iPhone 4 Camera - Update

Upon further inspection, it seems apparent that my initial conclusion was incorrect, that being that the iPhone 4 AWB (Auto White Balance) either doesn't exist, is inactive, or is broken. The scene below was taken at my home last night.


Excuse the mess; my house is currently between tidy.

As we can see, the camera moves between a number of conflicting light sources, and it evidently does make some attempt to compensate. This is especially noticeable around the kitchen sink area, and more so after I manually compensate by adding a "colour temperature blue" adjustment filter (which is how colour correction was done in the days before digital).

One point that I find particularly curious is that although the fluorescent lit room looked mostly fine to begin with; the colour temperature is very close to that of sunlight, it seemed unable to adjust when the CTB filter was placed in front of it. If the AWB is working and has difficulty with the warmer colour temperatures, you'd expect it to at least handle the cooler ones. I digress.

So evidently there is an AWB, and it "works", it just works really really shoddily. I'm hoping it's poor calibration that can be fixed with a software update, but it's also quite plausible that basic camera functionality including the white balance is housed in a dedicated hardware unit that would need to be physically replaced. Again, Apple have been very quiet on the issue and people are getting anxious because even replacing the handset under warranty leaves no guarantee that the issue will be fixed.

Apple, are you there?! Anyone?

UPDATE

I spoke to another rep today, who said he had not heard of the problem. However, I did get myself an appointment at the "Genius Bar" for next Wednesday. Odds are, the lighting at the Apple Store will be fluorescent, making it difficult to replicate the problem (or indeed see if any replacement phone they send my way is fixed or not) so I'm thinking that bringing along a CTO filter to imitate tungsten lighting should do the trick. I'll need to test that first though using the iPhone 4 and the 3GS, with videos prepared in advance for evidence.