iPad Pro 2021 12.9 Screen Shadow

[isoft7]

Well it looks like this issue is going to happen across the board not overly impressed, this coupled with the fact mine came with an imperfection, I think I am going to return to the retailer and get the 2020 version.

Yeah the M1 is great but is it really needed I don’t know… centre stage is what I will be gutted loosing though. Ugggggh!

Best part is I knew in my heart that this display was going to be riddled with issues being a first gen product… bit gutted but you live and learn.

I've been a fan of this youtuber for years now and I respect his opinions on devices for creating art.

He points out pretty directly the bezel shadows and the blooming, but he also says during the day and during normal use you won't see the "bloom" unless you're looking for it.

Thats a pretty good opinion I believe, it's obviously there but under general use cases it isn't distracting unless you're looking for it.

That all said, having slept on this "issue" for a night, I think this is kind of a sloppy release by Apple... this sort of attention to detail always gets blown WAY out of proportion when it comes to Apple stuff and they should have known that it was going to cause waves.

I bought the 11" M1 because of the form factor and consider it the smarter of the two buys as I'm starting to think the next iPad Pro releases are going to be AMOLED so they can avoid these problems altogether.

 

[ofarlig]

But we haven't gotten a 'really good' look at the hardware, else we would have been at least side noted about blooming and shadows. And we were not.

Is a reviewers job really to look for problems under weird using conditions though?

Like with the blooming, I noticed none until I went looking for it using way higher brightness than I normally would in a dark room. At that point my OLED TV or OLED phone gives halo effects that ultimately gives the same result as well.

 

[Steve121178]

But we haven't gotten a 'really good' look at the hardware, else we would have been at least side noted about blooming and shadows. And we were not.

I don't think any of them have posted reviews yet, have they? Unless they dropped them in the last 24 hours. All I saw was their iMac & iPad first looks on Tuesday & Wednesday.

And as I mentioned, they are not really the go-to for reviews are they? By all means people can listen to them for reviews, but a 12 minute iJustine video of her gushing over the colours of the new iMacs doesn't really constitute anything close to a technical review does it?

I always thought MKBHD did some fairly decent reviews, but only in his 15-20 minute videos to be fair. The ~10 min videos barely scratch the surface.

 

[thadoggfather]

I don't think any of them have posted reviews yet, have they? Unless they dropped them in the last 24 hours. All I saw was their iMac & iPad first looks on Tuesday & Wednesday.

And as I mentioned, they are not really the go-to for reviews are they? By all means people can listen to them for reviews, but a 12 minute iJustine video of her gushing over the colours of the new iMacs doesn't really constitute anything close to a technical review does it?

I always thought MKBHD did some fairly decent reviews, but only in his 15-20 minute videos to be fair. The ~10 min videos barely scratch the surface.

Youtube 'iPad Pro Review'

yes, they are out. And they are titled reviews. I expect the title is the content. When it is not, that is the issue I take. I don't pop in 'Beauty and the Beast' and just shrug off that it's 'The Land Before Time' as 'close enough'. They are the only reviews we have in advance of the product coming out, so yes, I would cast them as the 'go to' reviews. We don't have other options.

The Verge review is literally called 'Review: Dream Screen'

 

[MrGimper]

I watch videos from iJustine, Rene Ritchie, Jonathan Morrison, MKBHD etc just to get a really good look at the hardware. I don't necessarily take on board what they are saying when they are showcasing new hardware. Most are just covering all the bullet points on a crib sheet that Apple have encouraged them to highlight.

If you notice, they are all saying basically the same thing, just in a different order and a few with some personal opinions thrown in.

It has to be said that their videos are all of a very high standard. Just remember that when it comes to hardware 'reviews' or 'first looks' you are essentially watching adverts.

Which is why I refer to ‘influencers’ as ‘advertising whores’….

 

[Lobwedgephil]

Youtube 'iPad Pro Review'

yes, they are out. And they are titled reviews. I expect the title is the content. When it is not, that is the issue I take. I don't pop in 'Beauty and the Beast' and just shrug off that it's 'The Land Before Time' as 'close enough'. They are the only reviews we have in advance of the product coming out, so yes, I would cast them as the 'go to' reviews. We don't have other options.

The Verge review is literally called 'Review: Dream Screen'

The Verge review mentions this issue.

 

[The Game 161]

Youtube 'iPad Pro Review'

yes, they are out. And they are titled reviews. I expect the title is the content. When it is not, that is the issue I take. I don't pop in 'Beauty and the Beast' and just shrug off that it's 'The Land Before Time' as 'close enough'. They are the only reviews we have in advance of the product coming out, so yes, I would cast them as the 'go to' reviews. We don't have other options.

