iOS 17.1 is coming to fix the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s screen burn-in issue

By James On Oct 18, 2023

While we didn’t find any screen issues to complain about in our iPhone 15 Pro Max review, numerous owners of the most expensive iPhone 15 model have noticed burn-in issues on their phone screens – issues that iOS 17.1 will fix.

As noted by MacRumors and others, the upcoming software update mentions a fix for issues that could “cause persistent displaying,” or screen burn. It’s not available to everyone yet, but it has been pushed to beta testers and developers.

Image persistence, or screen burn, is when you can see faint remnants of what was previously displayed on a screen. It has long been a problem with OLED panels, and is common on display TVs, for example, where channel logos ‘burn’ into the screen because they are visible 24 hours a day.

Burn-in has been less of an issue in recent years, following advances in hardware and software, and it’s only potentially a problem if you display a fixed image on an OLED screen for extended periods of time. Nevertheless, signs of burn-in – ghostly text and icons – have been noticed on some iPhone 15 Pro Max screens.

Available soon

Apple doesn’t go into detail about how these image persistence issues were resolved, but it will be a relief to phone owners that a software solution is available. According to reports on Reddit and elsewhere, Apple previously replaced phones for people affected by the burn-in problem.

If you have an iPhone that is showing signs of burn-in, we recommend that you hold off until iOS 17.1 is released to see if this has any effect on the problem. If you are still having problems after this, please contact Apple directly.

There’s nothing dramatic coming with iOS 17.1. There are minor improvements to AirDrop transfers, StandBy mode and the Apple Music app – including options for favorite albums and playlists, as well as songs.

According to regulators in France – where the software patch will fix radio frequency issues on the iPhone 12 – the iOS 17.1 update should arrive on Tuesday, October 24, building on all the new features we’ve already seen in iOS 17.