The iPad mini and its Liquid Retina redesign may have been the best product to come out of Apple’s California Streaming event, but some early adopters are reporting that they are experiencing the so-called “jelly effect” when scrolling where one side scrolls a tiny bit faster than the other giving the appearance of wobbling.
Unfortunately, Apple says this is “normal” behavior, according to a response sent to Ars Technica. Apple says that since the iPad mini has an LCD display and does not refresh line by line, “is a tiny delay between when the lines at the top of the screen and lines at the bottom are refreshed,” which can result in uneven scrolling.
The only problem is, Apple’s other LCD screens don’t have this problem, including the fifth-generation iPad mini. Numerous testers have noted that the screen effect, while very subtle, appears when scrolling through text and is most noticeable in portrait mode.
We’ve seen this reported on other Android phones before and it can usually be smoothed out through a software fix. Since Apple isn’t recognizing it as an official issue, however, it’s not clear whether Apple’s statement refers to hardware fixes. Apple also declined to repair 2018 iPad Pro models that were reportedly bent during production. But as with all Apple device issues, you should contact Apple if you experience this issue.
Along with the news display, the iPad mini received a complete overhaul, with a new design, A15 processor, upgraded cameras, 5G, and a power button equipped with Touch ID. It is available in four colors—space gray, pink, purple, and starlight—for $499 with 64GB of storage or $649 for 256GB of storage.
Michael Simon has been covering Apple since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his first PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He’s still waiting for that to come back in style tbh.
