Okay so first of all English is not my first language
- Problem speculation: As somebody else mentioned in that 3K+ replies post about iPhone 12 Pro (Yes I indeed read every single comments in that 149+ pages discussion), this video is really helpful ( you need to turn on subtitles yourself) Though the video shows Pro Max while I have minis,
I think the core problem still is that the display itself can't stop producing excessive green light(except black, which turns off completely), which obviously, is a hardware defect and probably require a recall. The best way to see this yourself is too turn off all your nights at night, turn off true tone, night shift whatever, let the display shows grey color (I use AIDA64 from app store, there's basic screen test function built in). See if you see any color other than pure grey. Here's the test results from the Youtube video if you don't want to watch ( this test is not done in a completely dark room please take with a GREEN of salt)- When showing white or grey, there's more green than red and blue
- When showing pure red, there're a little green and blue, which means the red saturation is been punished. (Isn't too much of a problem to me personally compared to the excessive green that caused garbage color shift) It just means not that red in HDR videos, probably
- When showing pure green, there's a little red. When showing pure blue, there's also a little red. So it probably can't stop producing red color too. (not as much as green though)
- Red + Green = Yellow
- My experience: I have 2 iPhone 12 mini, first one week 43 (10/25), and the second one is a white box replacement from Apple ( week 42, 10/18,) I can't tell a single difference from those two, both piss yellow/green. My old beloved Xs is thrown into for comparison too. When I got Xs, I noticed the true tone is yellower than my old X. I got used to it in minutes, because, it's not yellower than my room lights. It's totally different from something garbage yellow true tone that are way too yellower than my room lights.
Photos are taken on an 11inch 2018 iPad Pro in a complete dark room. The left phone is the original iPhone 12 mini (Week 43), mid one is my iPhone XS, the right one is the white box replacement iPhone 12 mini under Apple Care+ (Week 42). (I purchased unlocked and they give me a locked one, really frustrated with 10+ hours with Apple, still not really solved. It's a separate long existed issue after some Google that might worth another post). My iPad is space grey and do reflect some screen lights which might affect true tone. (A slight green screen shines at mirror, and the true tone thinks everyone else is green so it works harder to become the greenest in the room, sooner or later, there's nothing can be more green that true tone, the energy becomes immeasurable, space time has been bent, and green is now the new white) Auto brightness is off in accessibility settings too. Brightness are set to 100%, 0% by control center, 50%, 25% or 30% ( Sorry I forgot, probably doesn't matter) by asking Siri. With true tone off, on my iPad view finder, I can't really see too much difference, however, the 2 minis are indeed much greener with my naked eyes. ( I wear glasses so maybe not totally naked). With true tone on and maximum brightness , eh when I shot from the front, my iPhone Xs became weirdly red, which to be honest, is worse than 12 minis in this one case only. It probably has something to do with my iPad reflections but I don't know for sure) The photos with huge difference are with true tone on; the last 6 or 5 photos are with my room lights on. (My room lights are on the warm side) Photos doesn't show that much difference are with true tone off). In short, green tint indeed. However, true tone problem might solely due to the tinted screen, or a more aggressive algorithm alone with the tinted screen. - If somebody has a microscope, please help.
I still have a Canon EOS 70D that I failed to resell, and with the EF-S 35mm macro lens I failed to sell. I, indeed can see subpixels using this setup ( I was curious before). So I decide to give it try. The first set is white, just for demonstration. All true tone, auto britghtness, night shift off. Candidates are, iPhone 12 mini (week 42), iPhone Xs, iPad Pro 11inch 2018, Redmagic 5G (natual mode, oled but not LG or Samsung. Acer VG271U 1440p 27' monitor (This one I don't bother change color settings, just want to see subpixels, for fun). Focal length is shortest available on my lens , and manual focus, all lights turned off. Brightness set to minimum) Camera settings, manual mode, 6500k. Whatever available set to the middle one or the center point, color neutral. noise reduction and whatever set to off except lens correction.Expo.comp./AEB is auto though cause I have no experience with it, tbh most of the time I'm on auto mode) F2.8 color space adobe rgb. It's hard to focus, and when focused, there's a rainbow effect. Part is more green, part is more red, like this
And it shows in the zoomed in photos, I just zoomed out the parts that shows layouts clearly. Also I have tempered glass on all my devices except VG271U. Photos are taken closed to the edge because it's close to focusWhite ISO 400 shutter 1/800 The VG271U is just microsoft edge with google open shutter 1/400 though. The Redmagic 5G is just the background of the google play store because their AIDA64 app doesn't have screen test function.
