don't hold your breath. Apple manufacturing the Mac Pro in the US is a marketing gimmick. I remain skeptical they will move any serious production out of China. We just can't compete with their labor costs. It's still cheaper for Apple to replace computers for the vocal minority than to manufacture in the US. Much cheaper.
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Apples' Poor Quality Control [Discussion]
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don't hold your breath. Apple manufacturing the Mac Pro in the US is a marketing gimmick. I remain skeptical they will move any serious production out of China. We just can't compete with their labor costs. It's still cheaper for Apple to replace computers for the vocal minority than to manufacture in the US. Much cheaper.
marc55
macrumors 6502a
Can't blame Apple for seeking higher profits, and it is great as long as you can do it.
However, as we all know, the higher the return rates, the lower the profits.
We don't know what the return rates are, but from reading this thread alone, they appear to be higher than other Apple products, and I think Apple will be taking a serious look at their QC program.
thekev
macrumors 604
Can you explain the "cannot give accurate whites"? Was it unable to hit a specific desired temperature through the available profiling tools?
You can blame any company for cutting corners, just because they can get away with it over the shorter term. I suspect that those who are less picky don't bother returning them, but I wonder if those people buy Macs the next time.
I suspect they use a looser tolerance at the factory. What surprises me is that a company with as much money as Apple didn't do something like Eizo's DUE where they use some amount of panel blocking to even things out at the cost of some maximum brightness. LEDs stay fairly bright for a long time.
Sure I mean by this two things. The first is that as far as the spyder is concerned the display cannot show a white, only a yellow. So this displays white point (even after calibration) was considered yellow. This is why it received a 0 out of 5 rating by the calibrator for white point.
And secondly due to the unevenness of the display even a few inches from one area to another results in drastic temperature changes of what the display considers a white. Basically it goes from a light yellow to a dark yellow.
This results in greys appearing beige and in-fact I was unable to get my display to show me a grey of any depth. Only shades of beige.
All the testing I presented here in this thread were performed on my 3rd unit which was the very best out of the four units I received from Apple. It had the very best uniformity and the least yellow appearance to the display.
My 4th unit by contrast to that was the worst out of all four that I received. A good way for me to convey this display is if you have OS X right now you may have the Launchpad icon in your Dock, it's a silver icon. On my 4th units dock that icon was not silver it appeared gold. And I don't mean a little bit the whole icon looked as gold as a gold ring.
thekev
macrumors 604
It was a Spyder 3 or 4 right? The Spyder 2s used filtration that wasn't really designed for LED backlit displays. Colorimeters are pretty specific in that regard. Were you trying for something like D65? I worry about some comparisons on here. When they're compared to a cMBP, the cMBP is always cold, way above D65, yet the user assumes it to be "correct" even though both just adhere to whatever color temp, and neither is a reference grade device.
Yeah it definitely shouldn't look beige, but I've seen that before. It's very annoying. The factory settings of the underlying hardware matter quite a bit here, because Datacolor has a very limited ability to make adjustments. They can replace the colorlcd profile with a custom one based on the raw values read in transformed to best match the target values for white point temperature and gamma per channel. It's not very specific though. I mean it relies on sending instructions through the framebuffer, and even then you don't have a way to precisely measure the outgoing signal levels. Expensive displays tend to set those signals to linear and make the adjustments through a display LUT. It wouldn't be very Apple-like, but I'm surprised they haven't done any real research into methods of compensation for variation between panels. That's pretty much what others do. I'm drifting off topic, but I just wanted to point out that the Spyder has a very difficult job if the unit from the factory isn't so great. I would be really surprised if it can't deal with something like D65 easily though. That's a totally different complaint compared to the side by side cmbp and rmbp complaints I typically read.
Ugh..
That doesn't sound good at all, and that isn't something that could be resolved with software calibration as a long term solution. All panels drift over time, and you would eventually end up with banding or a point where it's not correctable. As I said it's just a matrix adjustment, not point by point vectors. I post a lot in these threads, because some of the testing methods give me a headache. At some point in the next couple months, I need to think of a really good testing method to help people post with better consistency in evaluation. I think it would help make these threads more informative. There are things that Apple could do. It's just that they may be expensive or difficult to implement in a notebook. Some free-standing displays have a lot more room.
As I said in my first post I used a Spyder4Elite the very latest and greatest calibrator from datacolor.
With regards to testing accuracy, I didn't conduct the tests by eye or try and calibrate it and then tell you my opinion. I literally performed the Spyder testing suite included with the software and all I had to do was place the Spyder on the screen in the areas it told me to.
