iPad Mini 6 Now Reported To Have A Screen Distortion Problem
Considering how it has remained virtually unchanged over the years, the 2021 iPad mini, a.k.a. the iPad mini 6, has almost overshadowed the iPhone 13 because of the upgrades and changes that it got this year. While those changes have so far looked and sounded great, there seem to be some kinks that haven't been ironed out before the tablet went into production. Following complaints about its "jelly scrolling" effect, some iPad mini 6 owners are now reporting a different issue, one that is still tied to the slate's shiny new screen.
Apple changed the formula significantly for the sixth-gen iPad mini that goes beyond just the design. One of the biggest is the larger screen that brought along with it a new display controller and may have forced a new internal layout of the tablet's components. Unfortunately, those changes may also be the cause for some of the small slate's woes, though the jury is still out on what is triggering this latest report.
A thread on Reddit has some owners chiming in on the observation of a weird phenomenon occurring on the iPad mini 6's screen. When held in a vertical (portrait) orientation, lightly pressing on some parts of the screen causes a strange flickering distortion near the top of the display. The distortions happen in the same areas and are triggered when pressing within some radius away from those points.
The Reddit user who started the thread theorized it might have something to do with the batteries and some improperly folded ribbons, but iFixit's teardown didn't reveal any such cause for concern. They did, however, theorize that the placement of the new screen's controller may have something to do with the scrolling latency that has been reported first.
The slightly good news is that this strange distortion doesn't seem to be a widespread case and, considering the obvious issue, easily warrants a replacement. It will be interesting to hear what Apple will have to say about it if it even acknowledges the issue at all. It probably can't claim, however, that this is normal behavior for LCD screens.