So tired so the rest of the test will just be iPhone Xs and iPhone 12 miniBlue test. 100% brightness ISO 400 shutter 1/800..because I found it's impossible to focus at 0% brightness. From here I will stop show you the screenshots, just cropped image.all these behaviors happened on both 12 mini and Xs. Just checked and it happened on iPad Pro too..
iPhone XS
iPhone 12 mini
Okay I took tons of photos of red green blue at different brightness with rooms lights off/ on and I couldn't tell the difference between them. The only difference I noticed is that, when showing red, The iPhone 12 mini is more red than my Xs. my Xs is a little bit orange compared to the mini...I'm a little surprised. I'm no display experts nor physicist I do find something interesting on BOTH 12 mini and Xs under the "rainbow" effect under camera.
The dark line is where pixels can be seen when zooming in. (The dark line only exists on camera) And if we zoom in the green photos, you can see red dots, and a little bit blue ( might be my imagination). When viewing red, you can see a very little green, and for blues, you can find red if you try really hard. It might just be my camera noise though.( zoom really in to see the reds) I found 12 mini has more reds. it might just be my camera though. BTW, some blue is sort of purple on my camera.. I cranked the ISO to highest which probably means it doesn't mean anything and it's the camera problem. Because
So nothing has been achieved here...one thing I learned is that 12 minis probably can turn off green completely unlike what I thought before.
- Conclusion (Not really): Here is my two cents. It might just because of the new material (ceramic shield or coating or reflection or whatever) cause some unexpected shift of light (It probably requires a scientist to understand what's actually going on if this is the case). Or more likely, might be intentional for "eye protecting" by panel manufactures (I think it's totally BS), the green pixels are just stronger/brighter than red & blue, or the blue is too weak. Maybe it's because Samsung's calibrators at the panel factory all broke a little bit because of some design flaw and nobody noticed. Maybe the calibration is done by Apple though (Foxconn, or whatever I don't know) I knew every panel is different. However, my two minis look exactly the same. This makes me wonder, if Apple wants to fix it, it could be done by software. Just calibrate the affected batches, tune down the green a little bit...might lose a little color range this way. It's better than crappy colors right now though. Or maybe, it would require a recall, who knows. Samsung mobile could do a global Note 7 recall, Apple can do it too. ( I know they probably both don't want to do recall, Samsung had to because Note 7s are killing people) Or maybe, Apple will change the world once again, and green is now the new white.
- Solution: If you are unhappy with the tinted white, let Apple know. Return the phone or exchange the phone until you are satisfied, or give up on iPhone 12s. If you stuck with replacement like me, eh, buy Apple Care+, go for express replacement. I never used OnePlus products but I remembered their slogan : NEVER SETTLE. There's somebody got a week 47 iPhone 12 Pro with old-fashioned blue screen in that 3k+ post (Cold color screen is not for everyone but with true tone, it's probably better than a green color screen
that's for no one) Meanwhile you can do this Youtube, yes, it's the color filter thing. However there's a little trick:- (Optional: Get in a darkroom
turn the brightness to 0)turn off true tone, night shift, turn off auto brightness in accessibility - Turn the strength to max ( far right)
- Adjust the color tint from left to right until the perfect point that the yellow and green pencils (3rd, 4th and 5th pencil from left to right) are all just dark black (about 70% I guess).
- Turn the strength to minimum. Or ,if you really want a blue screen ( I don't), turn the strength up a little bit to your like) Wish somebody with a colorimeter can tell us now which color is the strongest in white. If red is the weakest color, turn slider to right a little bit.; if blue is the weakest, turn up the strength; if green is the weakest, eh do nothing. Maybe balance blue and red a little will help a little I guess.
Now you can enjoy your new true tone, night shift or whatever, should be closer to your old device now.
- Cost: color accuracy, saturation, dynamic range probably. You will still be disgusted when you take a screenshot because the screen shot interface, doesn't have color filter applied. By no means you should let Apple get away with this by simply using color filter, remember, there's a cost. An imperfect comparison would be you cranked up Red, Green, Blue all three to 100 in Photoshop. Yes it's balanced, but do you really want that kind of color accuracy, saturation?
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