iFixit Shares iPad Mini 7 Teardown, Adds Mystery to 'Jelly Scrolling' Fix

[MacRumors]

Electronics repair website iFixit this weekend shared an iPad mini 7 teardown video, and it adds some mystery to the device's "jelly scrolling" improvements.

"Jelly scrolling" refers to screen tearing, which can cause text or images on one side of the screen to appear to be tilted downwards because of a mismatch in refresh rates. It can cause one side of the display to look as if it is responding faster than the other side, resulting in a visual disturbance that is hard to ignore once noticed. Some customers noticed the effect on the iPad mini 6 when the device was used in portrait orientation, leading to complaints over the past three years, but not everyone noticed it or was bothered by the effect.

Despite an Apple spokesperson once stating that "jelly scrolling" was "normal" behavior for iPads with LCD displays, it appears the company still felt inclined to reduce the effect on the iPad mini 7. Many reviewers said that "jelly scrolling" was less noticeable or not noticeable at all on the latest iPad mini, and it seems that Apple vaguely told some of these reviewers that it made display-related changes to address the matter.

It was speculated that Apple might have rotated the display controller inside the iPad mini 7 to make "jelly scrolling" less visible in portrait orientation, but interestingly, iFixit said that the display controller's position has not changed compared to the iPad mini 6. The website concluded that Apple has done some unknown "trickery" to reduce "jelly scrolling," so it still remains unclear exactly what Apple has done to mitigate the issue.

The teardown video also revealed that the iPad mini 7's rear Apple logo can be removed, but otherwise the device's internal design is similar to the iPad mini 6.

Apple released the iPad mini 7 last week, with key features including the A17 Pro chip, Apple Intelligence support, Apple Pencil Pro support, and more.

Article Link: iFixit Shares iPad Mini 7 Teardown, Adds Mystery to 'Jelly Scrolling' Fix

 

[goodcow]

Is there a technical reason why the iPad mini 5 either has no jelly scroll, or it wasn't a big enough issue like the mini 6? And if the mini 5 didn't have this, what caused the regression moving forward with the mini 6 and 7?

 

[stocklen]

Its obvious they didnt bother to try to address the issue despite it being very well known about, complained about, and discussed.

In 3 years they didnt feel the need to change the display sufficiently enough to eliminate it.

So. here we are with the Emperor's New Clothes. Tah Dah.... weve done..... 'something' - 'something secret and magical and the problem has gone away'..

... except they seem to have done nothing and simply saying its better is some kind of psychological mind game and they have resorted to gaslighting us into not noticing it anymore.

 

[seanmcbay]

Is there a technical reason why the iPad mini 5 either has no jelly scroll, or it wasn't a big enough issue like the mini 6? And if the mini 5 didn't have this, what caused the regression moving forward with the mini 6 and 7?

I’m curious about that too since it was the same basic tech between them all, including this new one.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Is there a technical reason why the iPad mini 5 either has no jelly scroll, or it wasn't a big enough issue like the mini 6? And if the mini 5 didn't have this, what caused the regression moving forward with the mini 6 and 7?

The redesign of the mini with 6th gen caused it.

 

[0828557]

The redesign of the mini with 6th gen caused it.

You answered a "what" question with a "when" answer.

 

[1369281]

I have absolutely no trust in Apple when it comes to their displays.

They use PWM (pulse-width modulation) aka flickering in almost all of their products. They have zero credibility.

I'm sure their "fix" for this iPad mini 7 is not without some compromise. Hopefully not, but we'll see. I'm picking up one of these next week.

 

[Isentropic]

I cannot believe we are discussing such minutia. I use my iPad mini 6 in the hospital almost every day, for 10-12 hours a day (for almost 2 years). This is not even on my mind.
Perhaps people should use it for real work, rather than just pure entertainment devices?

 

[firstcitazen]

I cannot believe we are discussing such minutia. I use my iPad mini 6 in the hospital almost every day, for 10-12 hours a day (for almost 2 years). This is not even on my mind.
Perhaps people should use it for real work, rather than just pure entertainment devices?

I use it for real work and notice the jelly scrolling. What is real work? I work at a hospital too....

 

[Apple_Robert]

You answered a "what" question with a "when" answer.

I did both. The redesign of the iPad caused it and that redesign started with the 6th generation. There was no need to down vote my post because it was factually correct. I didn’t make a mistake in what I said.

 

[TooMuchPhone]

Saw it in Best Buy - it’s still a terrible screen because of the refresh rate. Maybe the jelly scrolling is better but that low refresh rate stutter is a show stopper.

 

[Crow_Servo]

I have absolutely no trust in Apple when it comes to their displays.

They use PWM (pulse-width modulation) aka flickering in almost all of their products. They have zero credibility.

