William Gallagher
Leaker claims the new iPad Pro will be offered with a matte screen for the first time — and so may the forthcoming iPad Air.
While most of leaker Instant Digital's claims have concerned the iPad Air — with suppliers reportedly shipping finished models to the US — the latest touches on both that and the next iPad Pro. Doubling down on a previous claim that the iPad range will be revised "next week," the leaker also claims to have partial knowledge of a matte finish.
Posted on Instant Digital's Weibo account, the update's reference to "bright and fog" is likely to be a mistranslation of gloss and matte. This fits with the claim that the latter is also referred to as having eye protection.
No iPad has been released with a matte glass finish before, but this won't be the first time Apple has used it or similar technology. Starting with 2019's then-new Pro Display XDR, Apple has sometimes used nano-texture glass, to date the company's highest-quality anti-reflective technology.
Instead of more traditional matte finishes which may overlay the glass with a mostly transparent cover, nano-texture displays have patterns etched into the screen. This makes reflections scatter and so avoids creating a mirror-like surface.
It's not clear from the leak whether the matte-finish iPad Pro, or iPad Air, will use nano-texture. However, Instant Digital also claimed this week that the forthcoming iPhone 17's display in 2025 would be both stronger and anti-reflective, than the current model.
Note that while Instant Digital has been reporting multiple leaks in the last week or so, it does not yet have a long-term history of accurate leaks. Most recently, the leaker was correct about the yellow iPhone 14, for instance.
Wesley Hilliard
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
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6 Comments
Matte glass.....ooh let me run to grab the credit card.
I feel for these companies. Trying to come up with fascinating hardware and software advancements on an annual or even quarterly basis is incredibly difficult to sustain.
Question for those who have nano-textured ASD and XDR models. How's it look after a while? Are you able to clean all the gunk off the "nano-textured" surface and it looks like new?
I am tempted with this option.
Will matte offer something I'd love to see on iPads, a 'feels like paper' texture for the glass. A less slippery surface would make using an Apple Pencil feel more like using a traditional pencil or pen. That would be a plus for those doing graphics.
With the no doubt massive mark up for a matte screen, you could buy several years worth of Apple Polishing Cloths.