Why is Apple insisting on Glossy Displays?

erikjphoto, I could not agree more. I have an LED Cinema Display that I use in the studio and on location for my shoots with my Late 2008 MBP and I cannot wait to replace it with an antiglare or retina display. Apple is distracted by the iPhone, iPad and has forgotten about those that bought their products back in '94. My first setup was a 7600 and 1710AV display which gave way to a couple PowerBooks and then MBP's.

tcphoto1 wrote:

Apple is distracted by the iPhone, iPad and has forgotten about those that bought their products back in '94.

Sigh - no they aren't! Not enough people bought the matte over the glossy - that's why they don't offer it, plain and simple. If it bothers you that much, there are good films from 3M that will get you anti-glare back, but you will loose some contrast, clarity and brightness. Which is why the glossy screens are overwhelmingly preferred by the vast majority of buyers! So enough with blaming it on Steve Jobs being dead, Apple not paying attention or other such conspiricy theroy nonsense already. The simple truth is matte wasn't selling! I'm sorry that there seem to be so many who simply don't want to accpet that but at the end of the day that's where we are so good luck with your Windows box - if you can find one with matte that does everything else you want.

I never said Matte was selling. What I did say was that Matte was selling to 5% of the buyers and that those buyers are people working in the Photo, Ad, Video industry. The 5% are the professionals that got Apple through the lean years. Apple sells more glossy screen consumer class computers because people are attracted to shiny, bright objects, the same way fish are. Try sitting in front of a Retina screen on a location photo shoot. It is useless the glare is beyond annoying. The 3m anti glare is not the answer, the answer is to buy an Eizo, or NEC monitor and drag a mac pro on location with you. The nice thing is the new Mac Pros are much easier to travel with compared to packing the old pros on trips...

Eric, for a consumer, personal preference is king and I don't begrudge consumers having what they want.

And there's no denying the glossy Apple displays look nice in the show room.

We'd just like an option for pros, because we work all day on these things.

Unfortunately the 3M film you suggest is not a quality solution for a wide range of reasons and no serious professional should consider it.

And the thick glass in front of the Apple display does not make it better, it makes it measurably worse. The IPS panel Apple puts in iMacs is a very good panel until you put all that glass in front of it.

(I'm a college intructor in color management, and we measure panel performance regularly.)

As Erik with a K suggests, the glare coming off those screens in a normal daylit room is enormous. It degrades color accuracy significantly, completely pooches angle viewing, and the ergonomic issues with eye strain are brutal.

To be fair, if you normally sit alone in the dark when you use them, they're fine. But most pros work during the day and have to show work to others viewing at different angles.

Other vendors of quality panels are able to solve these issues (as did Apple before the iPhone era before they put the appearance of the iMac and MacBooks over performance).

My 27" NEC Mutlisync outperforms our 27" Apple iMac displays in every parameter and has no glare whatsoever.

In fact, when people come into the studio and see both displays working, they look at the NEC and say, "Wow, that's a beautiful display."

The only time the iMac screen looks better is when they're both turned off. Then the Mac looks pretty cool. A perfect example of form over function.

To be fair, we do have a solution: buy quality third party displays.

But that has its own problems.

Adding a $900 display to a Mac Pro is out of budget of most young designers.

They could buy an iMac and run the two displays side by side but, having done that, I can tell you desk space becomes a real issue and they're still paying an extra $900 for the other panel.

And, as Erik suggested, laptops are another headache when working outside the studio.

So yes, Apple makes more money selling to meat of the consumer market, and I have no problem with meeting the needs of those people.

But Apple would have gone bankrupt many years ago if not for the millions of professionals who supported the company because of attention to functional details – something that has clearly fallen by the wayside in the last few years.

The world won't end, but it's fair for pros to say, "For us, this stinks."

Exactly right threesixty.

Buying a MBP with a matte screen for me was a special custom option that I paid extra for so I am not surprised that it had a low uptake with the mass market. Had I gone to a department store to buy my computer, I would not have had that option and would have been forced into having the glossy screen by default.

