5 ms·

Some iPhone 15 Pro Max users are reporting OLED screen 'burn in'

60 points by gnicholas 3y ago

jonny_eh 3y ago
Is this burnin (permanent) or image retention (not permanent)? The article uses the two different terms interchangibly.
- LeoPanthera 3y ago
  LCDs get retention. OLEDs get burn. OLED "burn" can be mitigated by "burning" the rest of the screen an equal amount, but that's not really the same as it being temporary. LCD retention is never permanent and goes away on its own.
  - max-leo 3y ago
    Surprisingly temporary image retention is also a thing on OLED displays. RTINGS discussed it in their recent update video on their OLED TV burn-in test: https://youtu.be/rWuwUb-7vjo?si=oBHdJoXPdHH_z6NR&t=353 https://youtu.be/rWuwUb-7vjo?si=oBHdJoXPdHH_z6NR&t=353
  - Dayshine 3y ago
    I definitely notice image retention on my OLED laptop screen if I go from a few hours of letterboxed content to a pure colour image.
  - bzzzt 3y ago
    LCD als has 'burn', but it's much less common. Also, local dimming LED backlights wear out unevenly which causes brightness uniformity to get worse.
gnicholas 3y ago
Pictures are crazy: https://twitter.com/tarunvats33/status/1712114197377737208 https://twitter.com/tarunvats33/status/1712114197377737208
- superchroma 3y ago
  That is gnarly burn-in
- Freedom2 3y ago
  That's awful. I've owned two OLED phones so far, for multiple years, and haven't had burn in that severe.
- pndy 3y ago
  My sister's Galaxy J3 from 2016 had similar burns after years of constant display use
  - avh02 3y ago
    your key word there being years edit: made it snarky without considering the reply's full meaning, I'd like to retract the snark, but I leave this in so the author's reply makes sense.
    - pndy 3y ago
      I'm talking about the effect
- bzzzt 3y ago
  The rest of the picture is dark, so the "burn-in" picture could be barely visible in normal daylight. No way to tell how severe this is.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    That may be true, although I use my phone in both normal daylight and very dark environments. If I'm paying $1,000+ for a phone, I certainly expect that it will look good (i.e., not be littered with artifacts) in either of those common uses cases.
curiousObject 3y ago
That’s going to cost Apple billions to put right if it becomes a widespread problem
- mathieuh 3y ago
  Could be similar to what happened to the 2013 MacBooks with burn-in, Apple were using panels from several manufacturers and only the LG ones were affected by this extreme kind of burn-in.
  - josefx 3y ago
    One would expect them to run QA checks on those screens if they had the exact same issue before.
  - baz00 3y ago
    I had one of those. I remember taking to the Apple Store and they actually suggested I'd caused it. That lead to a pretty funny and loud conversation where I cost them a bunch of sales. I walked out with a new one that didn't do that.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  If there's anything widespread it's happening at the beginning of the shipments, so the number of units affected could be quite low since most people who bought or would buy did not receive their devices yet. A real disaster could happen if it strikes 1 year later. On Samsung's case of battery fire, not only they had to do a recall but they had to collect the devices in special containers and the dangers of their product was advertised on planes for years to come. Yet, Samsung recovered gracefully.
skummetmaelk 3y ago
What's old is new. It only took Apple 3.5 years to own up to their previous "staingate" display disaster: https://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/17/apple-mbp-ar-coating-quality-program-staingate/ https://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/17/apple-mbp-ar-coating-qu...
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  They never owned up to it. Like every other fucking apple defect recall, it's a secret you have to know to ask for. My system developed the problem, I was about 2 years out of the warranty, and by the time I heard of the double-secret recall, it had ended. They didn't even provide for all the machines affected, just a subset of models. An apple store rep or genius will lie to your face that there's nothing they can do about a particular issue, but come back and ask a different employee with the magic words for the secret recall and it gets taken care of. It's fucking bullshit. Apple is rolling in piles of cash and they pull this shit to pinch a few pennies here and there.
  - na2083z 3y ago
    I had the crackling issue in my airpods pro and I didn't have to utter any secret incantation to get them replaced.
  - tigeroil 3y ago
    Indeed - it amazes me that people talk about Apple like they have excellent customer service. I've honestly had much better customer service experiences with just about any other OEM.
  - Washuu 3y ago
    Every Apple computer that I have owned or being lent by a company has been affected by a secret recall, lawsuit, or general massive defect that has resulted in multiple RMA replacements. Always years later well after the relevancy of the hardware or the issue was discovered. One Macbook that cooked itself alive in the overhead bin on a plane. Apple always delays as much as possible and avoids admitting that there is an issue.
pininja 3y ago
I’m returning my 15 Pro because Google Maps burned in after just a few hours, and it overheated in a wireless charger that I never had problems with on my 13 Pro. The burn is most noticeable in dark rooms with reduced white point at a low setting (so, the dimmest it can get). The pictures I’ve seen look like a similar setup. I’ve used my 13 Pro like this for years before going to bed.. it also had some burn in but it took a longer time to develop.
- baz00 3y ago
  I have a 13 Pro I got on day one. It doesn't exhibit any burn in at all.
- ricardobeat 3y ago
  That’s “image retention”, which only shows when using very low brightness settings (<25%) and resolves itself over time. It’s even mentioned in Apple’s manual somewhere. Burn-in is permanent and visible at high brightness, and also extremely unlikely as panels have had built-in algorithms to avoid it for the past decade.
  - superhuzza 3y ago
    My Galaxy S8 from 2017 with an AMOLED screen has obvious burn-in at max brightness, so clearly it's not an issue that has been totally solved in the last decade.
belter 3y ago
"Apple's iPhone 15 Pro Max is a disaster:Screen burn-in latest of reported issues" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37884352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37884352