I literally just sat there for 30 minutes and moved the spyder where it wanted it moved to when prompted then posted the resulting charts in this thread.
And I can tell you that the yellow point and brightness uniformity presented by the Spyder in its charts were presenting the same visual effects that I could see with my own eyes before the testing began. That is to say I could see the yellowing was not even it was worse in the same areas depicted in the charts.
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thekev
macrumors 604
Doh! You'll have to excuse me. Sometimes I have the attention span of a gerbil on crack.
Yeah I get this. I'm surprised it came out beige. What I was getting at in terms of suggesting standard stuff for testing, I was thinking of a method to lend some consistency to the way people post photos. It could be as simple as suggesting exposure settings, manually set white balance levels, etc, even though there would still be variation. My concern is typically the issue of comparing it to panels that are too cold. Most web content is prepared in sRGB, which has a warmer white point than the older LED types. This means that you could regard their reference displays as being slightly blue green in some cases rather than the new ones being yellow. I wouldn't however apply that to your case. Your results sound like you received some really bad units.
The uniformity issue is incredibly annoying. I don't think the issue is with LG or Foxconn though. If that is the best they can turn out at the required yields and they are the only options, Apple may have to consider what correction can be managed on their end. Since we're talking about higher priced items, it should be possible to do more than shove a panel in a box. They are basically oeming a panel, then turning out a finished product.
My only comment as for the 15in rMBP Haswell(with a Samsung panel and early Nov build). I recently had one. IMHO, the screen was overall uniform with its whites and black(to look for poor backlighting).
The screen was excellent overall but there was some slight difference top to bottom and bottom right was slightly yellowing??
I am not sure whether it was perfect but it was close.
Unfortunately, my wife was not happy with me and its has been returned.😡
Now, I am sick of QC has dropped after Jobs death. I disagree. I started my Apple purchase in 2008 and QC has been average esp. given the price point. Returns should be expected. A premium price and I expect a damn good product.
Just look at the antennae issue to see how Jobs dealt with QC issue. He said there was nothing wrong and the consumer was incorrect. But we will give you case to fix it. Then they improved the issue in the 4S.
Most of the screen issue will not be noticed when viewing colors and normal task by the average person. They just will not pay attention, so Apple can get away with a lot.
There seems to be a lot of returns based on these forums but it is a fraction of all purchasers.
The screen was excellent overall but there was some slight difference top to bottom and bottom right was slightly yellowing??
I am not sure whether it was perfect but it was close.
Unfortunately, my wife was not happy with me and its has been returned.😡
Now, I am sick of QC has dropped after Jobs death. I disagree. I started my Apple purchase in 2008 and QC has been average esp. given the price point. Returns should be expected. A premium price and I expect a damn good product.
Just look at the antennae issue to see how Jobs dealt with QC issue. He said there was nothing wrong and the consumer was incorrect. But we will give you case to fix it. Then they improved the issue in the 4S.
Most of the screen issue will not be noticed when viewing colors and normal task by the average person. They just will not pay attention, so Apple can get away with a lot.
There seems to be a lot of returns based on these forums but it is a fraction of all purchasers.
john123
macrumors 68030
Popped open a brand new Haswell 2.0 the other day, and it appears flawless. Somewhat against my better judgment (because I think actively looking for flaw's that aren't otherwise apparent is a fool's errand), I ran a few tests on the screen, but it looked great on all the test patterns. It was an LG, too, for what it's worth.
I think debates about and, ultimately, the paragraph I just typedaren't very relevant because they depend upon very small samples of anecdotal evidence. Moreover, there's a tendency to think the incidence of problems is on the rise because the Mac population itself is on the rise. All of this can lead to misguided conclusions.
Has QC gotten worse? I don't know. My limited experience has actually been better in the last couple years. I don't think this is a topic anyone here can chime in on with any authority whatsoever.
I think debates about and, ultimately, the paragraph I just typedaren't very relevant because they depend upon very small samples of anecdotal evidence. Moreover, there's a tendency to think the incidence of problems is on the rise because the Mac population itself is on the rise. All of this can lead to misguided conclusions.
Has QC gotten worse? I don't know. My limited experience has actually been better in the last couple years. I don't think this is a topic anyone here can chime in on with any authority whatsoever.
brdeveloper
macrumors 68030
The sad thing is we fall into the advertising that IPS means better. It doesn't means better in any situation. I did some superficial researching at Google and it seems that CCFL+IPS were better than LED+IPS displays regarding color and brightness eveness.
http://pcmonitors.info/articles/the-evolution-of-led-backlights
Looks like being happy with a retina display on these rMBPs is a matter of luck or color blindness. These days TN panels are evil, but you could live peacefully with TN panels since you knew the rules: there was a golden angle where you could see the colors pretty accurately. With a retina display, it doesn't matter what angle, you'll see some portions of the screen more magenta, other more yellowish and so on. Consumer Dell LED IPS monitors suffer from the same disease as we can check at Dell forums.
