Some iPhone X Displays Plagued By Mysterious 'Green Line of Death' (thenextweb.com)

Some iPhone X owners are reporting a random green line appearing on their displays. According to The Next Web, "the defect has already started to take on the endearing 'Green Line of Death' moniker." From the report: Several users across Apple forums and social media have reported the error -- I've counted over a dozen accounts, and MacRumors mentions it's read "at least 25" such reports. Oddly, the issue doesn't appear to affect users immediately, only showing up after some time with regular usage. In some cases it alternates with a purple line, for variety. It generally appears towards the right or left sides of the display, and sometimes it simply disappears altogether. Weird. Either way, it appears to be a hardware defect affecting a small number of users, and Apple appears to be replacing affected units. Mac Rumors first reported the issue.

Comments

Hmmm.

[msauve]

So, 25 reports, out of how many (hundred thousands / millions)? It can be green or purple, on the left or right side. And, Apple is replacing those that exhibit the problem.

Is a 25/100000+ failure rate really significant for a brand new device, for any product outside of life critical medical ones?

Re:"Green Line of Death"?

[rtb61]

It makes sense as a video firm ware bug, likely triggered by a composite of video instructions of a particular series. Easy fix, reboot, problematic for some phones with fixed batteries because once on, they might not ever fully and totally reboot. Phones need a hard wired no power to the phone switch.

One of the column drivers is stuck on or fried

[Hal_Porter]

You see this failure mode in Samsung phones with an OLED display. And the iPhone X uses a Samsung display.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Seems like it is a bad vertical line driver looking at this.

https://us.community.samsung.c...

One of the vertical line drivers is stuck 'on'. So you get a line mostly in one of the primary colours - R, G or B. Or, less common, a combination of the two.

My S5 is still fine, but for some reason I've seen a few people with battered looking S7s and S8s with the vertical line. Not sure if the battering causes the failure or if some display panels just fail spontaneously.

Incidentally, there's an amusing bit of Apple overcharging for glass

https://www.theverge.com/circu...

The iPhone X went on sale today, and with it, Apple released some information about the phoneâ(TM)s repair pricing â" and like the phone itself, it gets expensive. If you donâ(TM)t have the extended warranty, a screen replacement will cost $279. Thatâ(TM)s more than twice the price of an iPhone 6 screen replacement ($129) and about 65 percent higher than a new iPhone 8 screen ($169). The pricing was first spotted by MacRumors.

If that sounds high, you should be careful not to damage an iPhone X in any other way: all other out-of-warranty repairs will cost $549. Again, thatâ(TM)s a lot more than what other recent iPhones cost to repair. iPhone 8 repairs cost $349 and 8 Plus repairs cost $399. That means if you crack the glass back of the iPhone X (or the iPhone 8), you might just want to live with it.

Appleâ(TM)s extended warranty, AppleCare+, often looks like a pricey upsell. But for iPhone X buyers, it seems like it might be a necessary safety net. Appleâ(TM)s warranty costs $199 for the iPhone X (up from $129 for the iPhone 8 and $149 for the 8 Plus); but while the warranty itself is more expensive, warranty service fees (which apply only when Apple is repairing something with âoeaccidental damageâ) donâ(TM)t go up at all. So an iPhone X can still get a $29 screen repair if itâ(TM)s under warranty, and it can still get a $99 repair for anything else under AppleCare+, too.

So it's $279 for a replacement display out of warranty. Or $29 with warranty. And the warranty costs $199. And all other repairs are a whopping $549.

So if you're the sort of person who cracks the display on your phone, you're going to be paying through the nose for it.

IHS reckons the display assembly is

http://www.businesswire.com/ne...

IHS Markit estimates the cost of the display module, which includes the cover glass, AMOLED panel and Force Touch sensor, at $110.

I.e. Apple make a fair bit of profit out of people dropping their phones. Arguably the reason Apple and Samsung have moved to glass front and back is that glass breaks and repairs are profitable. Also, especially in the Samsung case, it's hard to take the phone apart without damaging expensive bits if you look at the iFixit videos.

I reckon I could get a whole new, or at least 'pre-owned' S5 for less than $279 if I looked around a bit.