Retina MacBook Pro Users Still Complaining of Image Persistence

Back in late June,early purchasers of Apple's Retina MacBook Pro reported on the image persistence caused by some production issues. Having used a device for a certain period of time, they noticed its screen became vaguely and left traces of previous images.

Apple replaced the defective devices. DisplayMate’s Ray Soneira has mentioned the persistence was caused by early production issue, but three months later, users still complain of the released product’s “ghosting” issue. A lot of messages were posted on MacRumors' forums and at Apple Support Communities which are largely reported on the issues related to the LG displays and experienced by the manufacturer. Samsung Displays were not affected by the issue.

Some of the users reported that their third or even fourth replacements are the devices that still affected by the image persistence. While Apple replaced the affected devices, the company has posted a new document confirming that this issue is a normal phenomenon for In-Plane Switching (IPS) displays used in Retina MacBook Pro and other company’s products.

On an IPS display, when an image such as a login window is left on screen for a long period of time, you may temporarily see a faint remnant of the image even after a new image replaces it. This is referred to as "persistence," "image retention," or "ghosting." This is normal behavior for an IPS display, and the faint image will disappear over time.

You can prevent image persistence by using the display sleep feature to turn off the display when it is not in use. You can also use a screen saver to make sure that a static image isn't on the display for long periods of time. Both of these features are on by default in Mac OS X, but you can adjust the settings as needed.

As noted on MacRumors’ forum, users can enter the following command into the Terminal to identify the displays manufactures:

ioreg -lw0 | grep "EDID" | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6

Model numbers beginning with "LP" belong to the LG displays, and the displays with the "LSN" numbers are manufactured by Samsung. The users who experienced the issue noted it was not particularly noticeable at first glance, but could worsen over time.