The Verge review is literally called 'Review: Dream Screen'

They still mentioned the issue. Clearly don’t think it’s a big deal.

 

[thadoggfather]

The Verge review mentions this issue.

if you go to 5:09, he mentions extremely minor blooming and shows it in a way I don't even see it on camera. Then he says 'if you run a test that runs a small white square dot around the screen, you'll see it - but this is not an issue. After all how long are you going to be running pong on your iPad Pro' (I'm not a court room scribe, but I am summarizing nearly exactly what he says)

He then later describes 'cloudiness as the backdrop to text' at 5:38

'a wild grey pillow beneath text. Much more than blooming. More like (a software issue) and I hope apple can fix it or the books app, etc.'

So praise to even alluding to it. But still totally disingenuous imo and taking the stance of ignorance. Effectively downplayed both 'concerns' so significantly I forgot he even mentioned it when I watched the review a few days ago. Ostensibly - gaslighting?

And I'm seeing totally different results here. I don't see anyone playing pong complaining. And I don't see people exclusively complaining using the Books app. Seems to show up in Notes app With doodles, and seems to show up in Reader on Safari. And looks like blooming, not like 'much more than blooming'

For what it's worth, as with any display, I'd love to see it with my own eyes and decide. But I'm just not thrilled it has by in large not even been mentioned by reviewers and left many people shocked on launch day with what they saw. These aren't cheap devices.

I'm not denying deeper blacks, and higher nits, and better contrast, are all good things. But it shouldn't be a regression in any form, especially for casual tasks that have always worked fine previously.

 

[Rafterman]

Is a reviewers job really to look for problems under weird using conditions though?

Like with the blooming, I noticed none until I went looking for it using way higher brightness than I normally would in a dark room. At that point my OLED TV or OLED phone gives halo effects that ultimately gives the same result as well.

Yep, I doubt few will jack up san iPad to max brightness in a dark room. It sure would hurt my eyes.

 

[mi7chy]

The Verge review mentions this issue.

The Verge didn't do anything since they were under review embargo except for copying what Redditors noticed from a unit that was received early by a paying customer. They're normally the worst of the cool-aid drunks along with iMore, Jonathan Morrison, etc.

 

[slplss]

One of my friends got this issue on his 12.9 IPP. Huge glowing around the line. I'm not sure is this the picture quality or the ipp issues. Can anyone confirm this?
View attachment 1778518

You call that bloomin'? Look at my bloomin'

/s

Automatic exposure vs. reality https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...sions-and-photos-thread.2296982/post-29918982

 

[Slartibart]

The dimming zone around the blue point looks very big. But I do not know why. Apple says the screen hast 2500 dimming zones. Does anybody else have the same issue?

While I do not dispute that some form of blooming/dimming area-bleed is visible in certain scenarios - your attached photo shows the standard pencil tool bar in Apple Notes? With the default color palette? I refer to this:

Even if I assume that brightness was turned to 100% when you took your photo in darkness - what kind of exposure time where you using? The tools and color palette are white in your photo! Yours is like using a really long exposure when taking a photo of the moon… I can accept that everyone posting photos does this with best intentions, but for sure this is one of this occasions where the camera, or more precise, exposure time creates something dramatic. I mean, everything in your picture is just white:

https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/tempimageuothb5-png.1778971

EDIT: why does nobody who post this kind of photos includes the EXIF meta data? As others pointed out, one can create this easily with OLED or whatever else light emitter… this looks like as if at the bottom of the box in which the M1 12.9” is delivered, there is a coupon from ray-ban™ included which everyone has overlooked so far ?

 

[Jensend]

I don’t have mine in hand yet so I don’t know about the shadow along the edges but the blooming seems to be interesting. When in settings and watching the movie, you couldn’t see it. When he drew the shapes you could see that there were far too many dimming zones in use for what little line there was. Is it possible that they could tighten up the dimming zones and reduce this issue with a software update?

Some TVs have worse dimming zone quality in gaming mode (low input lag) than in movie/standard modes (high input lag), so it’s definitely something that can be affected by software.

