 3. The only explanation that makes sense is that the new GPU needs some 'software' fix or there is a bad batch of these screens out there since it's known that Apple outsources the displays to more than one manufacturer.
 
I

Infinite Jest

macrumors 6502
Nov 2, 2011
282
14
Harrisonburg, Va
Larce5401 said:
Since WilliamG mentioned something about the brightness levels 'fluctuating' I thought I was the only one experiencing this until I tried his method at 0:17 in the same Dark Knight trailer 4; it's the easiest way to replicate the problem. Try to make sure the Apple logo is on the bottom right with as much 'black' possible on the screen with no iOS icons. After pausing it for about 5 seconds hit the Home button and you can see the brightness problem especially on the FaceTime icon mentioned before. What most of you people aren't getting is that this problem didn't exist with the iPad 3. The only explanation that makes sense is that the new GPU needs some 'software' fix or there is a bad batch of these screens out there since it's known that Apple outsources the displays to more than one manufacturer.
Click to expand...

I haven't gotten around to making a video yet (been very busy with finals exams), but I can confirm that it does happen on the iPad 3.
 
I

Infinite Jest

macrumors 6502
Nov 2, 2011
282
14
Harrisonburg, Va
Here is a link to a video I took of the issue happening on my iPad 3. I'm going to upload it to YouTube as well, but in the mean time, you can download it (or maybe stream it, I can't remember if box allows that for shared links). https://www.box.com/shared/2vduc5xf1uyk7q87x2ex

The most obvious fluctuating in the video happens at around 1:55, so start it like 10 10 seconds before that. Also, earlier in the video you can see all kinds of gamma shift in the white wall, but that's not as noticeable as the aforementioned issue.

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC3KAm0kpm0&feature=youtube_gdata_player
 
Last edited:
W

WilliamG

macrumors G3
Original poster
Mar 29, 2008
9,922
3,800
Seattle
Infinite Jest said:
Here is a link to a video I took of the issue happening on my iPad 3. I'm going to upload it to YouTube as well, but in the mean time, you can download it (or maybe stream it, I can't remember if box allows that for shared links). https://www.box.com/shared/2vduc5xf1uyk7q87x2ex

The most obvious fluctuating in the video happens at around 1:55, so start it like 10 10 seconds before that. Also, earlier in the video you can see all kinds of gamma shift in the white wall, but that's not as noticeable as the aforementioned issue.

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC3KAm0kpm0&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Click to expand...

To be honest, I can't say for certain I see it in that video, but the quality is kinda crappy. I think I see it, but you know... it's not the best quality at all....
 
I

Infinite Jest

macrumors 6502
Nov 2, 2011
282
14
Harrisonburg, Va
WilliamG said:
To be honest, I can't say for certain I see it in that video, but the quality is kinda crappy. I think I see it, but you know... it's not the best quality at all....
Click to expand...

I know there's some major confirmation bias going on here, but its fairly obvious for a good 20 seconds after after the 1:50 mark. If you'll watch from 30 or so seconds before that mark,you'll have a good standard of comparison. I won't deny that the quality of the recording isn't stellar (I did make a "the only camera I own is attached to my cellphone" disclaimer), but the fact that it can be observed in this sub-par recording plainly suggests the extent of the issue.

EDIT: I posted this on another forum (OCN) and an iPad 3 owned viewed it and replied that he/she doesn't see the same thing on his/her unit. Maybe I have a super-secret iPad 3 with an iPad 4 chip set. Needless to say ill probably exchange it based on this and a screen yellowing issue. :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
gnasher729

gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,565
TheWheelMan said:
The problem is that we have ONE person claiming to see this on every iPad he tested, while pretty much everyone else says they don't see it at all. Who is one supposed to believe in that case?
Click to expand...

It has nothing to do with believing. We clearly have a person here who is not iPad compatible, while 99.9% of the population are iPad compatible. Too bad for that person.
 
E

edwrap

macrumors regular
Nov 7, 2012
106
231
Haven't been bothered much by this recently, only because I've mostly been using Netflix, which is unaffected. Then I was watching this past weekend's Bob's Burgers when I came across it again, so I figured I'd record it since it was pretty noticeable.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/h0n6pjb8y3hx4yn/example.mp4

Note, this isn't directly the fluctuating backlight issue in the first post, but the occasional color inaccuracy from whatever junk processing they're doing now. Keep an eye on the car (~1m15s into the episode, if you want to look yourself) and how washed out it becomes after a few seconds with the interface hidden. Obviously, if you're watching this clip on an ipad 4, don't fullscreen it.

