Apple iPhone 5 to sport CRT-style screen Take with an appropriate quantity of sodium chloride: the iPhone 5 will sport a curved display. So say unnamed industry sources cited by DigiTimes, which also claims that, because makers of screen-covering glass are concerned about the high cost of kit capable of cutting curved glass, Apple has been buying such machines on …
It most probably will be some proprietary variant of SECAM.
(Side question: When the UK adopted colour television, we had no need for it to be compatible with existing mono receivers; since our old mono sets used 405 lines and VHF frequencies, and we were moving to a completely new, 625 line system transmitted on UHF frequencies. Why, then, did we adopt PAL -- a luma-chroma system where colour rendition is compromised by the ability to remain compatible with existing mono receivers -- instead of an RGB-based colour system?)
If true, I guess this is to reduce reflections. Flat glass surfaces always reflect a lit more light than curved ones.
That's how you can tell when an actor in a Hollywood film is wearing fake glasses.
So a slightly curved screen may help cut down on reflections caused by artificial light sources.
I can't see it doing much for sky reflections though, as that's one huge light source :-)
"always reflect a lit more light than curved ones."
Science fail.
As a pedant: they always reflect more light *in the same direction*, compared to curved ones.
But it should certainly mean that, done correctly, it would be better for viewing under certain light sources.
(Sorry, moody Monday morning)
@“I guess this is to reduce reflections”
No it won't reduce reflections, it will increase them.
When a viewer is looking at a curved screen (on a phone) the curvature means the reflections come from a wider field of view (due to the curvature). This means if there is any bright irritating light sources in your field of view, the curved screen will make it harder to avoid these bright reflections on the screen compared with a flat screen. Its why flat screens were better than CRT monitors (and as an old programmer I've suffered the pains of curved screens and of trying to avoid reflections on them). Its why I would much sooner have a flat screen.
I would bet this curved screen has nothing to do with helping the screen image, or being stronger when curved (try accidentally standing on it and see how long that curved screen (and case?) will last, as then all the force is applied to one central point on the phone glass. A curve is only stronger when load bearing in the air when used as an arch compared with a flat beam. A curve isn't stronger when its on a flat surface as a flat phone dissipates the load over the whole surface whereas a curve is forced to bend in the middle when pushed from above with one point contact in the middle).
So its not likely stronger or better for viewing. So whats it for? ... I bet the curve is to give Apple users another reason to be smug, because it stands out as an iphone 5, “hey look everyone I'vvveee gooot a neeeewww iphone fiiivee and you can all see its an iphone 5 by its curved screen, as thats the only one with this look!” ... oh joy, I can't wait to be subjected to it. :(
'Just the right curve to match yours!' - available from C to J!
(insert very poor-taste comment about A & B sizes buying the normal flat-screen version.)
Alternatively maybe Apple are planning a head-phone carrying unit that allows the iPhone to drop down in front of the eyes and show a virtual reality display - think like Geordi LaForges glasses, but about the size of a paperback.
ttfn.
The Iphone4 has a glass back doesn't it? Maybe it is that they want to curve? maybe even make touch-sensitive and curved?
Phone manufacturers occasionally play with 'back controls' and they all tout it as the next great thing in user interaction; then quietly drop for the next model since it actually sucks (I have a LG viewty with a 'rear scrolling control' that turned out to be a total waste of space..)
But maybe Apple have found a way to get it usable and functional.. they are certainly clever and innovative enough to have a real chance at letting the hand holding the phone do more than just thumbpress side buttons.
Obviously Jobs mob is getting desperate to maintain repeat sales.
All they appear to be doing is making slight changes so Iphans can differentiate between new models and clunkers and, Jobs hopes, it will generate yet more sales as Iphans slavishly buy yet more of the same.
Worked for years for car manufacturers, why not other products?
CRT's have convex curvature due the physics of the internal electron beam emanating from what is essentially a point source, not due to a convex display giving a better viewing experience. It doesn't, which is why over the history of the CRT, considerable R&D effort went onto cheap but complex electron beam steering systems in the CRT tube itself in order to make CRT's as flat as possible. That is why through the 1990's, the flatter the TV screen, the more expensive. The biggest boon towards flat screen CRT's was cheap "fast enough" digital processing in the late 1990's, which allowed correction for pincushion and keystone distortion digitally while using simpler beam steering in the CRT tube itself.
IIRC, the Dell Venue Pro has curved glass too.
I remember vividly the advertising for the new flat-screen TVs when they first came out many years ago, and how the adverts touted increased viewing angle among the many benefits of ditching the old curved CRT screens.