 

[maluba27]

While I do not dispute that some form of blooming/dimming area-bleed is visible in certain scenarios - your attached photo shows the standard pencil tool bar in Apple Notes? With the default color palette? I refer to this:

View attachment 1779354

Even if I assume that brightness was turned to 100% when you took your photo in darkness - what kind of exposure time where you using? The tools and color palette are white in your photo! Yours is like using a really long exposure when taking a photo of the moon… I can accept that everyone posting photos does this with best intentions, but for sure this is one of this occasions where the camera, or more precise, exposure time creates something dramatic. I mean, everything in your picture is just white:

View attachment 1779359

https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/tempimageuothb5-png.1778971

EDIT: why does nobody who post this kind of photos includes the EXIF meta data? As others pointed out, one can create this easily with OLED or whatever else light emitter… this looks like as if at the bottom of the box in which the M1 12.9” is delivered, there is a coupon from ray-ban™ included which everyone has overlooked so far ?

Yes, it was the standard color palette of the notes App. I tried to photograph the screen how it looks to my eyes in a dark room. The reason why the color palette looks white is simply the low dynamic range of the iphone camera. But the pictures shows exact the blooming how I see it with my eyes. Even at 10% brightness blooming is visible, as you can see in the picture below. It‘s not much but clearly visible.

 

[bob24]

it really is shameful YouTube influencers didnt mention this.

99% of them at least. Afraid of losing their Apple access? Signed a waiver saying they wouldn't get into it? Who knows. BUT

I guess both we and themselves know that Apple is picking those people because they expect fancy videos of the product each addressing specific demographics. Technically they can say anything they like in the video, but the clear unwritten rule is that if what they publish doesn't suit Apple, they won't be picked next time. Apple gets the promotional content it wants and the "reviewers" get guaranteed massive viewership, while everyone pretends those are unbiased reviews.

I am not blaming anyone and I don't mind looking at some of those videos as they are usually nicely produced give a good view of the product design. But they are definitely not actual reviews.

 

[someone33]

I’m extremely picky with displays but this screen shadow nonsense is pretty ridiculous. It is barely noticeable even when you’re looking for it, let alone just using the device like normal.

And as far as the “blooming” in the note app or other drawing apps it should be painfully obvious that the local dimming isn’t engaged with those apps. I hesitate to call it blooming because it’s really not, that’s just how the display looks without local dimming engaged. If the local dimming was truly that bad the display wouldn’t even be useable, HDR content would look unwatchable.

 

[futurecore]

One of my friends got this issue on his 12.9 IPP. Huge glowing around the line. I'm not sure is this the picture quality or the ipp issues. Can anyone confirm this?
View attachment 1778518

This has a lot to do with the image quality... I got the 12.9" and use built in notes app to take notes for online courses using white ink. you dont notice this at all when youre using it nor when you're reading it back (like spending time studying material written). even using books app/kindle you dont notice it while youre legit reading the book.

seems to be the same issue as people freaking out over the notch on iPhone X and beyond when you dont notice it after 2 seconds.

 

[stjohnswell]

Picked up my 12.9 256 WiFi today as an upgrade from my iPP 10.5 which has done sterling service. RFU were M1, more ram and more screen real estate.

Drop shadow is a thing but very subtle and is unnoticeable in use.

I don’t have noticeable blooming on my device using Note compared to some of these screenshots.

Perhaps as reported there are signs of a dark grey bar when the brightness is turned up >75% but I have to stare at it to see it and in any case 50% is bright enough for me.

Some of the images are overexposed nonsense.

This device is a keeper.

 

[ofarlig]

I just had to do a test be, apparently my OLED TV has blooming as well. It isn’t even dark yet and im getting ”bloom”, in fact there’s enough light for reflections on the TV to be a problem. Guess why there’s ”blooming” on an OLED panel? Because that is how light works, the pixels that are emitting the light aren’t sending it in a straight line into your eyes and pixelated by your brain.

So when your eyes are watching a screen that’s very bright compared to the light in the room you cannot clearly distinguish between the pixels that are off next to the ones that are on, they sort of blend together around the edges instead of being a clear line.

I can do the exact same thing with the exact same result on my iPhone with an OLED panel. So in actual pratical use my iPads Mini-LED display behaves like my OLED TV, there will be a halo effect if I have the brightness way up there in a dark room.

 

[thadoggfather]

I just had to do a test be, apparently my OLED TV has blooming as well. It isn’t even dark yet and im getting ”bloom”, in fact there’s enough light for reflections on the TV to be a problem. Guess why there’s ”blooming” on an OLED panel? Because that is how light works, the pixels that are emitting the light aren’t sending it in a straight line into your eyes and pixelated by your brain.

So when your eyes are watching a screen that’s very bright compared to the light in the room you cannot clearly distinguish between the pixels that are off next to the ones that are on, they sort of blend together around the edges instead of being a clear line.