The professional designer generally specs up their computer to suit their requirements, where as the mass consumer buys what looks shiny and compares processors and memory. Apple does not update their hardware as often as other manufacturers so their product will nearly always look inferior from a tech spec point-of-view with a PC computer in the same price range. But is then a reason to make your product impractical to make it look the part? To use an example, the colourful iPhone5c looks great but why aren't people buying many? Because it is nothing new and the poor battery life a major imposition. If it doesn’t do its job, who cares what it looks like, hence Apple's loss of market share in the mobilephone market.

I happened to watch "Jobs" the movie on a recent plane trip and it was prominently documented that Apple got into trouble in the mid-90s when they started producing products for the comsumer market trying to compete with other PC-based companies. This was at the time when Steve Jobs had been kicked out of Apple.

It wasn't until Steve Jobs came back and started innovating and becoming leader of the pack did their fortunes turn around. But it looks like history has taught current management nothing as they continue to chase the consumer dollar.

You only need to look at Apple's loss of market share in the mobilephone market recently to see that chasing the consumer dollar in preference to innovating and creating new products that redefine the industry will be their downfall.

You can't live off a past reputation forever.

erikjphoto wrote:

Apple sells more glossy screen consumer class computers because people are attracted to shiny, bright objects, the same way fish are.

Sigh... Matte screens have one drawback - occasional glare. The upsides are the colors are more true, the display is brighter and also more crisp because there is NO filtering between you and the display.

To put it simply, it looks better. And also, not everyone reacts to glare in the same way. The majority of the time I have no problem "tuning it out" - as do, obviously, most people. It would be awesome if there was some way to get a bright, crisp display with a wide color gamut and no glare - but the current display technologies aren't providing it.

Try sitting in front of a Retina screen on a location photo shoot. It is useless the glare is beyond annoying.

Ha - I remember the days when having a computer at a photo shoot wasn't even a dream. I guess it's just a matter of perspective...

The 3m anti glare is not the answer, the answer is to buy an Eizo, or NEC monitor and drag a mac pro on location with you. The nice thing is the new Mac Pros are much easier to travel with compared to packing the old pros on trips...

And now I **KNOW** you are trolling because you aren't going to use Eizo or NEC out in an uncrolled lighting environment (otherwise what's the point). And if you can control the light for an Eizo or NEC monitor you can easily control light with one of the current MacBook Pro's. Heck as a photographer I have a hood that I can throw over my camera to deal with glare and control light - and what a shock, it works great with a laptop too.

This is less about Matt/Glossy being some all-stop can't get work done under any circumstance than it is about people just being upset that their preffered option is no longer offered. Hey, I get it. I really want a single socket Mac tower with at least two 16 lane PCI Express card slots so **I** can choose what graphics card(s) to use - and Apple doesn't offer that. Ineed, the latest "pro" model makes things even worse! So, I can grind about it in the forums or get the last generate Mac Pro before they dissapear or switch to Windows. And sadly switching to Windows for the things where I need a selection of graphics cards is probaly where I will end up.

Apple has **NEVER** catered to all users, and they never will. Sadly those who prefer matte screens are going to be forever out of luck, as am I with my desires. Silly arguments like Apple not caring about Pro's, them loosing their way or my real favorite from this thread - management loosing touch now that Steve is dead (uh, hello - I have news for you he had to be convinced to do the iPad/iPhone and he hated computers with expansion in general thinking it spoild the user experience and making them clunky). No one compan is perfect and certainly not Apple. Where they are great and where they fit my needs I will use them. Where they aren't I will go elswhere. If posting repeatedly in these forums about the virtues of matte displays makes you feel better, more power to you. Just don't expect Apple to start shipping them again any time soon.

threesixty wrote:

But Apple would have gone bankrupt many years ago if not for the millions of professionals who supported the company

And I'm happy that happened - but that doesn't mean Apple owes professionals any more than any of their other users. Let's flip it around - aside from a very few, I sincerly doubt that many people bought Apple equipement in those lean years simply as an act of charity to keep Apple in business. They bought Apple kit because even with the warts before Steve came back and the stability OSX eventually obtained, the Mac was still a better solution for their needs than other offerings at the times.

That's how the free market works. I'm an Apple fan not because they are Apple, but because the products they make do useful stuff for me in a significantly different way than their competitors. If they ever loose that edge then I will be using whomever does it better. But to think that because I have been a perpetual Apple customer since my Mac Plus in 1987 and therefore deserve some special consideration due to that - well, that's just ludicrous.