ProfessorLayton 3y ago
Not one image referenced in the article. I finally made the move from my 11 to OLED with my 15 Pro Max, and man am I disappointed with the screen. Apparently I’m sensitive to PWM flicker, and at lower brightness it’s very distracting and tiring on my eyes. I don’t know if this is an OLED limitation, or just this particular kind of panel, but it’s not something I’ve noticed with LED displays. OLED has always felt like a stopgap on the way to other tech like micro LED, which hopefully doesn’t have the same kinds of drawbacks like burn in and PWM flicker.
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - discreteevent 3y ago
    "imagining things" - That's always hard to be sure of. In my case I have no idea what it is but I just don't like looking at OLED screens, especially reading. I got a samsung a couple of years ago and as soon as I had it I didn't really like reading on it, especially in low light. So for my next phone I went back to LCD and immediately preferred it. I couldn't care less about color reproduction scores (or whatever) on a tiny screen. If I want perfect color I'll go outside.
  - fellerts 3y ago
    You are being very dismissive here. How do you know that everybody that complains about screen or LED flicker are "imagining things"? Case in point, I agree with GP. I am also sensitive to LEDs flickering at 50 or 100 Hz (EU resident here). The flickering is more apparent when moving the eyes as opposed to staring at the flickering source. I assume some people's eyes have more "integration time" than others.
    - delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
      I am particularly sensitive to PWM/LED light flickering. I was recently in a hotel, and the WC was lit with some extremely dim, low-frequency lighting. I waved my hands in front of my face, and could easily make out a stroboscopic effect. PWM flickering gives me a massive headache, and I really wish manufacturers would use slightly more complex circuitry to give out a constant light (whether display, or household lighting) at different brightness levels. I also dislike 60 Hz displays for this very reason. We should definitely normalise higher refresh rates for displays throughout, from smartphones to monitors.
satysin 3y ago
Perhaps I am just very lucky but I got my 15 Pro Max on Wednesday just gone and it's been nothing short of fantastic. I upgraded from a Xs Max which was 5 years old and it is a superb upgrade imho. Battery life has been excellent getting me a near two full days use even with me setting the charge limit to 80% with the new option in settings. And I've not had the hot device issues I've seen a few reports of. Going for a run on Saturday the device stayed cool while tracking my run. Taking a bunch of pictures, etc. All has been just fine as expected. So far I am very happy with it. I find it hard to believe anyone is getting burn in on a device that hasn't even been in consumers hands for a month yet. I'm sure it is possible but even the cheapest OLED panels take time to get burn in.
- csunbird 3y ago
  You upgraded over 6 generations, any brand new phone you get would feel fantastic in my opinion. If I upgrade from 14 to 15, I wouldn't be amazed at all with the new one, and I believe most of the people feel the same way.
  - qlkjwenf 3y ago
    Exactly. How could people be so naive? A friend of mine bougth the cheapest Android smartphone for less than 50 bucks on Amazon and then after buying iPhone Pro for ~ 1500 he annoyed anyone saying how much better iPhone is than Android. However, he never ever used a proper flagship Android, only the cheapest of the cheapest models and then compares them to iPhone... Genius
  - satysin 3y ago
    Well yes of course. Upgrading year over year you're not going to really see any major changes. Going from a 14 Pro Max to a 15 Pro Max is pretty minor. My comment was more that I've not had any of the issues I've seen reported over the past few days. No overheating. No screen issues. No battery life issues. I'm not saying they don't exist of course. I was just adding my personal experience to add balance. I will add that while the upgrade from my Xs Max is obviously pretty big it is still iOS at the end of the day and it isn't actually any different in general. It does a few new things like the Always On Display but overall it is the same as my Xs Max just faster/smoother. Naturally the camera upgrades are very impressive as is the Pro Motion screen. My Xs Max had a battery replacement 9 months ago so it still had good battery life but the 15 is clearly much better. Even with the always on display it loses around 1% battery every 4-5 hours which is what I would expect. My Xs Max would also lose around 1% every 4-5 hours even without that feature. Naturally I am interested in hearing about these issue as it alerts me to keep an eye out for such issues developing for myself, but as with anything reported on places like Twitter I take it with a grain of salt as it could just be someone deliberately damaging their device to drive engagement and grow their presence sadly.
0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
Is there any technical reason why it would only be seen in the Pro Max or should all models be equally susceptible?
- busymom0 3y ago
  Maybe something to do with who manufacturers the panels for each phone? I know one of the devices are now being made in India and rest in China. Can't remember which is where.
sschueller 3y ago
I have had OLED and AMOLED screens on my phones for years and yes back in the first we generations this was an issues. Even my old smart watch had this issue but since the last 2 generations of phones and watches this has no longer been an issue and I don't have a fancy flagship Samsung but some mid range Asus phone that is also already 3 years old. Aren't all of these screens made by the same few manufacturers? Why does Apple have these issues? Is it software/driver related?
PedroBatista 3y ago
Perhaps "they are looking at it the wrong way".. On a more serious note, is this due to large media exposure or is there something out of the ordinary here? OLED is not new and big companies like Samsung have been the "canary" for this.
traveler01 3y ago
Could the increased brightness of these screens help worsening the burn in problem? I’d say the firmware has precautions against this problem. Could it be only a small number of phones with defective panels presenting this problems and people blowing it out of proportion?

