Ghostly Retina Display May Haunt Apple in This Class Action Lawsuit

An Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) laptop owner named Beau Hodges has initiated a possible class action lawsuit against Apple over image persistence, or “ghosting,” that plagues some models of the MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro debuted in June 2012 and soon after, consumers began complaining that images that were displayed for about 10 minutes on the Retina display would persist for several minutes afterwards as a faint “ghost.”

The MacBook Pro features Apple’s advanced Retina display, which uses “in-plane switching” technology, according to Apple’s website.

Many affected consumers noticed that the majority of the MacBook Pros with the image persistence problem were outfitted with display panels manufactured by LG Electronics. However, Apple provides no way of distinguishing the computers made with the LG display panels versus the unaffected ones made by Samsung (SSNLF.PK).

Apple has provided a support document on its website that instructs owners of the affected computers to use the screen saver to eliminate the image. Apple also advises users to enable the display sleep feature on their computers to avoid creating a “ghost” image.