LEDs aren't always evil too. You can use coloured (RGB) leds and distribute color along the screen more accurately. The thing is, Apple thought the now cheap IPS consumer technology would fit Macbook Pro consumer needs surpassing TN features in every point. This is not true as we're seeing with these annoying color disparities on the screen.
http://pcmonitors.info/articles/the-evolution-of-led-backlights
Looks like being happy with a retina display on these rMBPs is a matter of luck or color blindness. These days TN panels are evil, but you could live peacefully with TN panels since you knew the rules: there was a golden angle where you could see the colors pretty accurately. With a retina display, it doesn't matter what angle, you'll see some portions of the screen more magenta, other more yellowish and so on. Consumer Dell LED IPS monitors suffer from the same disease as we can check at Dell forums.
LEDs aren't always evil too. You can use coloured (RGB) leds and distribute color along the screen more accurately. The thing is, Apple thought the now cheap IPS consumer technology would fit Macbook Pro consumer needs surpassing TN features in every point. This is not true as we're seeing with these annoying color disparities on the screen.
When I picked up my high end late 2013 rMBP, the bottom cover has the dent on it when I unboxed ut at home. I had to go back to the store to exchange it. Good thing I purchased it locally. The exchange was simpler. But, yes the QC has been getting bad. I recommend people who picks up at the store to check before leaving the store.
If your mbp is on warranty how many times can you have it replaced - meaning there is a limit of their patience and theyll say that there is nothing else that will improve the laptop and you have to keep it the way it is ?
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brdeveloper
macrumors 68030
Good question. I read people exchanging or returning around 5+ times without getting a decent display. Looks like we expected near-EIZO or NEC quality on these retina displays, but actually they're just "as good" as consumer IPS displays from LG like the LG IPS225 (this one I have at work) but in my opinion the IPS225 looks more uniform than the screen from my rMBP.
While I am 100% for moving assembly of Apple products back to the USA, I am not convinced that this change alone would make a difference in Apple's quality control as far as displays are concerned.
I believe the fault for this particular issue is a combination of the display manufacturers (Samsung and LG) for producing inconsistent panel quality in the first place, and Apple for choosing these displays for the retina MacBooks.
I think the display manufacturers and Apple have consciously decided that these type of variances are inherent to this types of high resolution display technology and they consider it to be acceptable whether we agree or not. I think Apple tries to accommodate customers that voice their unhappiness but I doubt that any change in display quality is forthcoming in this generation regardless of where the products are assembled.
I have had 3 rMBP's so far and 2 of them had hardware defects. If I was being looking for screen defects, I would now be on my 4th unit because this 3rd rMBP has screen that is worse than the last one.
But I'm afraid my 4th unit would have hardware defects again, so I probably won't exchange it.
But I'm afraid my 4th unit would have hardware defects again, so I probably won't exchange it.
While I am 100% for moving assembly of Apple products back to the USA, I am not convinced that this change alone would make a difference in Apple's quality control as far as displays are concerned.
I believe the fault for this particular issue is a combination of the display manufacturers (Samsung and LG) for producing inconsistent panel quality in the first place, and Apple for choosing these displays for the retina MacBooks.
I think the display manufacturers and Apple have consciously decided that these type of variances are inherent to this types of high resolution display technology and they consider it to be acceptable whether we agree or not. I think Apple tries to accommodate customers that voice their unhappiness but I doubt that any change in display quality is forthcoming in this generation regardless of where the products are assembled.
I think Apple is asking Samsung and LG to produce Retina screens at low costs. So Samsung and LG has to cut corners some where.
The only solution is raising the standard and increase the prices so that Samsung and LG can produce higher quality displays for the masses. (if Samsung and LG are allowed to produce $1500 IPS retina displays, the quality would be better)
MacBook air
I'm glad I found this post I needed somewhere to vent.
I just purchased a new MacBook air fully loaded all tricked out as a graduation present for my son. The unit came broken and so consequently he returned it to Apple for a replacement with a new one. They agreed to send him a new one once they receive the old one.
Replacement came fully scratched on the top and broken inside. So a follow up call to Apple resulted in the following, oh the unit must of been scratched in the production line, please send it back and within 10 days we will send you another replacement. Apart from the scratches there were other issues with the computer.
