Chosen Solution

Hi, Display got cracked, bought a new (seller promoted as “genuine”) display via AliExpress. Display arrived today, all looked good and genuine. After finishing the repair, Display works fine, but within the display setting True Tone is now missing and no auto brightness functionality is available. My question is now, is this the limitation of the 3rd party display or is this because of some repair limitation from Apple, eg if you would run the system configuration as you would do with a repair at an AASP, would the display work again (eg display True Tone/ Auto Brightness) or is the 3rd party part missing some hardware “magic”? Does anyone know how to get this back to work? Similar to the iPhone Display as were you copy Display data to the new one and True Tone will work again? Thanks, Marcus Update (05/01/2020) Hi, to make sure we collect as much information as possible also for others that might be running into the same challenge, this is what I encountered so far:

  • Screen shows some dim light in the edges when booting up (not normal/not ok)
  • Under system preferences “Automatically Adjust Brightness” is marked as No
  • There is no True Tone no Automatically Adjust Brightness options displayed unter Displays in SysPref
  • Also did a SMC and P&R reset-no change

I have re-engaged with the seller, let’s see what happens next.

Finally, I can acknowledge that it is the Display itself which will make the whole thing work again or not. Tried 3 different Displays (2x China, 1x UK), all worked but Auto Brightness and True Tone failed. If you can live with this, it would be a way forward, you can just exchange the screen and it will work, only without these features, no Apple magic needed. I ended up with an original Apple Display, even without running Apple internal tools, everything (including TrueTone as well as Auto Brightness) worked instantly after exchange.

It’s not necessarily a “bad” part, they could be the same OEM part taken to seller during different stages of manufacturing. Finished parts will have been calibrated and programmed with calibration data, while the left-home-early ones don’t have that blessing from the factory. Or it could be a part made for earlier models that didn’t have true tone. Anyway it’s not something you can fix on your own, try replacing the display with known good parts. I’m too distant from newer messy Mac models to know for sure.

Same thing happened with my MacBook Pro 2017. OEM screen was expensive & wanted to save some money & opted for after market option. The new screen perfectly matched the quality externally. However, after countless resets, upgrade to Monterey…nothing changed in the display preference. Now I am seeing the display at full nits. t is probably the onboard chip that has “unprogrammed” flash-memory.