IPad mini teardown sheds new light on ‘jelly scroll’ controversy

A further teardown of Apple’s latest iPad mini by iFixit found a clue that could explain the “jelly scroll” effect that some tablet users have complained about.

In case you missed our previous coverage on the subject, some iPad mini users have noticed a subtle, staggered disconnect between the right and left sides of the screen when scrolling through content. Some people see it right away, others need to point it out to them, and some still don’t notice it even when told.

After writing about it, Apple commented on the story telling us that the effect was expected. From our coverage:

In response to our request, Apple told us that the 6th generation iPad mini jelly scroll issue is normal behavior for LCD screens. Since these screens refresh row by row, there is a small delay between when the rows at the top of the screen and the rows at the bottom are refreshed. This can lead to uneven scrolling issues like those seen on iPad.

When disassembling the mini, iFixit found that the controller card that drives the tablet screen is oriented vertically. On the other hand, that of the iPad Air is oriented horizontally. iFixit suggests that the jelly scrolling effect occurs when the orientation of the tablet does not match the location of the controller board, because the row-by-row refresh also occurs relative to the orientation of that board. .

Indeed, the slow motion images of the iPad mini show the jelly scrolling in portrait mode (a vertical orientation) but not in landscape (a horizontal orientation). And the iPad Air also features a jelly scroll in the same test; it just does it in horizontal orientation instead of portrait orientation.

The iPad Pro has a vertically oriented display controller board. While another video test showed that jelly scrolling still occurs on this tablet in portrait mode, just like the mini, the Pro’s 120Hz refresh rate almost obscures it from most human eyes. All this to say that while the effect may be more noticeable on one device than another, it is common on any OLED or LCD screen, iPad or whatever.

Aside from the recent online controversy over the iPad mini’s Jelly Scroll, iFixit teardowns have generally focused on exploring how easy devices are to repair. The iPad mini received a 3 out of 10 for repairability. Earlier this week, iFixit also demolished the iPhone 13 Pro and gave it a 6 out of 10.

Listing image by iFixit