And BTW - I was just reminded by a family member they got one of these and are very happy: http://www.macframes.com

It's not a film but a replacement glass. Probalby no different than what Apple would have offered if they decided to start offering matte again (I wouldn't hold my breath).

Adrian1974 wrote:

I happened to watch "Jobs" the movie on a recent plane trip and it was prominently documented that Apple got into trouble in the mid-90s when they started producing products for the comsumer market trying to compete with other PC-based companies. This was at the time when Steve Jobs had been kicked out of Apple.

It wasn't until Steve Jobs came back and started innovating and becoming leader of the pack did their fortunes turn around. But it looks like history has taught current management nothing as they continue to chase the consumer dollar.

Uh, you really shouldn't rely on that movie for anything factual about Apple. It's a movie and they pretty much got most of what they tried to portray as wrong. Apple got into trouble in the 90's because they didn't keep up with the market, got suckered into a bad settlement with Microsoft that essentially gave away the Mac crown jewels and ran up rediculous overhead costs by having a plethora and ultra confusing product matrix.

If you look at what Steve did is he whacked the over 100 different models at the time to a grid of four - consumer and pro desktop and consumer and pro laptops. If anything what Steve did further justifies Apple's dropping of matte (simplifying the product line) than not - which is why it's really amusing to me for all those who act as if Steve was still alive matte would still be an option.

And since when did chasing dollars of any kind become some sort of bad thing? In case it's not obvious, dollars are what drives business - profits pay salaries and fund companies operations. And since Microsoft and their legions "own the enterprise" as we are continually reminded, just why should Apple persue anything but the consumer right now? It certainly hasn't hurt them - Apple takes in about twice as much as Microsoft now so focusing on the consumer seems to have been a pretty successful strategy.

Now, do I wish they would offer more variety? Sure. See my prevous post about a true minitower with flexibility for graphics cards - but I'm not holding my breath. Use one of the many alternatives to customize your Mac display to be matte - or don't use Mac's. But other than making people feel good agreeing with each other in these forums good luck with that.

For Macbook Pro with retina display I really can recommend the iVisor from Moshi. It is available on the Apple store here: http://store.apple.com/at/product/HA507VC/A/moshi-15%22-ivisor-pro-displayschutz -für-macbook-pro?fnode=5b3abcc454654c56a0e1d775d3d6376d8a000ca2f8eb8018a98a9df78 11d8f055735e90d800177da43a3fc9fe84b807955901a1d78793f0c8de7d14c257dc8c5

This installs very easily and my new MacBook Pro with retina display is now as good as my old MacBook Pro with matte display. I think with such a display foil Apple does not need to offer the matte option any more themselfs :-)

Greetings

Thomas

Eric Eskam wrote:

<snip>

This is less about Matt/Glossy being some all-stop can't get work done under any circumstance than it is about people just being upset that their preffered option is no longer offered. Hey, I get it. I really want a single socket Mac tower with at least two 16 lane PCI Express card slots so **I** c<snip>

For me, no it is not! I suffered for years and damaged my eyes with the extra glossy pane in front of the LCD. It was indeed poorly designed. I am using the same computer still, but now without the protective glossy pane in front.

I see someone else here recommended "the frame". That is what I have, without the nice appearance of the frame. It does not mean that I was not able to use the computer under any circumstances, but it was definately inferior. Are you suggesting that we should not find fault with it if it is possible to work with it? It wa possible for me to do much of my work under DOS. In fact, I produced documents much quicker in CP/M with wordstar. I can work with a mechanical typewriter. Are you saying that I should keep my mouth shut about anything better than that?

These are legitimate complaints. Once upon a time that MAC was completely amazing for me. I was a refugee from windows and office. I told everyone how great the mac was. Everything was perfect.

Yes, Apple does not have a responsibility to produce commercially insignificant numbers of computers for me when most people don't understand the benefits of a screen with less sharp reflections.

However, we should be able to discuss that, and ask for recognition of that. Perhaps we could even educate some people by showing them how the reflections can damage eyes (it did for me) and cause eye-strain and reduced productivity. If no-one talks about a problem, its existence would remain unknown.

