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they offered me a loaner phone too. but that's 30 bucks. what they basically are doing is sending you the loaner phone, having you send your iphone to them, and then they send you a refurb one. and there's no guarantee that it will be a perfect screen.

I know, I never said I was getting a phone with a good screen. I don't mind a refurb as long as I have no problems with it, but if I have the same problem with the refurb, im calling apple again.
 
cruddy iphone display

Bought my iphone from the apple store on friday, noticed the negative issue later on that night and exchanged it on monday. The genius said it was probably because of the video compression.

Got the new one and it had the same issues. Went back in wednesday and two out of the three that I played with on display had the issue too!

I called applecare because the genius said if I wanted to exchange this one, there would be a restocking fee. I haven't even had it a week! Apple sent me a box and I spent a good twenty minutes on the phone with a product specialist describing the issues. I told her what video I saw it in, the website appleservedup.com and the grey bar under the date in the unlock screen was barely noticeable. I also wrote all this in a note that I sent to apple service. I'm sure they'll ignore it and run their own diagnostic which will say my screen is fine.

Anyway, my screen is the series 7 screen, week 39.

The good one at the apple store was series 5.

I'll put some pictures of mine up.

1.jpg

2.jpg

3.jpg
 
Apple sent me the Apple Care phone today and the difference is pretty obvious between the screens. It's also a 7455232 screen but it doesn't have the negative effect on it.

dscn5982xv4.jpg
 
Reference Images

I setup AppleServedUp.com for one reason, to check my replacement iPhone before I left the Apple Store.

When negotiating your replacement, you can always drag a Genius over to a Mac and pull up these images, also available at appleservedup.com/reference. Better yet, have them pull out their own iPhone. My genius had the same issues, the look on his face was priceless. Also, before you drag the genius over to a reference iPhone on the display, make sure you've tested it. I found over 50% of the iPhones on display at both San Diego Apple Stores suffered the faulty black issue.

Here are some reference images of a what a good iPhone screen should render. View them from something other than an iPhone... ;)

greybox.jpg

gradient.jpg

blackalbum.jpg
 
I setup AppleServedUp.com for one reason, to check my replacement iPhone before I left the Apple Store....

Thanks for the easy to access & test page!

Unfortunately, it clearly shows my phone has the "blacks" issue, but no pixel problems.

Sounds like the the most reliable choices will be early make phones???
 
I just came back from my 2 days Chicago trip and while on there, I went to one of the Apple store and asked for replacement.
The overall process went very smoothly, the genius just asked me what's wrong and I just showed him a video and compare it with my loaner phone that was sent by the service center 2 days ago. He saw the huge difference and he exchanged it with (i presumed) the refurbished 4gb model.

This new phone has the exact same LCD ID (7455232) but there is NO Negative effect.
Compared to the loaner phone which has the 5 series screen, this new screen is not as bright darker but the 5 series phone does not render color accurately (too much contrast) so I am very satisfied with this one.

Thank you Apple!!!.
 
I setup AppleServedUp.com for one reason, to check my replacement iPhone before I left the Apple Store.

When negotiating your replacement, you can always drag a Genius over to a Mac and pull up these images, also available at appleservedup.com/reference. Better yet, have them pull out their own iPhone. My genius had the same issues, the look on his face was priceless. Also, before you drag the genius over to a reference iPhone on the display, make sure you've tested it. I found over 50% of the iPhones on display at both San Diego Apple Stores suffered the faulty black issue.

Here are some reference images of a what a good iPhone screen should render. View them from something other than an iPhone... ;)

Thanks for the site, it's extremely helpful. Only problem was my Geniuses all told me that to compare it to another type of display wasn't an accurate comparison, due to the different LCD type. They wouldn't even look at an iMac displaying the same images.

The first one, in Dallas, when I asked to compare to their personal phone, said it was against policy for him to pull out his phone. I figure it was hacked or something. The second one, in Southlake, had a good screen but claimed he could not tell the difference to mine.

From what I can tell, Apple does not care one bit, and if you get lucky with a good Genius, count your lucky stars. If you get a bad Genius, you're out of luck.


I sent them a pretty bad phone, and the Executive CS rep claims there is nothing wrong with it, and that she had an engineer there look it over and that they found nothing wrong with it. Denial, it seems, is their motto.
 
Another day, another e-mail to Apple. Sent to Steve Jobs, and my two other reps, along with The Consumerist.com.

Hello again,

I can't let this one go, I can't accept that Apple and Steve Jobs are really OK with these screens. I can't accept that an engineer, having seen my photos, video, and actual phone would allow something like this to be considered normal. Over the weekend I went back to Best Buy and purchased another iPod touch. I'd heard that the screen issue had been resolved on these devices and I desperately wanted to see a proper screen in action. When I got it home, amazingly, after five bad iPhones and one bad touch, this one was golden. I breathed a sigh of relief and then started snapping photos.