60 points by gnicholas 3y ago

jonny_eh 3y ago

Is this burnin (permanent) or image retention (not permanent)? The article uses the two different terms interchangibly.

LeoPanthera 3y ago
LCDs get retention. OLEDs get burn. OLED "burn" can be mitigated by "burning" the rest of the screen an equal amount, but that's not really the same as it being temporary. LCD retention is never permanent and goes away on its own.
- max-leo 3y ago
  Surprisingly temporary image retention is also a thing on OLED displays. RTINGS discussed it in their recent update video on their OLED TV burn-in test: https://youtu.be/rWuwUb-7vjo?si=oBHdJoXPdHH_z6NR&t=353 https://youtu.be/rWuwUb-7vjo?si=oBHdJoXPdHH_z6NR&t=353
- Dayshine 3y ago
  I definitely notice image retention on my OLED laptop screen if I go from a few hours of letterboxed content to a pure colour image.
- bzzzt 3y ago
  LCD als has 'burn', but it's much less common. Also, local dimming LED backlights wear out unevenly which causes brightness uniformity to get worse.

gnicholas 3y ago

Pictures are crazy: https://twitter.com/tarunvats33/status/1712114197377737208 https://twitter.com/tarunvats33/status/1712114197377737208

superchroma 3y ago
That is gnarly burn-in
Freedom2 3y ago
That's awful. I've owned two OLED phones so far, for multiple years, and haven't had burn in that severe.
pndy 3y ago
My sister's Galaxy J3 from 2016 had similar burns after years of constant display use
- avh02 3y ago
  your key word there being years edit: made it snarky without considering the reply's full meaning, I'd like to retract the snark, but I leave this in so the author's reply makes sense.
  - pndy 3y ago
    I'm talking about the effect
bzzzt 3y ago
The rest of the picture is dark, so the "burn-in" picture could be barely visible in normal daylight. No way to tell how severe this is.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  That may be true, although I use my phone in both normal daylight and very dark environments. If I'm paying $1,000+ for a phone, I certainly expect that it will look good (i.e., not be littered with artifacts) in either of those common uses cases.

