How I deal with Macbook Pro Retina Screen Stain
Am I the only one facing this issue?
Last year, I bought a Macbook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) to get started in ios development.
Few months later, I was shocked to discover stain/scratches, with shape of keyboards starts to appear on the screen.
Following Apple’s instruction, I dampen a lint-free cloth with water only to clean the computer’s screen.
But the stain stubbornly remains no matter how many times I try.
Stain Reason, fingers Oil?
Panicked, I immediately tried googling and find that the stain is due to anti-reflective coating wearing off.
According to Apple forum and MacRumors, some possible reasons the coating wears off are:
- pressure of the keys on the display when closed
- use of third-party cleaning solution & microfiber cloths
- fingers oil transferred to the keys, then to the display, and “corrode” the coating
Among the reasons, I find that “fingers oil” is the main culprit for this incident. Because the stain on my screen is concentrated at the spot of frequently used keys (more oily).
Is there a way to remove the stain?
NO. I have browsed through the internet for numerous hours, but have yet to find a way.
The stain on screen are really noticeable and annoying while I was coding in a dark theme text editor.
I was forced to change to light theme to make the stain less distracting.
Apple Changes Screen for free
Few months later, despite paying extra care in using the Macbook, the screen coating issue become worse, that even a white color background could not hide the stain.
Fortunately, Apple recognizes that the problem affects a lot of users and has launched a quality program to change affected screen for free. Thus, I send in my laptop to Apple’s service center for a screen replacement and got it back with a new screen two weeks later.
How to protect the new screen?
I am grateful for the free screen replacement.But then, I was also really scared that the new screen will behave the same as the old screen after some time.
The friendly support at the service center advised me to put a piece of lint-free cloth in between the screen and keyboard when closed. This is to avoid the oil on the keys from getting onto the screen.
And here is what I did:
Hopefully, this will protect the screen sufficiently well for a few more years. Do you face this issue too? Please let me know if you faces similar issues and how you deal with it.
