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For some comparison and thoughts/advice;

From left to right - iPhone XS, iPhone 12 mini (pink case), iPhone 12 mini (black case)

Auto brightness turned off, all other settings identical as indicated with no True Tone, True Tone, and then True Tone and night shift activated.

To me one of the minis is better than the other however I will note that the whiter mini has a more pronounced blue tilt shift when viewed on an angle from a desk etc.

Comments, thoughts? I need to return one of the minis. My individual opinion/preference is that blue shift annoys me more/looks worse when glancing at my phone on an angle than the warm screen issue But it’s only slightly more prominent on the whiter display.

For what it’s worth for the rest of the conversation I have seen a real mix of yellow vs whiter and differences in blue shift across the four models in a lot of different stores.

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Sorry for the photo spam, but below are some additional relevant photos in bright room instead of a dark room and on an angle;


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XS is only good panel here, to me
Yeah I got a very high quality XS panel after swapping it out twice when I bought it due to blue shift. This XS after two years still shows only a very minor shift on angle.
 
For what it’s worth, I returned the 12 PM after 1 day of use. I tried to warm up to it (pun intended), but the screen was just too yellow for a nearly $1300 device, which already doesn’t include a charger!

Also, it was getting hot on the top part of the phone when playing videos. My 2 year old XS Max never got hot under these conditions. It wasn’t indexing because it only occurred during video playback.

I’ll wait until their panels are better. The phone is great, but the screen is one of the most important interactive things in these devices.

Think about it, would you want to be served coach meals if you paid for first class? We pay premium for the quality.

I hope Apple holds the panel provider accountable or at least acknowledge that the new panels will be warmer.

Just my opinion. Good luck to all.
 
For what it’s worth, I returned the 12 PM after 1 day of use. I tried to warm up to it (pun intended), but the screen was just too yellow for a nearly $1300 device, which already doesn’t include a charger!

Also, it was getting hot on the top part of the phone when playing videos. My 2 year old XS Max never got hot under these conditions. It wasn’t indexing because it only occurred during video playback.

I’ll wait until their panels are better. The phone is great, but the screen is one of the most important interactive things in these devices.

Think about it, would you want to be served coach meals if you paid for first class? We pay premium for the quality.

I hope Apple holds the panel provider accountable or at least acknowledge that the new panels will be warmer.

Just my opinion. Good luck to all.
The panel provider is Samsung. There’s nowhere to run 🏃‍♂️. But yeah you returned it after only 1 day? Amazing. What’s the rush? I think there’s an extended holiday return. Should’ve given it at least 1-2 weeks. Oh well. Maybe an iPhone 11 with a starting price of $599 is in your future? It’s a guaranteed white panel. It’s LCD.
 
The panel provider is Samsung. There’s nowhere to run 🏃‍♂️. But yeah you returned it after only 1 day? Amazing. What’s the rush? I think there’s an extended holiday return. Should’ve given it at least 1-2 weeks. Oh well. Maybe an iPhone 11 with a starting price of $599 is in your future? It’s a guaranteed white panel. It’s LCD.
It was getting too warm (heat) when watching YouTube. No point in keeping it with the heat and the yellow screen, it didn’t make me go ...wow I’m so glad I upgraded! I have many apple products, but the screen on the 12PM felt cheap. Camera, Design, Lidar, Speed are awesome improvements that are being overshadowed by the yellow tint (in my case).

My XS MAX and iPads are perfectly uniform and not yellow. The yellow screen is very distracting for me as black text looked less sharp. I just knew it hadn’t met my expectations.

Also, no way in hell was I going to send Apple my 256gb XS Max as trade in with a perfect screen and give Apple an extra 800. It seemed illogical.

I am not saying I won’t buy in the future, but I want an acknowledgment from Apple (that displays are warmer) or I want to see more accurate displays in the wild.
 
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Same problem here (I'm based in Italy). Knowing that every year I encounter the same screen-issue with new iPhones, this time around I ordered 2 Pro Max - hoping that at least one of the 2 would have been good. Guess what? They're both going back to Apple: totally washed out colors, I go mad everytime I look at them. On Monday the 3rd Pro Max is coming. This is very frustating. Apple should get its act together when it comes to screen quality.
 