If indeed the problems are wide-spread, then there would be a change.

I don't know why you put so much energy into attempting to squelch such statements.

As the others, due to the frustration with the screen and also with the dumbing-down of the OS to more IOS like, I considered the newer windows that has gotten great reviews.

Unfortunately, they maintained their problematic registry, and have dumbed down their user interface much more than OSX, so that would just be out the frying pan and into the fire.

Nevertheless, I looked. My current solution is to not upgrade until that becomes too painful.

I am still on Snow leopard. Apparently there are many others doing the same.

Perhaps we are a commercially insignificant number. Perhaps not.

If there are many more, apple would listen. What is wrong with saying that?

Things do indeed change due to popular demand. Perhaps the dumbing down will slow down. Perhaps we might get matte screens, but if we don't ask, we won't get it.

Also, is it wrong to express frustration that something that a product that appeared aimed perfectly at us is no longer aimed exactly at us in later versions? That is what a community forum is good for.

At the very least, it is comforting to know that others feel the way I do. If no-one did, then there is a good chance that I am mis-understanding something about the product and my problems would likely be alleviated by further education or research.

In any case, I will continue to mention the screen issue any time I can. I might migrate one day to another product if it is superior when all things are considered. If I am able to merely take the front panel off my next iMac, then that might be fine for me. I will never find out if I can just remove the panel if I don't have nice informative and helpful people on these forums to help me.

Eric Eskam wrote:

<snip>

And BTW - I was just reminded by a family member they got one of these and are very happy: http://www.macframes.com

It's not a film but a replacement glass. Probalby no different than what Apple would have offered if they decided to start offering matte again (I wouldn't hold my breath).

It is actually not a replacement glass, but a replacement outer frame WITHOUT the glass at all. I suspect that optical improvement and reduced strain is because the reflections are at the same focal plane as the image - that is a guess and I have no experimental way to that.

I went onto their site and they have only one 27" frame for iMacs. Did the iMacs not change in the last year or so?

This is a great solution, does anyone know if the old frames are the same mechicanically for the new iMacs?

Sorrry Eric, I understand and support people having their own personal preferences. And I agree that we can always vote with our dollars and buy good displays from other manufacturers (I do.)

But a fair amount of your technical commentary is factually incorrect. In short, a panel does not look better when you put a big piece of glass in front of it. It looks measurably worse in all the parameters you are citing. This might not matter to someone who uses it to watch movies in subdued light. But for professionals who make their livings from their rigs, it really does matter.

1. Putting glossy glass in front of the display panel does not make it brighter, it makes it less bright. It also degrades all the other parameters that make a display look good and perform well: gamut, saturatuon range, fidelity, variance and so on. (Putting matte glass in front of the panel reduces brightness even more, which is my point. No glass and less glossy is always better.)

2. Apple and other manufacturers have always had the technology to create non-glossy high-quality displays (wide gamut, with superior brightness, range, and variance).

High quality displays were always non-glossy. The addition of thick glass was a late event by Apple that was about the look of the computer, not its image quality.

I'm looking at a high quality non-glossy display right now. It's 5 years old and is price comparable with an Apple glossy display. The two devices appear reasonably comparable when looking at them in the dark. But, in normal light, the NEC is obviously superior. (It's also technically superior as confirmed by our colorimeter measurements, which don't even take into account the glare problem of the Apple display).

3. For casual viewing, some people might be happy to tolerate reflection and glare. But, in color-accurate professional applications, it is simply not functional. All that glare is reflected light from the ambient environment (the room you're in and the outside world if you're lucky enough to have a window in your office). A large percent of the light coming off the screen is not from the actual image. This means that the device is incapable of matching a quality non-glossy display for any color critical task.
This is not a small difference. Two people standing side-by-side in front of a glossy display can look at the same spot on the panel and see completely different colors. I demonstrate this to my students (many of whom are professional designers) every time I teach my color management course.
It's inferior, plain and simple.

4. Hoods, films, and sitting in the dark to work are clunky work arounds that all have their own problems. None of them compare to simply having a display built properly for function rather than form in the first place. Again, the answer is to buy a good 3rd party display.

