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Comment by dTal | Hacker News Reader

A glossy screen is not "Appleization" in the sense the author means - pointless aesthetics at the expense of functionality. Glossy screens inherently have superior contrast, especially in sunlight. The reason is simple - they reflect incoming light at its incident angle, while matte screens smear it over all angles. Thus, unless you happen to be in sitting at precisely the wrong angle, matte screens reflect more sunlight into your face. With a glossy screen you can shuffle around until the reflection suits you, but with matte you are stuck with an average.

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I don't know in which world you live in but there is no amount of shuffling that can make you see stuff with a glossy screen out in the sun...

Well, our experiences are at odds then. Every glossy-screened device I own is usable outside, and none of my matte-screened devices are. It's not a mystery, the physics are straightforward. Gloss improves contrast by lowering black levels. The same effect causes water to darken concrete.

If matte was so much better, wouldn't there be a market for matte overlays for smartphones? Yet smartphones are universally glossy, and universally legible outside.

You can't use your fingers on matte screens.

Sure you can. Why wouldn't you?

I guess my Kindle's matte touch screen uses magic then.

> If matte was so much better, wouldn't there be a market for matte overlays for smartphones?

If I put the query "antiglare matte protector" on ebay I get an offering of 49000 results of different matte screen covers for phones/tablets/laptops etc. Would that 'after purchase' offer exist if everyone loved the glossy screen experience, like you do?

Fair enough. I retract that sentence.

There is a tradeoff, to be sure. The same property that allows glossy screens to reject sunlight better - preservation of high angular frequency - causes a visible signal (reflections of objects). This signal is more easily disentangled from the image on the screen than a uniform raising of the noise floor, but some no doubt find it more distracting.

> unless you happen to be in sitting at precisely the wrong angle, matte screens reflect more sunlight into your face

Although direct sunlight comes from one angle, many sunlight reflections come from all other angles. E.g. it's hard to find a place at a cafe without seeing reflected glares.

True. However the direct sunlight is so much more powerful than the reflections that it can (supposedly) literally blind you if you stare directly at it. The vast majority of the ambient light energy comes from that single spot in the sky. With a matte screen, the sun is either behind you, and the screen is catching and diffusing all that energy - or the sun is in front of you, and the screen hasn't a hope of competing.

Well, I honestly believe that my eyes enemy is various light sources besides sun (e.g. office lights). And they always come from many different angles, so it's impossible to put glossy screen to avoid them all. Matte would diffuse them good enough.

I mean, I see your point, and agree with it. I just think probability of that happening is less than office/cafe/window lights.

Agreed. There is a reason camera lenses are not matte. Polished glass passes light rays more directly and efficiently, meaning a clearer, higher contrast view of the screen underneath the glass.

The big change that enabled Apple to remove the matte option was brighter and more efficient LED backlights. Now their laptop screens have plenty of brightness to overpower ambient light in practical usage. If reflections are interfering with work, one can simply turn up the brightness to overpower them.

This does not work well in extremely bright conditions like direct sunlight. But then again matte screens also suck in direct sunlight. I like to think of this as a subtle hint from the industry that one should not work at the beach. ;-)

With a glossy screen you can shuffle around until the reflection suits you

Yes, because is so easy for everyone to do that...

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