So 2 months after purchase he still has no computer, a very poor show.
If this was the first such incident it would justify serious irritation and dissatisfaction but my MacBook Air purchased earlier also came broken and had to be replaced but at least B&H photo gave excellent service replacing the unit immediately with a new one overnight with an apology.
We own 2 ipad airs which also have problems such as crashing while surfing the web, locking up etc.
What is going on at apple? All our other computers are macs and have been problem free for years
Thanks for listening
I'm glad I found this post I needed somewhere to vent.
I just purchased a new MacBook air fully loaded all tricked out as a graduation present for my son. The unit came broken and so consequently he returned it to Apple for a replacement with a new one. They agreed to send him a new one once they receive the old one.
Replacement came fully scratched on the top and broken inside. So a follow up call to Apple resulted in the following, oh the unit must of been scratched in the production line, please send it back and within 10 days we will send you another replacement. Apart from the scratches there were other issues with the computer.
So 2 months after purchase he still has no computer, a very poor show.
If this was the first such incident it would justify serious irritation and dissatisfaction but my MacBook Air purchased earlier also came broken and had to be replaced but at least B&H photo gave excellent service replacing the unit immediately with a new one overnight with an apology.
We own 2 ipad airs which also have problems such as crashing while surfing the web, locking up etc.
What is going on at apple? All our other computers are macs and have been problem free for years
Thanks for listening
Meister
Suspended
My unit of the 13" has no defects whatsoever.
No retention, no scratched body, no missing pixels, no yellowing and no backlight bleeding (first time i ever even heard of such a thing was in this forum)
The macbook air i bought at the same time as my rmbp also has no defects.
I am just posting this because its mostly people with a really bad luck streak who usually find threads like these.
If everything is fine people dont post it.
Definitely some major quality control issues. Most of which apple doesn't like to admit. I went through 5 replacements and each one had different issues.
1) Multiple dead pixels + major backlight bleed
2) Yellow tint + Creaky
3) Yellow tint + bad backlight bleed + bad battery
4) Creaky...then my computer just randomly died a few days after having it and it wouldn't turn on.
5) Now I've finally won the RMBP lottery..or so I think. Pure white samsung screen, good battery, minimal backlight bleed, not creaky.
No consumer should have to settle for less when spending this kind of money. Nor should anyone have to go through 5 replacements to get the right one. I just find it funny that I've had "geniuses" tell me there the creaking/clicking was normal on my macbook meanwhile their in-store models didn't have the issue nor my new device now. -.- Also it's funny that these apple staff didn't know how to reformat my computers hard drive too. Really? I'd make a better apple "genius."
Maybe 2014 is a new year for apple QA though because the perfect model I have now is from the second "production" week of January '14. All my other defective devices were from November '13. Doubtful but hey, we can dream right? 😉
1) Multiple dead pixels + major backlight bleed
2) Yellow tint + Creaky
3) Yellow tint + bad backlight bleed + bad battery
4) Creaky...then my computer just randomly died a few days after having it and it wouldn't turn on.
5) Now I've finally won the RMBP lottery..or so I think. Pure white samsung screen, good battery, minimal backlight bleed, not creaky.
No consumer should have to settle for less when spending this kind of money. Nor should anyone have to go through 5 replacements to get the right one. I just find it funny that I've had "geniuses" tell me there the creaking/clicking was normal on my macbook meanwhile their in-store models didn't have the issue nor my new device now. -.- Also it's funny that these apple staff didn't know how to reformat my computers hard drive too. Really? I'd make a better apple "genius."
Maybe 2014 is a new year for apple QA though because the perfect model I have now is from the second "production" week of January '14. All my other defective devices were from November '13. Doubtful but hey, we can dream right? 😉
brdeveloper
macrumors 68030
Reading these stories about issues on Retina Macbooks I guess 2014 is not a year for any redesign. Macbook Air is reached a high degree of maturity. Adding a retina display on it is a big risk taking into account the issues that haven't been solved on the rMBP yet.
maybe apple shifted QA costs to the consumer since they allow you guys to take things back an infinite amount of times.
alphaod
macrumors Core
It's all a matter of caring or not.
I was using my friend's 15" rMBP the other day.
It has the worst imagine retention I've seen. Forget checkerboards. Anything will leave IR; if you stop the mouse for a second it will leave an image of it.
I told him the Apple Store will probably fix that; his response, "Don't care; doesn't bother me."
I probably would have gotten that fixed seeing how bad it is.
I was using my friend's 15" rMBP the other day.
It has the worst imagine retention I've seen. Forget checkerboards. Anything will leave IR; if you stop the mouse for a second it will leave an image of it.