Below, you will see one bad iPhone, side by side with one good iPod touch. On one, you can see clearly the detail of the photo shown, on the other you can clearly see that something is not right.

Comparison shot 1 - Brightness settings are the same - Note how the iPhone displays this screen in a more dingy tone for some reason. More noticeable in real life.
Comparison shot 2 - Macro shot, note how you can't even see any detail on the iPhone.
Comparison shot 3 - A normal viewing angle at a normal viewing distance. Which one do you prefer? A real question here; which one would you rather spend your hard earned money on? I would really like to know, because you're asking me and countless others to spend our money on the one to the left.
Original Album Art file that both of these screens are pointed at.

I don't expect anything anymore, but figure I might as well keep posting here in case someone else cares or can be helped by my efforts.
 
Bought my iphone from the apple store on friday, noticed the negative issue later on that night and exchanged it on monday. The genius said it was probably because of the video compression.

Got the new one and it had the same issues. Went back in wednesday and two out of the three that I played with on display had the issue too!

I called applecare because the genius said if I wanted to exchange this one, there would be a restocking fee. I haven't even had it a week! Apple sent me a box and I spent a good twenty minutes on the phone with a product specialist describing the issues. I told her what video I saw it in, the website appleservedup.com and the grey bar under the date in the unlock screen was barely noticeable. I also wrote all this in a note that I sent to apple service. I'm sure they'll ignore it and run their own diagnostic which will say my screen is fine.

Anyway, my screen is the series 7 screen, week 39.

The good one at the apple store was series 5.

I'll put some pictures of mine up.

1.jpg

2.jpg

3.jpg


Post some pictures of your screen while it's on appleservedup.com.
 
what are good movies for showing this negative black issue? Also I have yet to activate my phone officially. Is it safe to call up Apple and say I have the issue or should I just officially activate it first?
 
update?!?

No recent updates on this?!? I need to go exchange mine (within 14 day period) this week. My friend went into an apple store (soho) last week with this issue and was told that the manager had just gotten off a big conference call with this issue. When he went to exchange, they took it in the back room, and messed with it with the lights off, and then pulled up a grey scale test. Maybe apple is finally recognizing the severity of the problem...

Thoughts?
 
Got my iPhone replaced a couple weeks back, kinda tried to ignore this issue but mine has it too. I'm heading back to the Apple Store to get this sorted out. My test was batman begins, pretty much unwatchable. The Jay-Z album cover has the negative effect too. This is some pretty shoddy quality control on Apple's part.
 
Another day, another e-mail to Apple. Sent to Steve Jobs, and my two other reps, along with The Consumerist.com.



I don't expect anything anymore, but figure I might as well keep posting here in case someone else cares or can be helped by my efforts.

Finally got a response. Dina in Executive Relations said she'd forward it to the engineering team, but was adamant that the touch and iPhone were different and that I shouldn't expect them to look the same. Something about different materials.

Why are they so adamantly shoving this issue under the carpet? They're willing to toss out customers over a screen. I was in line to purchase a new iMac and MacBook Pro this year, but not now. I have never been treated so poorly by a company in my life. It's really disheartening.

If someone from Apple is reading this and actually cares, please contact me through a PM here.
 
I was out working in the garage when I got a call from someone else at Apple. Ginger, who is a local to my area Relations Rep. (Sorry forgot her exact title).


She said she just got my e-mail about how the local Apple stores were treating me and this issue. She apologized profusely, and was extremely pleasant to speak to. She said she'd speak to the managers in charge and talk to the Geniuses about it.

She also had me e-mail her the photos and video and said that she'd look into the issue of the negative blacks. I sent her links to all of the reviews I've seen show the problem, all of my photos and video, and everything else I could think of to show the issue wasn't in my mind. I also sent her a link to this thread so she could see the fact that there are so many of us with the problem.

At this point, having been apologized to for the Apple Stores treatment of me, all I want is to see Apple acknowledge this issue and take steps to correct it. It's gone too far really, but maybe she'll be able to help us out.
 
...all I want is to see Apple acknowledge this issue and take steps to correct it. It's gone too far really, but maybe she'll be able to help us out.
Hope so.

Today being the 29th day of my iPhone ownership, my first Apple product, I'd be extrememly disappointed to be stuck with a defective screen that I just found out about.

I don't care if it takes a while to figure it out & set-up an exchange program, I'd just like to see it done. Otherwise, this will certainly be my last Apple product purchase.
 
So I just bought an iPhone from my local AT&T store (no Apple store nearby), with the same negative black problem. It's a week 38 iPhone with the 7455232 series LCD. Is my only option to call up AppleCare and get them to send me a new one? What kind of luck have people had with phone support?
 
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