What happened to the iPad mini 6 "jelly screen" incident that shocked the entire Internet?

I don’t know if you have noticed that there have been more and more news about Apple’s quality issues in recent years. Last year, the iPhone 12 was returned and exchanged on a large scale by consumers due to the green screen phenomenon. Some netizens said that they replaced three iPhone 12s in a row before they got an iPhone that was not so "green". As time goes by, the iPhone green screen issue has gradually been forgotten.

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But in 2021, Apple once again became a hot topic on Weibo because of product quality issues. Take the recently popular iPad mini 6 jelly screen as an example. If the iPhone 12 green screen only affects the display effect in some scenes at most, then the jelly screen phenomenon can actually affect the user's actual experience.

Apple has publicly stated that the "jelly screen" phenomenon of the iPad mini 6 is a normal reaction of the LCD screen, it is not a problem, and the company does not need to repair it.

What happened to Apple, which once prided itself on its excellent workmanship and high product yield?

What is the jelly screen and will it affect us?

Many readers may be confused when hearing the word "jelly screen". Green screen, blue screen and flower screen are easy to understand, but does jelly screen mean that the screen is as soft and deformable as jelly? The so-called "jelly screen" phenomenon refers to the screen of an electronic device in portrait mode. When you slide the screen up and down with your finger, the refresh rate of the two sides of the screen is inconsistent, resulting in one side being fast and the other side being slow, and the content displayed on the screen is like shaking jelly.

Unfortunately, the same situation occurred with the iPad mini 6 that Xiao Lei bought on the official website, so if you find it difficult to understand this text, Xiao Lei can also take out a real picture to help you understand.

It can be seen that when Xiao Lei's finger swipes across the screen of iPad mini 6, the screen displays the content in a wavy manner, and the sense of fragmentation is very serious. It is no exaggeration to say that the jelly screen phenomenon of iPad mini 6 has seriously affected Xiao Lei's experience of using it, and he even thought about returning it.

As for why the iPad mini 6 has such a "low-level error", professionals said that the problem may be with the hardware. Generally speaking, mobile phones are installed in a vertical manner when installing the screen, so the vertical refresh is not obvious, while the iPad mini 6 screen is installed in a horizontal manner. However, considering that these screens are tested for horizontal and vertical display problems before leaving the factory, the problem of the iPad mini 6 is mainly due to quality control.

In addition to iPad mini6, OnePlus 5 also had the problem of jelly screen, but the causes of the two problems are somewhat different. Since iPad mini6 is equipped with an LCD screen, it takes a certain amount of time for the color of pixels to change, which is called "grayscale response time". In addition, there was a problem when installing the screen of iPad mini 6, which resulted in a long response time in portrait mode, causing the screen to have feedback delays when responding to operations. In mild cases, there will be ghosting, and in severe cases, the display content of the entire screen will be stretched and deformed, which greatly affects the viewing experience.

The problem with OnePlus 5 is relatively simple. Since OnePlus used a flip-screen process at the time (some professionals speculated that this was to leave more space for the newly added dual-camera system), the normally displayed text had a bit of a clustered effect, but it expanded when sliding in the opposite direction. The overall effect is somewhat similar to the jelly screen phenomenon of the iPad mini 6.

(The phone will slide normally only after it is turned upside down)

At that time, OnePlus said that the OnePlus 5's jelly screen problem could not be solved through software OTA , and even if the product was replaced, there was no guarantee that the new phone would not have this problem. In short, those "winners" could only choose to return the product or be patient. So what will Apple do this time? If the iPad mini 6 problem cannot be solved through software OTA, will Apple provide these consumers with a channel for return/exchange?

Is Apple's quality control really getting worse?

As a world-class technology company, Apple has always been popular with countless consumers for its excellent workmanship and good experience, but it is not the first time that Apple has had problems with quality control. As early as the iPhone 6s era, many users reported that they encountered "automatic shutdown" problems, and the solution given by Apple at the time was to provide free battery replacement services for these problematic devices.

iPhone 8 and iPhone X also had problems with motherboard defects, battery swelling, and screen touch problems. Although Apple promptly provided free repair and replacement services for these devices, it also discouraged some users who bought iPhones for the sake of peace of mind.

Here, Xiao Lei also uses a friend as an example: Xiao Lei's friend bought an iPhone 12 in May this year. In August, the earpiece frequently stopped working. Xiao Lei suggested that she go to an Apple after-sales service center for repair. Even though the repair time would be longer (Xiao Lei's friend reported that she waited a total of 14 days), it was the only way. What made her angry was that the repaired iPhone had new problems, which made her very disappointed with Apple. She said that if it couldn't be repaired again, she would switch to an Android phone.

In fact, Apple's yield rate has never been as high as we imagined. As for why it has been frequently exposed in recent years, it is mainly because the popularity of various social platforms has increased, the exposure rate of related issues has become higher and higher, and consumers are becoming more and more knowledgeable about mobile phones and have higher and higher requirements, which naturally creates a feeling that Apple's quality control rate has declined in recent years.

If the quality of apples deteriorates, will sales also decline?

Then another question arises: since Apple's products have quality control problems and even affect the actual experience, will it affect Apple's sales? Xiao Lei personally thinks that it basically will not.

Currently, in the domestic mobile phone market, only Apple can truly be called a high-end mobile phone. Of course, before Huawei was restricted, it was still able to compete with Apple. However, after Huawei was forced to fall to the bottom, Apple was the biggest beneficiary, and most of the domestic high-end mobile phone market share was taken away by Apple.

According to a report by market research firm IDC, in the first half of 2020, Huawei ranked first with 44.1% of the Chinese high-end market, and Apple ranked second with 44%. By July 2021, Apple's share of the high-end market rose to 63%, far exceeding all mobile phone brands, while Huawei's share fell to 14%. The two sets of data can basically objectively prove that Apple is still the "king" in the current high-end mobile phone market.

For those consumers who only like to buy high-end flagships, iPhone is their first choice when Huawei flagship phones are in serious shortage. Therefore, Xiao Lei can simply draw a conclusion: as long as Apple products do not have any particularly serious problems, it is basically impossible to affect actual sales.

But no matter what, as an iPhone user, Xiao Lei naturally doesn't want to spend 5,000 or 6,000 yuan to buy a problematic phone. I still hope that Apple can solve these problems as soon as possible. As the world's largest technology company by market value, it is indeed time to give users a better experience.