New iPad Pro OLED screens have a HDR color bug

By Wesley Hilliard

Initial reviews of the new iPad Pro models have arrived, and so has news of an OLED bug causing some colors not to display correctly.

iPad Pro uses tandem OLED for a brighter output

Apple lifted the news embargo so initial reviews of the 13-inch iPad Pro and 11-inch iPad Pro could be published. However, some bad news has arrived with the good as a significant OLED bug has appeared.

According to iMore, which discovered the issue, specific HDR content causes blown out colors that show up as blobs or white streaks. It occurs with particular shades of blue, like navy or indigo.

An example of the color peaking issue. Image credit: iMore

Apple says it is a known issue and that a fix is coming. No timeline was provided, and there isn't any mention of which operating system version was in use on the test device -- likely iPadOS 17 .4 .

There doesn't appear to be a fix in iPadOS 17. 5, which released earlier Monday, at least it wasn't mentioned. The fix will likely arrive in a 17.5.1 update or similar.

Starting Wednesday, the new iPad Pro models will arrive in customers' hands. Since the HDR problem is visible and could lead to users thinking their device is broken, expect a fix sooner rather than later.