The New Apple iPad Mini Is Affected by a Weird ‘Jelly Scrolling’ Issue

Last Updated on October 5, 2021 by Chandrakant Isi

Update [01 October 2021]: As we had predicted in the original article, Apple has refused to acknowledge that the “jelly scroll” effect is an issue. The company told Arstechnica that the latest iPad Mini’s display behaviour is “normal”.

Original Story:
The new Apple iPad Mini seems to be affected by a weird issue related to its display. As per the latest report, users are reporting a ‘jelly scrolling’ issue on their sixth-generation iPad Mini. Apparently, it is caused when the refresh rates of the left and right sides of the screen go out of sync. As a result, you end up with a wobbly effect in the middle. Based on the information available so far, it seems the problem is pronounced when scrolling text on a web page.

According to 9to5Mac, one of their readers spotted this issue on the brand new iPad Mini and went to the Apple store to get it replaced. To his surprised, it turned out that all iPad Mini demo units in the Apple Store had the same issue. This could be an indicator that the issue could be widespread.

Dieter Bohn, the Executive Editor at The Verge, has tweeted out a clip demonstrating the issue. It is hard to tell whether it is a software or hardware problem by simply looking at the video. However, if we had to make an educated guess, this seems like a screen tearing issue, which is looking unusual because the iPad Mini is held in portrait mode.

For those unaware, screen tearing is a result of the display’s refresh rate failing to keep up with the system’s frame rate. For instance, it happens when a processor is churning out 90 frames per second but the display hardware is capped at 60 refresh cycles in the same time. In such cases, the frame progresses while the screen is still in the middle of a refresh cycle.

Having said that, we can’t rule out other possibilities such as faulty LCD, display controllers, or something else. Knowing Apple, don’t be surprised if it is eventually labelled as a new revolutionary feature. This isn’t the first time users have reported screen issues on iPad. Recently, several users had reported “blooming” artefacts on iPad Pro’s Mini-LED display.