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iPhone 16 Pro Max Touch issues with 16 Pro / Pro Max display
- Thread starter jajo.j
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Finally? There have been Pro Max with normal touch sensitivity for a long time-- I've been on here talking about mine for months and months. 🤣
I just tested several iPhones 16 Pro Max (1TB) with the batteries manufactured in January 2025 (iOS 18.3.1) There are no touch issues at all (tested both without and with a screen protector: Belkin UltraGlass2). The screen quality is very bad though and there is a shift in color from yellow to green if you tilt them. Disappointed.
It is good to know, however, that phones produced in 2025 don’t have any touch problems, it seems.
It is good to know, however, that phones produced in 2025 don’t have any touch problems, it seems.
Mine is a launch day iPhone and it had the touch issue with the flolab protector. But now, I have a belkin ultra glass 2 on it and the touch works mostly normal. It is hard to notice any issue.
I think this protector is thin enough to not make the touch issue obvious. But this protector sucks in other aspects. Coverage is barely larger than the display and glare is bad. And it rainbows off axis and with sunglasses. But I guess that’s the price of wanting a fully functional touchscreen
Mine is absolutely flawless when it comes to white balance, even tilted. Absolutely no tint whatsoever.
Just tested a S25 Ultra and Xiaomi 15 Ultra which both had tint at angle.
Great! What is the panel type in your phone? Mine came with GH3 and GVC.
Instructions on how to check your display type (found on Reddit). It’s very easy:
“You can run sysdiagnose on your phone (press volume up, volume down, and lock button) all together for around a second. You will feel the phone vibrate.
Wait a couple of minutes and then go to Settings -> Privacy and Security -> Analytics and Improvements -> Analytics Data.
You will then scroll down and look for a file titled: sysdiagnose_XXXXXXXX.
You will click on that file and then dick the arrow in the upper right hand corner and scroll down and click “Save to Files” Once it is saved you will go into your files and click the file to unpack it.
Within the folder that is unpacked you will click on the folder “ioreg” and then click the file “IODeviceTree”.
You will then use the magnifying search glass in the bottom right hand corner to search “raw-panel”. It will then give you a serial number.
I have an LG display which has the beginning letters of GH3.
GVC is the best of the LG panels but not as good as Samsung’s best which is the G9N.
The top 3 panels are:
• Samsung G9N • Samsung G9Q • LG GVC
The worst panel is LG GH3.”
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This is my third 16PM and by far the best display so far. The first one I got had a slight greenish tint at angle.
This is interesting. I had tested 3 16PM’s with GH3 and they all had a green tint at a small agle. And one of them seemeed to be worst than the rest. It looked cheap.
I am a display nerd. With my Mac Studio I use a ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM that I calibrated professionally. My work is looking at photos everyday so displays are something very important to me.
I also regularly test other phones, most recently Xiaomi 15 Ultra and Samsung S25 Ultra.
My current 16 Pro Max has a display that has no issues whatsoever. Grey tones are perfectly uniform. No tint at any angle (except very extreme angles but that doesn't really count as we never use phones that way). Touch is snappy and instant.
I found some log files from my first 16 Pro Max that had horrible touch issues (the reason why I started this thread), warmer white balance and very visible green tint at small angles. It had the panel you describe as the best (G9N). It was also slightly more saturated and less neutral than my current 16 Pro Max.
From a color accuracy standpoint and uniformity/viewing angles, my current LG panel is on a different level. I very much prefer it over the other phones I had recently. I also prefer it over my 16 Pro that my girlfriend now uses that has a Samsung panel.
Maybe it is a matter of preference/taste. But from an objective standpoint, my GH3 makes me very happy.
Thanks, jajo.j! This is a useful info and I am happy that you have finally found the perfect iP16PM. The GH3 displays seem to be of a much higher quality this year. Good to know.
If you don’t mind me asking when did you purchase your 16 Pro Max? What is the manufacture date? Thanks.