5. On location, in many situations, a glossy laptop screen can make it impossible to work properly in many lightinfg conditions. We've experienced this many times. Yes we could go to Windows machines. But platfrom transitions cost money. Lots of it. And not just the price of the computer. So it's not something we would fliply suggest to someone trying to earn a living.

So, while I can understand Apple using the glossy display because it wows consumers, it's silly to suggest that they're using it because it makes a better quality display. It doesn't. It makes a poorer quality display.

As a cool looking consumer object, I have no beef with the design of the iMac with the glossy screen. But it really is about its superficial appearance, not its function.

So consumers should have what they want. But pros have a right to express their desire for a better quality solution.

threesixty wrote:

But a fair amount of your technical commentary is factually incorrect. In short, a panel does not look better when you put a big piece of glass in front of it. It looks measurably worse in all the parameters you are citing. This might not matter to someone who uses it to watch movies in subdued light. But for professionals who make their livings from their rigs, it really does matter.

And agin, if you are a "pro" you are already in a light controlled environment and this is a mostly moot issue. Heck, if as a prosumer photographer I can paint the walls of my home office grey and close my window blinds, a "pro" can surely do the same?!?

1. Putting glossy glass in front of the display panel does not make it brighter, it makes it less bright. It also degrades all the other parameters that make a display look good and perform well: gamut, saturatuon range, fidelity, variance and so on. (Putting matte glass in front of the panel reduces brightness even more, which is my point. No glass and less glossy is always better.)

It's not jut about glass. I used to have an article bookmarked that explianed the different covers for LCD displays over the years - but that bookmark appears to have been lost in the .mac to iCloud transision. Oh well, I doubt you would have bothered to look at the article in an objective manner anyway.

2. Apple and other manufacturers have always had the technology to create non-glossy high-quality displays (wide gamut, with superior brightness, range, and variance).

High quality displays were always non-glossy. The addition of thick glass was a late event by Apple that was about the look of the computer, not its image quality.

"quality" is in the eye of the beholder. I have several older matte displays along side my newer glossy displays and they are fuzzier and dimmer than their glossy counterparts. There's a reason for that. In order to reduce reflections you have to scatter light. You scatter light you loose light - and some clarity.

I'm looking at a high quality non-glossy display right now. It's 5 years old and is price comparable with an Apple glossy display. The two devices appear reasonably comparable when looking at them in the dark. But, in normal light, the NEC is obviously superior. (It's also technically superior as confirmed by our colorimeter measurements, which don't even take into account the glare problem of the Apple display).

I dunno which prices you are comparing but the pro level NEC displays I have used in the past have always been at least double, if not more, that of corresponding Apple displays.

But this is moot for a large number of people - you don't get to pick your display with an iMac - which is why I wish they had a real minitower option 😝

And since you have such a self professed loathing for glossy displays have you actually used one for any significant amount of time? Have you seen one side by side with your NEC? Because if you had you wold see what I'm talking about.

3. For casual viewing, some people might be happy to tolerate reflection and glare. But, in color-accurate professional applications, it is simply not functional. All that glare is reflected light from the ambient environment (the room you're in and the outside world if you're lucky enough to have a window in your office). A large percent of the light coming off the screen is not from the actual image. This means that the device is incapable of matching a quality non-glossy display for any color critical task.

4. Hoods, films, and sitting in the dark to work are clunky work arounds that all have their own problems. None of them compare to simply having a display built properly for function rather than form in the first place. Again, the answer is to buy a good 3rd party display.

Yet at the end of the day if being "color-accurate" *really* matters, this is what you will do. If not having to account for ambiant light is OK for you then you may not be as "pro" as you think you are and you don't know what the meaning of the phrase "color accurate" really means.

5. On location, in many situations, a glossy laptop screen can make it impossible to work properly in many lightinfg conditions. We've experienced this many times. Yes we could go to Windows machines. But platfrom transitions cost money. Lots of it. And not just the price of the computer. So it's not something we would fliply suggest to someone trying to earn a living.

Well, for all the angst shown in this thread if glossy is a deal breaker for you then switching platforms is your only option. Period. There's nothing flip about, indeed it's the pragmatic statement of fact. The chances of matte coming back are infintesimal, at best. The sooner you and those who feel as strongly as you do come to grips with this fact, the better off you will be. Live with and work around Apple's offerings or don't. It's no sking off my nose. But thoughts like "if only Steve were still alive" or wishing that "Apple's execs still had a clue" are beyond laughable...