If we're going back to curved screens again, on the basis of decreased reflectivity, it makes you wonder if technology really is one of those fashion things which always end up going round in circles like a dog chasing its own tail, or whether the Flat-screen adverts were good at covering up the technology's extra reflections flaw, or whether adverts for curved-screen CRT TVs should have screeched "Flat-Screen! No! Huge reflections!"
Personally I think it's a fashion thing. Especially if Apple are jumping on the bandwagon.
The first and still the best banana phone ala the Nokia 8110 as made famous in the first Matrix movie.
I can still remember how cool it felt to press a button on the phone and the front extended to expose the keyboard and mould perfectly to my face.
Well done indeed Apple.
Sorry to be picky but...............whilst you were correct in saying it was indeed the Nokia 8110 that was featured in the Matrix film, the phone with push button slide was the in fact the 7110. The 8110 had been discontinued by Nokia several years before the Matrix was released. The 7110 was released and marketed alongside the film, leading to the confusion.
Wrong.
The amount of reflected light is determined by the planar area of the perimeter. If anything, a curved surface will reflect less of the incident light than a flat surface because no material is 100% reflective (not considering quantum materials and events) and so the larger curved surface results in greater loss of incoming light.
The Nexus S, of course, has a curved screen, and it's not unknown for customers who want a large amount of something weird to contribute up-front to the tooling; in fact, Apple has been known to do this before. I'd be sort of surprised if this was true, though; for the Nexus S the curve was really just a gimmick which everyone forgot about, and there's no use being the second company with a weird-shaped screen.
"not one of the moles seems capable of saying why Apple would be so generous to its suppliers"
Well now let me see....
You have gadget that will shift by the truck-load when it is released, thus leading to the fact that you can charge what the f**k you like for this highly prized piece of kit, because the fans will fall over themselves to buy it, no matter the cost. Apple doesn't do cut price deals, this is the price, take or leave it.
Which means if Steve decided to buy the entire factory that made these things, not just the machines, he'd still be quids in. What's $30m of machines compared to making $20m per nano-second in world sales when it comes out!
There is limited supply of the curved screens and Apple has *big* launches (much bigger than the other phones that have used a curved screen).
Apple could risk supply problems at launch, sign big long term contracts to some firms (which would allow them to commit to the investment needed) or they could give them the machines, I expect with a proviso that Apple owns the machines and they are only to be used for Apple contracts.
It's a way of controlling the market, ensuring exclusivity and guaranteeing (their own) supply. The normal approach would be to sign commited contracts with suppliers which would ensure they could invest in the machines needed. But whats to stop them selling similar screens to someone else ocne they've satisfied Apple's order?
I think it all makes perfect sense and is obvious; The iPhone 5 will be made with both flat and curved screens. Apple have, since the success of the Retina Display, been trying to put the "eye" back into iPhone. Having searched patent libraries, current research papers and technology journals for ideas on how to improve the viewing experience on the next generation iPhone, they came accross an article by a Mr. J. Carrott in which he expounds the benefits and virtues of the prescription car windscreen. Apple thave borrowed that idea and applied it to the iPhone. People who wear glasses will be able to have their iPhone 5 built with screens which match their glasses prescription so that they won't need to wear their glasses while using the iPhone 5. Thus they would get a more natural user experience without the hindrance and interference of glasses coming between the iPhone and the user. Hence the new iPhone 5 will be available both with a flat screen for people with good eyesight and with curved prescription screens for people with less than optimal eyesight.
Naturally purchasers of the new iPhone with the prescription screen won't want to wait for their personalised phone to be made and indeed Apple wouldn't want to leave itself open to accusations of discrimination due to the prescription screen versions not being immediately available on the high street. So with the release of the new eyePhone all iStores will have an instore machine for manufacturing the prescription screen. Thus a potential purchaser will be able to walk into the store hand over their glasses prescription and watch as an eyePhone screen is manufactured to their personal specification and fitted to their new eyePhone, This explains why Apple is buying the machines to manufacture the curved screens, one for each of their stores.
All fairly obvious when you think about it.
I stand corrected, thank you to dave 93; It was indeed Billy Connolly with the prescription windscreen and now that you say it all comes back to me.
Failing eyesight and a failing memory, to cope with now, so it seems... If only there was an App for that... no hope of the eyePhone coming to my rescue either.
Thank you
As some people have almost suggested, convex screens help the user to handle glare, since reflected light appears as a line (single axis curvature) or a point (two axis curvature). In either case a slight tilt will reveal whatever is under the reflected light.
There is a joke here about fanbois rapidly rotating their wrists back and forth, the completion of which I leave as a problem for the reader.
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