The Faulty iMac Saga: Chapter 2, Even Steve Jobs Can't Fix 'Em [Broken]

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/image...500x_app11.jpgThe latest iMac has been shipping for over two months, yet Apple is still mailing out broken iMacs. The catch? Even Steve Jobs himself cannot fix iMacs wrought with yellow, flickering screens.
Can You Safely Purchase an iMac Yet?

Nope.
Why?

Yellow screens and flickering screens are both persistent problems, still being reported by our readers, that no firmware update has fixed. Also, it looks like new orders may be getting delayed, meaning that you might as well wait until these systems are shipping immediately before handing Apple a few grand.
Can Writing Steve Jobs Make It Right?

Nope again.
Seriously, from one reader:

"I was (un)lucky enough to buy a 27" imac...I noticed the disturbing yellow tinge to the bottom of the screen, though it's quite a bit better than the first one you had. As I became more and more enraged, I began to search for an answer and after being rebuffed by the Apple tech people as they refused to act like the yellowing was anything more than a one of situation, I resorted to desperate measures.
I mailed [email protected]. It worked. In a way. I was promised that I could essentially have as many replacements as I wanted until it was fixed, but it was clear that there was no way to guarantee that my new machine would be problem free, much as the your experience with the Apple people in your third article."

I always find it amusing that so many people write Jobs himself with their technical problems, but when even the highest of high technical support cannot make a product right, there's a SERIOUS PROBLEM.
LEDs Not the Problem

One extremely tech-knowledgeable reader wrote me after dissecting his own yellowed iMac. He dug around inside the monitor and color-temperature-tested all of the machine's LED backlighting. He said that the LEDs all read about 9300K, which is, in fact, very, very cool (think blue, not yellow), and brightness readings were normal as well. Then he confirmed his findings on ANOTHER yellow iMac, recording all LEDs as within expected thresholds of +-10mcd brightness, +- 20nm in color.
So from what we can tell, iMac displays don't have an LED problem—which certainly comes as a surprise.
Quote if the Week

"I feel that after sixteen years of possessing various Apple computers that never gave me one day's interruption, I am being taken advantage of by Apple."

Keep those updates coming! Mail them to submissionsATgizmodo.com. And keep fighting the good fight!


http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?p=1 http://a.rfihub.com/eus.gif?eui=2226 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/gizm...?d=H0mrP-F8Qgo</img> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/gizm...?d=yIl2AUoC8zA</img> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/gizm...Xs:D7DqB2pKExk</img> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/gizm...Xs:V_sGLiPBpWU</img>
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/gizmo...~4/u5fs0kHviQU

More...