Some iPhone 16 Pro units are plagued by a yellow display issue

The iPhone 16 Pro has won its fair share of plaudits, but two of its biggest strengths have also troubled users. Recently, there were reports of camera-related woes that resulted in a non-responsive camera app and other related bugs. Now, it’s the display that has left many users unhappy. 

“I noticed that my iPhone has a yellowish display tint. Even with True Tone off and night mode off. I love the feel of this phone but the whites being yellow throws my experience off,” says a user report on the official Apple community discussions forum. 

Similar reports about a yellow tint on the iPhone 16 Pro’s screen have also appeared on Reddit. It seems only a small batch is affected by the warmer-than-usual color reproduction issue. A few of the affected owners also claimed to have seen the difference side-by-side with units that had a normal screen. 

“So, I took it in the the apple store to compare with the display models. These did not have any issues at all! So I sent mine back (bought online). Now I don’t know what to do,” writes another user on the Apple forum. It seems the units that were assembled in the early batch or got a certain OLED panel are experiencing the color disparity. 

“We tried every single setting and made all 4 phones have the exact same settings and two of the phones had a more yellow ish weird color,” claims another report. “We found that the two phones that have that horrible display color were made in August compared to the other two phones which were made in September” 

On Reddit, multiple iPhone 16 Pro users have also discussed similar yellow tint or temperature imbalance woes affecting the phone’s OLED screen. A handful of users have reported an off-axis color shift, which can also give a green-ish tint to the screen. 

“I have the same issue, tilting phone towards you, such as when opening control centre while holding phone in one hand, you notice this incredible color distortion on white backgrounds,” writes another iPhone 16 Pro owner on Reddit.

From user testimonies, it appears that Apple Store workers are aware of the display color problems, but so far, there is no official repair or replacement policy in place for it. Apple is yet to confirm whether it’s a hardware-specific issue. 

“Sadly non of the apple employees I encountered do anything about it. They just tell me to return it and order a new one,” reads another user report. This won’t be the first time that Apple has had to deal with complaints of yellow-ish screens on iPhones. 

Some users are suggesting that you should disable True Tone in order to get the right color balance, but according to user reports, that doesn’t seem to be a universal solution. If your iPhone 16 Pro exhibits similar screen-related predicaments, you can check whether this trick works by following this path: Settings > Display > True Tone.

Apple also lets users adjust the color temperature to get the desired color profile, so that’s worth checking out. One can also try playing with the Night Shift toggle to see if it can offer any respite from the screen tint woes.

If that doesn’t fix the problems, you might want to head over to the Accessibility section and disable the Color Filters option, or even adjust the White Point. But do keep in mind that these steps won’t fix the yellow tint issue if it’s a hardware-side flaw.

Digital Trends has reached out to Apple and will update this story as soon as we receive a response.