I told him the Apple Store will probably fix that; his response, "Don't care; doesn't bother me."
I probably would have gotten that fixed seeing how bad it is.
Just going to address the screen issue directly since I don't have enough data to comment on other aspects of Apple's QC.
My rMBP did have a dead USB port, but I know that failures of that type do happen in any electronic device (and may occur after testing). No offense intended to anyone on this site, but I feel like the constant replacement for "creaking" falls into OCD territory and don't take it into consideration when thinking about Apple's overall quality.
I originally picked up a 13" Haswell rMBP, but I was so unhappy with the screen uniformity that I decided to just jump up to the 15" (assuming quality would be overall higher on the higher end device). Unfortunately it was about as bad. I don't have the appropriate equipment for measurements, but my white balance looked quite a bit like the map you posted (yellow towards the bottom and corners, white in the top middle).
I think the question to ask here beyond "has Apple let its QC for non-iDevice products slide" is: Can Apple even find anyone who can produce good quality "retina" MBP panels? LG's panels had ghosting issues, and clearly Samsung's have terrible white balance (the luminance chart is actually not terrible, but the white balance variations wouldn't fly on a review of a high end monitor/TV).
I'm left to wonder if there simply isn't a display manufacturer out there currently who can produce high quality panels at Apple's specs and cost requirements. Apple orders unusual resolutions (and ratios, which I really appreciate) and we're not talking about particularly high volume orders. They can't use volume to reduce costs (which they certainly can with the iDevices) nor are they buying the same panels as other manufacturers.
They could tell Samsung and LG "we won't buy your panels unless you improve quality," but at that point what's their option? IGZO panels from Sharp I suppose? Now that we've seen an IGZO iPad it's not hard to believe a major display upgrade is coming for the MBP next year, even if only in terms of the technology behind it (which is what I'd prefer to see instead of a resolution boost).
Basically I'm saying it's a tough situation and I'm not sure how much leverage Apple has in this case. Certainly not excusing them for the display quality issues (especially since the device is advertised on its supposedly amazing display quality), just not certain how they can fix it without increasing costs.
I should read the whole thread before I post because you basically said what I wanted to in a much simpler, more direct way.
My rMBP did have a dead USB port, but I know that failures of that type do happen in any electronic device (and may occur after testing). No offense intended to anyone on this site, but I feel like the constant replacement for "creaking" falls into OCD territory and don't take it into consideration when thinking about Apple's overall quality.
I originally picked up a 13" Haswell rMBP, but I was so unhappy with the screen uniformity that I decided to just jump up to the 15" (assuming quality would be overall higher on the higher end device). Unfortunately it was about as bad. I don't have the appropriate equipment for measurements, but my white balance looked quite a bit like the map you posted (yellow towards the bottom and corners, white in the top middle).
I think the question to ask here beyond "has Apple let its QC for non-iDevice products slide" is: Can Apple even find anyone who can produce good quality "retina" MBP panels? LG's panels had ghosting issues, and clearly Samsung's have terrible white balance (the luminance chart is actually not terrible, but the white balance variations wouldn't fly on a review of a high end monitor/TV).
I'm left to wonder if there simply isn't a display manufacturer out there currently who can produce high quality panels at Apple's specs and cost requirements. Apple orders unusual resolutions (and ratios, which I really appreciate) and we're not talking about particularly high volume orders. They can't use volume to reduce costs (which they certainly can with the iDevices) nor are they buying the same panels as other manufacturers.
They could tell Samsung and LG "we won't buy your panels unless you improve quality," but at that point what's their option? IGZO panels from Sharp I suppose? Now that we've seen an IGZO iPad it's not hard to believe a major display upgrade is coming for the MBP next year, even if only in terms of the technology behind it (which is what I'd prefer to see instead of a resolution boost).
Basically I'm saying it's a tough situation and I'm not sure how much leverage Apple has in this case. Certainly not excusing them for the display quality issues (especially since the device is advertised on its supposedly amazing display quality), just not certain how they can fix it without increasing costs.
I should read the whole thread before I post because you basically said what I wanted to in a much simpler, more direct way.
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No probs here
Just received my new MBPr15' 1TB SSD, 16GB and 2,6 built week 5 Feb.
Perfect, no dead pixels, even scree, no bad sounds, little warmer LG screen but made it colder in display settings.
Just very happy!
Just received my new MBPr15' 1TB SSD, 16GB and 2,6 built week 5 Feb.
Perfect, no dead pixels, even scree, no bad sounds, little warmer LG screen but made it colder in display settings.
Just very happy!