I can do the exact same thing with the exact same result on my iPhone with an OLED panel. So in actual pratical use my iPads Mini-LED display behaves like my OLED TV, there will be a halo effect if I have the brightness way up there in a dark room.

I have a 2015 and 2016 oled

neither bloom. You need to adjust brightness in a dark room until you hit that perfect level

most likely you have crushed blacks and brightness too high to where it’s showing artifacts

self emitting pixels shouldn’t bloom

 

[dandrewk]

A parable:

A guy goes to his doctor complaining of elbow pain whenever the holds his arms out, parallel to the ground and dangles his forearm in an odd, inverted position. X-rays turn out to be negative.

Not satisfied, he goes to an orthopedic surgeon who performs additional tests. Again negative.

Finally, he seeks out a world renowned orthopedic surgeon based in Switzerland. The doctor reviews the tests, and tells his patient he has the solution to his problem:

"DON'T DO THAT!"

 

[Mr Retina]

I’m not here to defend the device to the death and I dont have a pony in this race, but these threads just make me think people are just now realizing the limitations of LED backlight technology when the majority of users have some form of LED tv over an OLED (I have both). My sony 930e is a light cannon of a display And gets crazy bright especially in HDR content Unlike my Lg CX OLED(which I love to death). Its really easy to show blooming on any LED backlit Display, even if it has extremely Software regulated local dimming like a lot the newer samsung QLED TVs. I made my living room pitch Black last night and airplayed my 11inch pro to my 930e and turned the brightness super high. Notes app black background, made White lines and got lightsabers across the screen. I can replicated the same thing on my 11 pro But its less noticeable because the screen has laughable black levels, and were all used to seeing grey black backgrounds Rather than black backgrounds On ipads for the past decade. Should apple gone with OLED? Maybe, but you‘re not going to get anything near the high peak brightness with HDR content on a self emissive display since its a limitation with its currently technology Even though they Started adding large heat sinks and tricks to try to increase OLED peak brightness, but those are only currently possible on large tv displays like the sony a90J..

 

[maluba27]

So here are some last pictures from my iPads. I set the brightness of both iPads (2020 and 2021) to 30%. iPad 2021 on the right shows clearly extreme blooming in a dark room. In the notes app, mini LED shows its advantages, but in the calendar app the differences are barely noticeable.

Everybody must decide on his own which screen is better. I prefer to use a LCD with even backlight, instead of this wired glowing around a pure black screen.

 

[ofarlig]

I have a 2015 and 2016 oled

neither bloom. You need to adjust brightness in a dark room until you hit that perfect level

most likely you have crushed blacks and brightness too high to where it’s showing artifacts

self emitting pixels shouldn’t bloom

Nope no crushed blacks at all really, it is well calibrated. If I get close to the screen I can clearly see the distinct pixel line where pixels are off given I cover the bright light from the white object shining at me. But at a normal viewing distance your eyes will see the same effect as blooming when displaying a bright white object in a dark room. Our eyes aren’t feeding the brain a pixel perfect copy of the screens we view, light is emitted in all directions from the screen so if the light is bright enough your brain will show you a grayish halo effect that looks just like the blooming we are talking about.

My point is that at my normal brightness levels I cannot see any blooming on my mini-LED display even in a dark room with white on black just like on my OLED TV. If I push the brightness levels up I get the halo effect on the OLED TV and blooming on the mini-LED (as well as the same effect as on the OLED-TV which is making the problem more obvious). Practically there’s little difference between the results even though they occur for different reasons, but both occur in situations I don’t see many people being in.

 

[Jensend]

I just had to do a test be, apparently my OLED TV has blooming as well. It isn’t even dark yet and im getting ”bloom”, in fact there’s enough light for reflections on the TV to be a problem. Guess why there’s ”blooming” on an OLED panel? Because that is how light works, the pixels that are emitting the light aren’t sending it in a straight line into your eyes and pixelated by your brain.

So when your eyes are watching a screen that’s very bright compared to the light in the room you cannot clearly distinguish between the pixels that are off next to the ones that are on, they sort of blend together around the edges instead of being a clear line.

I can do the exact same thing with the exact same result on my iPhone with an OLED panel. So in actual pratical use my iPads Mini-LED display behaves like my OLED TV, there will be a halo effect if I have the brightness way up there in a dark room.

Your eyes cause the blooming, not the OLED display.
This new iPad has blooming on the display.
Perhaps the blooming on the iPad is subtle enough that the blooming caused by your eyes is more significant than the blooming on the device itself.
(edit: just saw the post before this one that clarifies this)