I am sure he doesn’t mind you asking, but those questions have been answered in his previous posts and you can find the answers there.
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My iPhone shows G9P panel, don't know where it stands in the order of reliability. Bought mine on launch day, initially had massive touch issues, now I don't feel it.
I have just tested 4 other iP16PM 1TB. 3 of them have the GH3 panel and 1 has the G9N panel (considered by some as the best one you can get).
However, there is barely any difference between the GH3 and the G9N screens: the G9N is even a bit darker and has less vivid colors, in my opinion. (That phone also has a big speck of dust under one of the camera lenses). The manufacture date of all phones is January 2025 (China) and they all came with iOS 18.3.1 pre-installed.
The most important thing is that there are no touch screen issues at all: without or with a screen protector (Belkin UltraGlass 2). The phones react perfectly well to all touches, no matter how light those are. I am keeping one of the GH3 phones.
However, there is barely any difference between the GH3 and the G9N screens: the G9N is even a bit darker and has less vivid colors, in my opinion. (That phone also has a big speck of dust under one of the camera lenses). The manufacture date of all phones is January 2025 (China) and they all came with iOS 18.3.1 pre-installed.
The most important thing is that there are no touch screen issues at all: without or with a screen protector (Belkin UltraGlass 2). The phones react perfectly well to all touches, no matter how light those are. I am keeping one of the GH3 phones.
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My touch issues are back! Since the latest FW (iOS 18.4.1) the screen sometimes freezes at one point and then nothing works. I have to wait a few seconds....
For anyone wondering what happened with the touch issues, i will tell my experience so far:
Since iPhone 16 series went up for sale in my country in November (Chile) i'm on my 6th iPhone 16 Pro model...
Three of them were 16 Pro, and both of them had a bad screen uniformity being worse with TrueTone ON, i've decided to move to a S25 Ultra after using them and seeing that i can notice the color shift in displays much more than an average person, but none of them had touch issues whatsoever (Using belkin screen protector and also ESR Armorite), i've looked on different premium resellers demo models to see that display panels is much more of a lottery, very bad screen tilting or very bad screen uniformity on most of the displays i've seen.
Last one of my 16 Pro is still on service center because it had a scratch on the display out of the box and bad display quality but they don't want to adress it as warranty replacement, so probably i will have to sell it with an a small loss.
Between those, i've bought 2 16 Pro Max in White and then Desert Titanium at another premium reseller... and both of them had touch issues with ESR Screen protector, the latter even had a banding shadow in the middle of the screen noticeable on dark mode in low light settings. So in the end i either sold them or traded them away... (The manufacture date on the white one was September 2024, and the Desert one December 2024)
I almost give up and went back to my S25 Ultra and just live with it, still, i didn't get used to samsung, and i only kept the 16 Pro that i have at service.
That's when i checked this thread and saw there's hope that January 2025 16 Pro Max phones comes without touch issues... so i gave it a last try.
This time, i spoke directly to Apple (as they only have an online store here), asking them if the Phones they are selling (as Apple themselves) in Chile were manufactured this year, and also i told my concerns of what happened with my previous experience.
The salesperson told me that effectively they are selling only phones manufactured this year onwards, and he also explicitly said that he was aware of the touch issues situation, or at least he heard it before... with that, i decided to do it, wondering if it was really true or i was just being fooled to buy another iPhone...
So now i have the 16 Pro Max in my hands, White Titanium 256GB and i can assure that, even with ESR Armorite screen protector, i don't have any touch issues whatsoever... about display uniformity, is the best i've had among the 6 iPhones i had this year... and guess what, manufacture date was indeed at January 2025.
In the end, i can conclude that maybe the touch issues is related to the display and manufacture date of the device, and probably they adressed it from this year onward... also i'm very happy thinking that at least apple spoke the truth about the phones manufacture date they selling.