Same problem here (I'm based in Italy). Knowing that every year I encounter the same screen-issue with new iPhones, this time around I ordered 2 Pro Max - hoping that at least one of the 2 would have been good. Guess what? They're both going back to Apple: totally washed out colors, I go mad everytime I look at them. On Monday the 3rd Pro Max is coming. This is very frustating. Apple should get its act together when it comes to screen quality.
You promise after the third one coming up, and the panel doesn’t meet your standard, that you’ll quit and move on to android? Or are you going up to 20 phones deep?
 
Anybody experiencing a green tint instead of a yellow one? More so when viewed off axis, it drives me crazy.
 
Please don't go crazy!
Apple support is only a phone call away!
Well, I got the iPhone from a retailer here in Germany, will contact them tomorrow for a replacement. BUT I'm not so sure about getting a replacement. Yes, they take it back without questions but I prefer to keep the phone with a god damn acceptable screen and I never heard that retailer replacing the unit for a new one. Either keep it as is or return it. And yes, I would love to return it but i wouldn't get the same deal anymore, which is 100€ off.

So... sad me I guess. I don't know if Apple can or wants to do something when bought from a retailer and your within the 14 days return policy.
 
Well, I got the iPhone from a retailer here in Germany, will contact them tomorrow for a replacement. BUT I'm not so sure about getting a replacement. Yes, they take it back without questions but I prefer to keep the phone with a god damn acceptable screen and I never heard that retailer replacing the unit for a new one. Either keep it as is or return it. And yes, I would love to return it but i wouldn't get the same deal anymore, which is 100€ off.

So... sad me I guess. I don't know if Apple can or wants to do something when bought from a retailer and your within the 14 days return policy.
I think you’ll have to bite the bullet and do without the 100€ deal. Better than going crazy. ;)
 
People,

I think it would be useful for all to have the following information clear:

1. This is not an isolated case. As Erica Griffin mentions, this is going on on the whole industry.
2. In the real world, whites are yellowish. Look at your iPhone charger for instance.
3. Bluish white of previous OLED and LCD is an unreal color that we all have got used to over the years and we think of as a standard.

That's why, when True Tone is on, the phone will use the ambient light information to imagine how an object with the colors present in the image displayed would react to the ambient light, and it can be seen very clearly that the software shifts those colors to the warmer side. In a nutshell, warmer colors are more natural in most of the objects we interact with in real life.

Having this in mind, it's up to you to decide what should be the right trend for the industry, wether it is keep on displaying unreal colors or not.
If winning the lottery means having a more realistic panel or not.

Cheers
 
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People,

I think it would be useful for all to have the following information clear:

1. This is not an isolated case. As Erica Griffin mentions, this is going on on the whole industry.
2. In the real world, whites are yellowish. Look at your iPhone charger for instance.
3. Bluish white of previous OLED and LCD is an unreal color that we all have got used to over the years and we think of as a standard.

Having this in mind, it's up to you to decide what should be the right trend for the industry, wether it is keep on displaying unreal colors or not.
If winning the lottery means having a more realistic panel or not.

Cheers
I agree with your first point, but I think you’re misunderstanding what people are expecting here. Most people actually dislike the heavy-blue white/color temperature just as much as yellow. What we want is balanced white, aka 6500K as defined by the D65 calibration standard. The panels we’ve been receiving fall well below that mark.

It indeed seems to be an industry-wide issue right now. I’m assuming it’s the outcome of some new cheaper production methods that results in a higher yield of usable panels with the caveat that the majority of them lean warmer.
 
I agree with your first point, but I think you’re misunderstanding what people are expecting here. Most people actually dislike the heavy-blue white/color temperature just as much as yellow. What we want is balanced white, aka 6500K as defined by the D65 calibration standard. The panels we’ve been receiving fall well below that mark.

It indeed seems to be an industry-wide issue right now. I’m assuming it’s the outcome of some new cheaper production methods that results in a higher yield of usable panels with the caveat that the majority of them lean warmer.
Here's what I suspect it's happening:

1. Most of the people are getting D65 panels, as Erica mentions on her tests.
2. A reduced number of people are getting a legitimate faulty panel.
3. People who are in #1 identify themselves as #2 because they see their displays warmer than previous versions.

Therefore, #1 gets mixed #2 and the "problem" escalates.
People don't have the equipment to test in a scientific way their panels, so we all rely in the personal perception of every single user complaining.
Comparing against an iPhone 11 Pro or X could do the job. But, we don't really know the characteristics of those panels as well... Maybe they are way off blue and that makes 12 look way yellowish...
Just a reminder, some people complained of blueish iPhone X panels as well...

In my opinion, it's very difficult to get the data right.

Regards
 
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