I'm sure their "fix" for this iPad mini 7 is not without some compromise. Hopefully not, but we'll see. I'm picking up one of these next week.

lol. Okay. Enjoy?

 

[Apple_Robert]

Saw it in Best Buy - it’s still a terrible screen because of the refresh rate. Maybe the jelly scrolling is better but that low refresh rate stutter is a show stopper.

I find it curious that so many people used the iPhone before Promotion was ever uttered by Apple and it wasn’t the unusable device so many here and elsewhere want to claim devices to be now.

 

[mikethebigo]

I find it curious that so many people used the iPhone before Promotion was ever uttered by Apple and it wasn’t the unusable device so many here and elsewhere want to claim devices to be now.

I find it curious that so many people used horses before cars were even uttered by Henry Ford and they weren't the unusable animals so many here and elsewhere want to claim horses to be now.

 

[Macalway]

I use it for real work and notice the jelly scrolling. What is real work? I work at a hospital too....

Real work is not constant, social media scrolling, that 99% of people I see seem to be engaged in.

But looking at it that way doesn't help the consumer now does it? LOL

 

[7thson]

The removable apple logo gave me the ick but it does make it easy(relatively speaking) to mod a led logo in.

 

[MrRom92]

I’m pretty sure “rotating the display controller” does not mean physically rotating the display controller. I don’t know why anybody interpreted it like that. They probably designed this controller so that the signal it feeds the display is rotated relative to the older encoder. It’s an electronic configuration thing, not a physical one.

rotating a composite video RCA cable doesn’t make the video flip around on the screen, right?

 

[Zapski]

I’m satisfied with my Mini 7, haven’t noticed the jelly scrolls. My main wish is for a higher frame rate, or pro motion, but if scrolling at a reasonable (reading) rate then I don’t have any problems. If I flick through at a speed that is impossible to read at then yes, the scrolling is jerky

 

[Johnny907]

I find it curious that so many people used the iPhone before Promotion was ever uttered by Apple and it wasn’t the unusable device so many here and elsewhere want to claim devices to be now.

While I personally don’t care about Promotion, your defense was basically framed as “what’s wrong with Apple releasing new products at Today’s prices but last decade’s tech inside?”
Media has changed, the way users consume media has changed, and lower refresh rates are glaringly apparent to many users especially on a seemingly premium device. While I don’t care about 60hz on a hundred and fifty dollar Kindle Fire 8 I darned well expect better on a 500 dollar iPad Mini.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I find it curious that so many people used horses before cars were even uttered by Henry Ford and they weren't the unusable animals so many here and elsewhere want to claim horses to be now.

Mock all you want but, many here are using a lot of exaggerated hyperbole to justify a mere personal preference. I like Promotion but I think beehive mentality is the basis for many retorts here castigating the mini 6-7. And that kind of rhetoric gives a decent device a bad tech name when it shouldn’t.

 

[bzgnyc2]

Back in the CRT days, we had something called double buffering to avoid the equivalent on those types of screens. To the extent that today's hardware/software no longer supports double buffering, I would be surprised. But then if it did it should have avoided this problem completely (iPad Mini 6 or 7)?

Even if not implemented for the iPad Mini 6, it should have been an obvious solution for this on the iPad Mini 7 with relatively incremental hardware requirements. But again if they used a solution like that then it shouldn't just be reduced but eliminated?

P.S.For stereoscopic 3D, we had quad buffering, which I would say was relatively more important as tearing during the projection of a moving 3D object would likely cause the 3D effect to collapse. The alternate cheap solution was to only refresh the screen during the vertical sync but placed quite the real-time rendering burden on the software.

 

[spcopsmac21]

Saw it in Best Buy - it’s still a terrible screen because of the refresh rate. Maybe the jelly scrolling is better but that low refresh rate stutter is a show stopper.

Apple doesn’t make money by giving you the best of the best.
Only the best for what they decide to put into building one.

 

[Apple_Robert]

While I personally don’t care about Promotion, your defense was basically framed as “what’s wrong with Apple releasing new products at Today’s prices but last decade’s tech inside?”
Media has changed, the way users consume media has changed, and lower refresh rates are glaringly apparent to many users especially on a seemingly premium device. While I don’t care about 60hz on a hundred and fifty dollar Kindle Fire 8 I darned well expect better on a 500 dollar iPad Mini.

I made no defense for Apple and I didn’t even address pricing.

 

[RodThePlod]

The website concluded that Apple has done some unknown "trickery" to reduce "jelly scrolling," so it still remains unclear exactly what Apple has done to mitigate the issue.

Apple:

 

[pamon]

It was a minor upgrade to a product people and users love, but probably doesn't move the needle much at apple. If we got a better screen and performance it would've been a game changer. Its a great device just with an underpowered screen and processor that didn't prove much with this upgrade. Tim Cook and the team blew this one😔