curiousObject 3y ago

That’s going to cost Apple billions to put right if it becomes a widespread problem

mathieuh 3y ago
Could be similar to what happened to the 2013 MacBooks with burn-in, Apple were using panels from several manufacturers and only the LG ones were affected by this extreme kind of burn-in.
- josefx 3y ago
  One would expect them to run QA checks on those screens if they had the exact same issue before.
- baz00 3y ago
  I had one of those. I remember taking to the Apple Store and they actually suggested I'd caused it. That lead to a pretty funny and loud conversation where I cost them a bunch of sales. I walked out with a new one that didn't do that.
mrtksn 3y ago
If there's anything widespread it's happening at the beginning of the shipments, so the number of units affected could be quite low since most people who bought or would buy did not receive their devices yet. A real disaster could happen if it strikes 1 year later. On Samsung's case of battery fire, not only they had to do a recall but they had to collect the devices in special containers and the dangers of their product was advertised on planes for years to come. Yet, Samsung recovered gracefully.

skummetmaelk 3y ago

What's old is new. It only took Apple 3.5 years to own up to their previous "staingate" display disaster: https://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/17/apple-mbp-ar-coating-quality-program-staingate/ https://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/17/apple-mbp-ar-coating-qu...

KennyBlanken 3y ago
They never owned up to it. Like every other fucking apple defect recall, it's a secret you have to know to ask for. My system developed the problem, I was about 2 years out of the warranty, and by the time I heard of the double-secret recall, it had ended. They didn't even provide for all the machines affected, just a subset of models. An apple store rep or genius will lie to your face that there's nothing they can do about a particular issue, but come back and ask a different employee with the magic words for the secret recall and it gets taken care of. It's fucking bullshit. Apple is rolling in piles of cash and they pull this shit to pinch a few pennies here and there.
- na2083z 3y ago
  I had the crackling issue in my airpods pro and I didn't have to utter any secret incantation to get them replaced.
- tigeroil 3y ago
  Indeed - it amazes me that people talk about Apple like they have excellent customer service. I've honestly had much better customer service experiences with just about any other OEM.
- Washuu 3y ago
  Every Apple computer that I have owned or being lent by a company has been affected by a secret recall, lawsuit, or general massive defect that has resulted in multiple RMA replacements. Always years later well after the relevancy of the hardware or the issue was discovered. One Macbook that cooked itself alive in the overhead bin on a plane. Apple always delays as much as possible and avoids admitting that there is an issue.

pininja 3y ago

I’m returning my 15 Pro because Google Maps burned in after just a few hours, and it overheated in a wireless charger that I never had problems with on my 13 Pro. The burn is most noticeable in dark rooms with reduced white point at a low setting (so, the dimmest it can get). The pictures I’ve seen look like a similar setup. I’ve used my 13 Pro like this for years before going to bed.. it also had some burn in but it took a longer time to develop.

baz00 3y ago
I have a 13 Pro I got on day one. It doesn't exhibit any burn in at all.
ricardobeat 3y ago
That’s “image retention”, which only shows when using very low brightness settings (<25%) and resolves itself over time. It’s even mentioned in Apple’s manual somewhere. Burn-in is permanent and visible at high brightness, and also extremely unlikely as panels have had built-in algorithms to avoid it for the past decade.
- superhuzza 3y ago
  My Galaxy S8 from 2017 with an AMOLED screen has obvious burn-in at max brightness, so clearly it's not an issue that has been totally solved in the last decade.

belter 3y ago

"Apple's iPhone 15 Pro Max is a disaster:Screen burn-in latest of reported issues" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37884352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37884352

ProfessorLayton 3y ago

Not one image referenced in the article. I finally made the move from my 11 to OLED with my 15 Pro Max, and man am I disappointed with the screen. Apparently I’m sensitive to PWM flicker, and at lower brightness it’s very distracting and tiring on my eyes. I don’t know if this is an OLED limitation, or just this particular kind of panel, but it’s not something I’ve noticed with LED displays. OLED has always felt like a stopgap on the way to other tech like micro LED, which hopefully doesn’t have the same kinds of drawbacks like burn in and PWM flicker.

