Apple acknowledges Macbook Air screen problems, software fix coming

Apple’s new MacBook Air laptops may be gorgeous, but they’re not without problems, according to users complaining about screen issues. Now there’s word that Apple is aware of the problems and is working on a software fix, according to an internal memo published by the gadget site Boy Genius Report.

A few screen issues are being reported: Some users are seeing a flickering display and horizontal lines after waking up their Air from sleep mode or plugging in another display. Others are seeing their screens fade from light to dark after coming out of sleep mode. One temporary fix Apple’s memo offered is to put the computer to sleep again by closing the lid for 10 seconds, and then opening the lid to wake it up.

The memo states that the “issue has been isolated and will be addressed in an upcoming software update.” Hopefully, a software fix is enough to correct the issue — as the video below demonstrates, it seems to be a pretty glaring screen problem for some users. If it’s a hardware issue, Apple will have to issue a recall for its new Macbook Air computers.

Air users are also reporting that their computers are facing system crashes via kernel panics (a term used to describe major system crashes on Mac OSX and Linux machines). Apple’s memo didn’t mention that issue specifically, but a software update could potentially fix it as well.