This makes me wonder, as 5 of the phones i bought were from premium resellers, and the only one with good quality was the one bought from Apple itself, is there any chance that in LatinAmerica resellers sell iphones with lesser quality than the ones sold directly by Apple?...
Anyway, this is my story this year and i think i will keep this 16 Pro Max for a long time..., hope it helps!
Since iPhone 16 series went up for sale in my country in November (Chile) i'm on my 6th iPhone 16 Pro model...
Three of them were 16 Pro, and both of them had a bad screen uniformity being worse with TrueTone ON, i've decided to move to a S25 Ultra after using them and seeing that i can notice the color shift in displays much more than an average person, but none of them had touch issues whatsoever (Using belkin screen protector and also ESR Armorite), i've looked on different premium resellers demo models to see that display panels is much more of a lottery, very bad screen tilting or very bad screen uniformity on most of the displays i've seen.
Last one of my 16 Pro is still on service center because it had a scratch on the display out of the box and bad display quality but they don't want to adress it as warranty replacement, so probably i will have to sell it with an a small loss.
Between those, i've bought 2 16 Pro Max in White and then Desert Titanium at another premium reseller... and both of them had touch issues with ESR Screen protector, the latter even had a banding shadow in the middle of the screen noticeable on dark mode in low light settings. So in the end i either sold them or traded them away... (The manufacture date on the white one was September 2024, and the Desert one December 2024)
I almost give up and went back to my S25 Ultra and just live with it, still, i didn't get used to samsung, and i only kept the 16 Pro that i have at service.
That's when i checked this thread and saw there's hope that January 2025 16 Pro Max phones comes without touch issues... so i gave it a last try.
This time, i spoke directly to Apple (as they only have an online store here), asking them if the Phones they are selling (as Apple themselves) in Chile were manufactured this year, and also i told my concerns of what happened with my previous experience.
The salesperson told me that effectively they are selling only phones manufactured this year onwards, and he also explicitly said that he was aware of the touch issues situation, or at least he heard it before... with that, i decided to do it, wondering if it was really true or i was just being fooled to buy another iPhone...
So now i have the 16 Pro Max in my hands, White Titanium 256GB and i can assure that, even with ESR Armorite screen protector, i don't have any touch issues whatsoever... about display uniformity, is the best i've had among the 6 iPhones i had this year... and guess what, manufacture date was indeed at January 2025.
In the end, i can conclude that maybe the touch issues is related to the display and manufacture date of the device, and probably they adressed it from this year onward... also i'm very happy thinking that at least apple spoke the truth about the phones manufacture date they selling.
This makes me wonder, as 5 of the phones i bought were from premium resellers, and the only one with good quality was the one bought from Apple itself, is there any chance that in LatinAmerica resellers sell iphones with lesser quality than the ones sold directly by Apple?...
Anyway, this is my story this year and i think i will keep this 16 Pro Max for a long time..., hope it helps!
Awesome and excellent deduction.
Indifferent from country, all iPhone product from 2025 are good.
The serious thing is that Apple has never officially recognized the problem.
Thank u for your support
Both of our iPhone 16 Pro Max 1Tb were purchased end of November 2024, both use Belkin screen protectors (Ultra Glass 2), no sensitivity issues.
I’m from Santiago, Chile, and I really struggled with my iPhone 16 Pro Max (obvious touchscreen issues), which I bought as soon as it arrived in the country. I talked a lot about it in that thread since it was created. In February, I sold it and bought an iPhone 16 Pro at MacOnline… it changed my life — zero issues. Sending a hug.
I'm glad i'm not the only one in Chile checking this forum hahaha... i've kept my 16 Pro Max till now, amazing battery life, but i did swap the ESR screen protector for Belkin UltraGlass 2, and the screen sensitivity improved a little more... still zero issues.
So for now i think i'll keep it until the iPhone 18 or 19, as it seems that they will use the same display technology from this year's 16 Pro Max and we must admit it was a mess between screen sensitivity and screen uniformity.
Hugs for u too!