I have this issue. It started when the touch came out. I got one at Best Buy but it had the bad display. I took it back and ordered an iPhone from Apple Refurbished. It arrived but had the same issue. I took it into the Apple Store in Plano, TX only to be told there was nothing wrong with it. When I got home I called Apple and after about an hour got to a personal phone rep who was very helpful.
With her I ordered another one and issued a return on the first. When the 2nd phone arrived it had the same issue again. I called her back, and she told me she had everything in the case notes, called the Dallas Apple Store and set up a Genius appointment for me. Told me to go and not leave until satisfied. I haven't even activated it yet.
Went into the Dallas Apple Store, and the "Genius" again claimed this was the first he'd heard of the issue. Took the phone unactivated into the back to restore it for some reason, but came back out 15 minutes later with a another, unboxed, already activated phone. Said here, the notes say to just exchange it.
I looked it over, but it had the same issue as before, and while I was waiting I had checked all of their display models and all but two were displaying negative blacks. These were all freshly placed, week 33 models though.
When I said I wasn't happy he got the manager who told me that there wasn't a problem. I tried to get them to bring up the image in this thread on a computer and on the phone, but they said it wouldn't matter since the computer is a different display. I tried to get them to show me their phones but they wouldn't since that's against policy. Though they said their displays were identical to mine.
I took them over to one of the few good display phones, brought up the image on it and mine, and it was at this point that they acknowledged the difference, but stated it was slight. Slight! On one you could see a face, on another just a black glowing box. They said they'd speak with the GM and again disappeared into the back.
They came back out a few minutes later saying that it was within spec and that there was nothing they could do. I asked them both, in turn, if this was the official word. They both replied that yes, this was official and there was nothing to be done.
So here I am, 1 bad iPod touch, and 3 bad iPhones down. I've called my phone rep again to see if there is anything else to do, but at this point I think I'm done. Nothing is worth this much trouble and time wasted.
Notes:
First iPhone was week 32
Second iPhone was week 34
Third iPhone was week 33
All iPhones were panel 7455232
The funny thing (maybe scary given the upcoming update) is that I now have an iPhone straight from an Apple Store that been hacked for activation (I guess since I surely didn't activate it sitting in the store and they just handed it to me like this). An official hack?