So, while I can understand Apple using the glossy display because it wows consumers, it's silly to suggest that they're using it because it makes a better quality display. It doesn't. It makes a poorer quality display.

Well, for this user it is a better display. It's brighter, crisper and was easier to calibrate than my old MacBook Pro display. I can deal with the reflections. Same thing with my 65" plasma screen at home. I'll happily trade mediocre daytime performance for stunning blacks when I watch movies at night in a darkened room. For my MacBook Pro I happily choose glossy because it is a much brighter, crisper and more pleasing to the eye display. For use cases when color accuracy is paramount, the built in display in my MacBook Pro is moot since I use an external monitor in a light controlled environment. You can't do color accurate work in a non-light controlled environment so I really wish people would stop throwing that tired red herring out there.

As a cool looking consumer object, I have no beef with the design of the iMac with the glossy screen. But it really is about its superficial appearance, not its function.

So consumers should have what they want. But pros have a right to express their desire for a better quality solution.

All technologies have trade offs, strenghts and weaknesses. Implying that glossy is bad PERIOD because you don't prefer it is silly. And in your case it's just flat out arrogant. Yours is a preference, not an inheret law of the universe. If you are looking for a matte solution from Apple I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. Time to move on...

No one is disputing that you like what you like, and more power to you.

And I'm not trying to get up your nose.

I simply noted that when you dismissed other posters on the facts of displays, you got your technical facts wrong — and you did.

I know, because this is my profession. I write courses on it and practice it every day – so snotty comments about not bothering to read an article are uncalled for.

What someone likes may in the eye of the beholder. But image quality is not – it's something that professionals measure every day.

All people are saying here is that they want a non-glossy option. They're not saying you have to have one.

I think they're just as entitled to want what's best for them as you are.

And I can tell you with a pretty certain amount of authority that their technical complaints are completely valid.

threesixty wrote:

I simply noted that when you dismissed other posters on the facts of displays, you got your technical facts wrong — and you did.

Sigh - what exactly did I get wrong? Glossy displays are clearer due to there not being any anti-glare coating. That's a fact. To get a matte display you have to sacrifice something, and that something is some clarity. To whit:

http://www.tweakandtrick.com/2012/06/matte-and-glossy-monitors-clear.html

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/panel_coating.htm

In particular in that second link pay attention to the graphic of pictures from various panel types and anti-glare coatings. Notice that only the glossy pixels are perfectly clear and un-fuzzy. You keep implying that glossy screens are fundimentally and technically flawed when that's not the case at all!

Face it - glossy vs. matt is not a technical "fact" but a personal preference only. An important one, mind you, but a personal preference none the less.

What someone likes may in the eye of the beholder. But image quality is not – it's something that professionals measure every day.

lol - there is nothing **more** objective than image quality. Sight is, quite literally, all in your head! You seriously need to get over yourself here with the "technically correct" argument.

All people are saying here is that they want a non-glossy option. They're not saying you have to have one.

And I'm just pointing out that the phrase "peeing in the wind" comes to mind. You can want it all you want (and I don't begrudge anyone who wants it) - the practical reality is it's just not happening. The market has spoken, like it or not. If enough people were ordering matt displays when they were last offered, Apple would still be providing them. They didn't and thus Apple dropped 'em. Remember that discussion about the return of Steve and the first thing he did was dramatically simplify Apple's product line from literally hundreds to four? That's what saved Apple - not the paltry $150M from Microsoft. That focus reduced overhead, conserved resources and let them develop and leverate the iPad. And Apple has remained lean every since. Look at all the angst over Apple not offering a plethora of iPhone "phablets" like their Android brethern... theres a reason and it has nothing to do wtih spite, not knowing the market or any of the other ignorant reasons that get passed off as insightful commentary.

Having said all that, I still think you will get matte display options before I get a real Mac mini tower 😠 Just because I understand why Apple doesn't do what I want them to do doesn't mean I have to like it. But at this point if matte is this important to you go third party to get your glare coating, or switch camps - because those are your only choice unless some real miracle happens...