Relevant screen grabs, with interface, and then without:
XODxY.png
n54Fw.png


Edit: Another instance from later in the same episode:
Hm53f.png
OMPvR.png
 
Last edited:
Medic311

Medic311

macrumors 68000
Jul 30, 2011
1,659
58
Infinite Jest said:
Here is a link to a video I took of the issue happening on my iPad 3. I'm going to upload it to YouTube as well, but in the mean time, you can download it (or maybe stream it, I can't remember if box allows that for shared links). https://www.box.com/shared/2vduc5xf1uyk7q87x2ex

The most obvious fluctuating in the video happens at around 1:55, so start it like 10 10 seconds before that. Also, earlier in the video you can see all kinds of gamma shift in the white wall, but that's not as noticeable as the aforementioned issue.

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC3KAm0kpm0&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Click to expand...

do you have iOS 6 or iOS 5.1.1 ?

reason why i ask, is that i have iOS 5.1.1 on my iPad 3 and mine does not have this problem
 
G

gibradford

Guest
Dec 7, 2012
2
0
Having googled this issue for the past 3 days I finally stumbled across this post and felt obliged to sign up and confirm that I too have noticed this problem. I've had two new iPads (4th gen) in the past week ( the first was replaced for horrible light leak) and I have noticed this issue on both of them. Whilst its most noticeable on darker scenes, I don't think it only occurs then, I noticed it watching football 2 days ago, at times the screen seemed to be over saturated. I'm not convinced its a brightness issue, maybe a contrast issue. But I also notice when exiting a full screen video that on occasions the white on my apps are really bright and then it settles down. I have also checked for this on my girlfriends ipad 3 with iOS 6.0.1 and there is absolutely no issues.

Will be taking a trip to the apple store next week and will reference this topic to the genius. Very very disappointed....:(
 
A

Anti-Lucifer

macrumors 6502a
Mar 9, 2012
776
2
Ok guys. I'm going to admit the first time I didn't notice the OP's issue but now I just did!

What I saw wasn't the flickering in a dark scene but when watching shark tank episodes in the abc player app, I noticed that once I exited out of the episode and back to the abc player menu screen, the contrast colors were exactly like stated by WilliamG.

It was completely desaturated for a few seconds. Then returning to normal. It didn't bother me at all, however and I wasn't able to duplicate it unless I was intentionally trying to make it happen.

I think this is software related. I have posted a bug report to apple.
 
I

iTalk

macrumors member
Sep 14, 2012
33
0
ORD
This most definitely happens on my ipad 4, especially with dark scenes in low ambient light. Does it bother me enough to return it? No. Hopefully it's a software bug that gets fixed in the next update
 
Crunch

Crunch

macrumors 6502a
Jun 26, 2008
701
76
Crazy L.A.
Interesting. Well, I just upgraded from the iPad 3 to the 4 and one thing I do a LOT is watching iTunes trailers of new movies coming up. Both the iPad 3 and now my iPad 4 have equally as absolutely fantastic a displays without any of the aforementioned issues. I'm using the dedicated iTunes Trailers app, if that makes any difference. :confused:
 
Max(IT)

Max(IT)

Suspended
Dec 8, 2009
8,551
1,662
Italy
Anti-Lucifer said:
Ok guys. I'm going to admit the first time I didn't notice the OP's issue but now I just did!

What I saw wasn't the flickering in a dark scene but when watching shark tank episodes in the abc player app, I noticed that once I exited out of the episode and back to the abc player menu screen, the contrast colors were exactly like stated by WilliamG.

It was completely desaturated for a few seconds. Then returning to normal. It didn't bother me at all, however and I wasn't able to duplicate it unless I was intentionally trying to make it happen.

I think this is software related. I have posted a bug report to apple.
Click to expand...

Just to clarify, the issue of the contrast color desaturated when exit the video is present on my iPad 4, for a few seconds.
But the problem of the continue flickering during the video, which is a real issue, seem to be non existent on my unit
 
U

uncore

macrumors newbie
Dec 9, 2012
9
0
gibradford said:
Having googled this issue for the past 3 days I finally stumbled across this post and felt obliged to sign up and confirm that I too have noticed this problem. I've had two new iPads (4th gen) in the past week ( the first was replaced for horrible light leak) and I have noticed this issue on both of them. Whilst its most noticeable on darker scenes, I don't think it only occurs then, I noticed it watching football 2 days ago, at times the screen seemed to be over saturated. I'm not convinced its a brightness issue, maybe a contrast issue. But I also notice when exiting a full screen video that on occasions the white on my apps are really bright and then it settles down. I have also checked for this on my girlfriends ipad 3 with iOS 6.0.1 and there is absolutely no issues.

Will be taking a trip to the apple store next week and will reference this topic to the genius. Very very disappointed....:(
Click to expand...

The same problem here, iPad 4 32GB 4G Black bought in Czech Republic last week.

When you receive a notification while watching a movie, its is almost unreadable. Glad I am not alone
 
U

uncore

macrumors newbie
Dec 9, 2012
9
0
Hi guys,

Today, I visited my local Apple store (Slovakia) where I tried several iPads 4. My conclusion is that the display flaw must be a "feature" of the new iPad 4, because, every single iPad 4 I tried had this problem. I hope its iOS related problem and not hardware one :eek:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom