Apple Dismisses iPad Mini Jelly Scrolling Bug As Expected Behavior, Are You Holding It Wrong?
Does something feel off when scrolling webpages on your shiny new iPad mini? Maybe you're holding it wrong (not really). Complaints have surfaced that when holding the latest iPad mini in portrait mode, there is an ever-so-slight delay between how fast the left and right sides of the screen get refreshed, in what is known as a jelly scroll effect. Apple's answer? Everything is normal.
For those who notice it, the effect is certainly not normal, though. And it seems to be most noticeable when scrolling through text on a webpage or document. The text and lines on one side of the iPad mini adjusts its respective position just a tick before the other side, and becomes more prevalent when scrolling at a slower pace (versus whipping through a document like you're racing to the finish line).
Dieter Bohn from The Verge posted a slow-mo video to Twitter that highlights the effect. Check it out...
Here is is slow-mo video of scrolling on the iPad Min i slowed down EVEN MORE in a frame-by-frame step through. Notice how the right moves up faster than the left.
— Dieter Bohn (@backlon) September 22, 2021
In normal usage you barely see it, but every now and then it become noticeable. In landscape it goes away entirely pic.twitter.com/iq9LGJzsDI
"Notice how the right moves up faster than the left.
In normal usage you barely see it, but every now and then it become noticeable. In landscape it goes away entirely," Bohn says.
Multiple other sites have confirmed that the issue is present. And with all due apologies, it seems to be one of those things that once you are aware it is there, you'll always notice it. Kind of like a slight audio sync issue—if you notice that dialogue is off by even just a teeny, tiny bit from how an actor's mouth is moving, it will drive you insane (or maybe that's just me).
Apple told the folks at Ars Technica that this is just how LCD screens work—they refresh line by line, so there can be a slight delay between the lines at the top and the lines at the bottom. However, the site says it has not observed the same behavior on other iPad models with 60Hz displays, including both the iPad Air 4 and the latest iPad.
It's not clear if fixing the issue would require different hardware, or if it is something that could be rectified with a firmware update. Either way, it doesn't sound like Apple is interested in resolving the problem, because in Apple's eye, there is no problem. Gee, thanks.