KennyBlanken 3y ago
[flagged]
- discreteevent 3y ago
  "imagining things" - That's always hard to be sure of. In my case I have no idea what it is but I just don't like looking at OLED screens, especially reading. I got a samsung a couple of years ago and as soon as I had it I didn't really like reading on it, especially in low light. So for my next phone I went back to LCD and immediately preferred it. I couldn't care less about color reproduction scores (or whatever) on a tiny screen. If I want perfect color I'll go outside.
- fellerts 3y ago
  You are being very dismissive here. How do you know that everybody that complains about screen or LED flicker are "imagining things"? Case in point, I agree with GP. I am also sensitive to LEDs flickering at 50 or 100 Hz (EU resident here). The flickering is more apparent when moving the eyes as opposed to staring at the flickering source. I assume some people's eyes have more "integration time" than others.
  - delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
    I am particularly sensitive to PWM/LED light flickering. I was recently in a hotel, and the WC was lit with some extremely dim, low-frequency lighting. I waved my hands in front of my face, and could easily make out a stroboscopic effect. PWM flickering gives me a massive headache, and I really wish manufacturers would use slightly more complex circuitry to give out a constant light (whether display, or household lighting) at different brightness levels. I also dislike 60 Hz displays for this very reason. We should definitely normalise higher refresh rates for displays throughout, from smartphones to monitors.

satysin 3y ago

Perhaps I am just very lucky but I got my 15 Pro Max on Wednesday just gone and it's been nothing short of fantastic. I upgraded from a Xs Max which was 5 years old and it is a superb upgrade imho. Battery life has been excellent getting me a near two full days use even with me setting the charge limit to 80% with the new option in settings. And I've not had the hot device issues I've seen a few reports of. Going for a run on Saturday the device stayed cool while tracking my run. Taking a bunch of pictures, etc. All has been just fine as expected. So far I am very happy with it. I find it hard to believe anyone is getting burn in on a device that hasn't even been in consumers hands for a month yet. I'm sure it is possible but even the cheapest OLED panels take time to get burn in.

csunbird 3y ago
You upgraded over 6 generations, any brand new phone you get would feel fantastic in my opinion. If I upgrade from 14 to 15, I wouldn't be amazed at all with the new one, and I believe most of the people feel the same way.
- qlkjwenf 3y ago
  Exactly. How could people be so naive? A friend of mine bougth the cheapest Android smartphone for less than 50 bucks on Amazon and then after buying iPhone Pro for ~ 1500 he annoyed anyone saying how much better iPhone is than Android. However, he never ever used a proper flagship Android, only the cheapest of the cheapest models and then compares them to iPhone... Genius
- satysin 3y ago
  Well yes of course. Upgrading year over year you're not going to really see any major changes. Going from a 14 Pro Max to a 15 Pro Max is pretty minor. My comment was more that I've not had any of the issues I've seen reported over the past few days. No overheating. No screen issues. No battery life issues. I'm not saying they don't exist of course. I was just adding my personal experience to add balance. I will add that while the upgrade from my Xs Max is obviously pretty big it is still iOS at the end of the day and it isn't actually any different in general. It does a few new things like the Always On Display but overall it is the same as my Xs Max just faster/smoother. Naturally the camera upgrades are very impressive as is the Pro Motion screen. My Xs Max had a battery replacement 9 months ago so it still had good battery life but the 15 is clearly much better. Even with the always on display it loses around 1% battery every 4-5 hours which is what I would expect. My Xs Max would also lose around 1% every 4-5 hours even without that feature. Naturally I am interested in hearing about these issue as it alerts me to keep an eye out for such issues developing for myself, but as with anything reported on places like Twitter I take it with a grain of salt as it could just be someone deliberately damaging their device to drive engagement and grow their presence sadly.

0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago

Is there any technical reason why it would only be seen in the Pro Max or should all models be equally susceptible?

busymom0 3y ago
Maybe something to do with who manufacturers the panels for each phone? I know one of the devices are now being made in India and rest in China. Can't remember which is where.

sschueller 3y ago

I have had OLED and AMOLED screens on my phones for years and yes back in the first we generations this was an issues. Even my old smart watch had this issue but since the last 2 generations of phones and watches this has no longer been an issue and I don't have a fancy flagship Samsung but some mid range Asus phone that is also already 3 years old. Aren't all of these screens made by the same few manufacturers? Why does Apple have these issues? Is it software/driver related?

PedroBatista 3y ago

Perhaps "they are looking at it the wrong way".. On a more serious note, is this due to large media exposure or is there something out of the ordinary here? OLED is not new and big companies like Samsung have been the "canary" for this.

traveler01 3y ago

Could the increased brightness of these screens help worsening the burn in problem? I’d say the firmware has precautions against this problem. Could it be only a small number of phones with defective panels presenting this problems and people blowing it out of proportion?