Apple: Yellow iPhone 3G Screen Is "Warmer" and "By Design"

Those pee-tinted screens Blam discovered in the Gizmodo iPhone 3G review are there on purpose, and are meant to make the screen "warmer" and easier to see, Apple said today in its first official response on the matter. Apple's senior director of iPhone product marketing, Bob Borchers, told MacWorld that the yellow hue was neither a defect nor a bug.

The first gen iPhone's whiter coloring was reminiscent of harsh, fluorescent lighting, he said, and the 3G was designed to be sunnier and warm. Jason Snell of MacWorld did some follow up on the comments, and apparently they're accurate. The new iPhone 3G's color temperature is roughly 6800 to 7300 Kelvins, compared with approximately 8300K on the first iPhone. MacWorld tests also confirmed that at maximum brightnesses, the new display is brighter than the old one. Borchers hinted, but did not confirm, a future software update could include color settings. UPDATE: Testing was completed by Richard Baguley of WirelessInfo.com [MacWorld]