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4pp13

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 21, 2020
126
85
I mentioned this in the let loose thread but it got buried in between a disagreement of how bad the M3 chip situation is for Apple.

So a new thread seems potential just to discuss more for those that are interested.

We heard the matte screen for iPad mentioned here: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...e-studio-displays-nano-texture-glass.2422354/

Immediately the jump is to it being nano texture glass and then a disagreement about how that is not suitable for a touchable tablet. I'm seriously hopeful that in fact it will be related to making some kind of e-ink situation happen on the iPad. Many e-ink readers I have seen have been matte screen.

I feel like there is just a boatload of pros towards an iPad with a matte screen and a suitable target audience as well. However, I also felt like the iPhone Mini is the most perfect phone in the world and should have lots of customers and look what they did with that.

This situation feels quite different than the iPhone situation. Sure, if they ditch the mini size eventually I'm going to be cornered into a bigger size. To lose a customer I'd have to go Android which is a safe enough bet to take that many users won't do that. Further, you don't NEED an iPad and even further than that, they often compete between each other given the iPad Air vs iPad Pro.

There are now quite a few e-ink readers on the scene: Boox, Supernote, Lenovo, Kindle, etc. I'd be quite happy with a performance degradation given the features that would be gained. And the Apple Pencil is already primed for this kind of product especially if they will be soon releasing a new one.

This could finally get their Apple Books off the ground as well. I'd love to put my book collection with Apple rather than Amazon but given it's so hard to get the Apple Books on anything that isn't an LED, LCD or OLED screen - it's just not a viable product at the moment imo.

This is definitely the thing that will hold me back from a new OLED iPad. I have a MacBook so having a notepad with it is ideal and the iPad should form that solution but everyday it looks more annoying when one looks towards the e-ink tablet market.
 

ericwn

macrumors G4
Apr 24, 2016
11,864
10,480
The e-ink technology is in my opinion too much of a performance compromise to make a good tablet that isn’t just a notepad or a simplistic ebook. And I write this as the owner of a remarkable as well. Eink had about two cool use cases and for anything else it’s an annoyance.
 

rui no onna

Contributor
Oct 25, 2013
14,529
12,623
The e-ink technology is in my opinion too much of a performance compromise to make a good tablet that isn’t just a notepad or a simplistic ebook. And I write this as the owner of a remarkable as well. Eink had about two cool use cases and for anything else it’s an annoyance.

True. E-ink refresh rate is just way too slow for an all-purpose tablet.
 

4pp13

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 21, 2020
126
85
The e-ink technology is in my opinion too much of a performance compromise to make a good tablet that isn’t just a notepad or a simplistic ebook. And I write this as the owner of a remarkable as well. Eink had about two cool use cases and for anything else it’s an annoyance.
True. E-ink refresh rate is just way too slow for an all-purpose tablet.
This is where I would be hoping Apple has something up its sleeve. If the refresh rate was upped a bit and it was marketed as artistic creation first and content consumption second, surely it could work.

I largely use my own iPad for documents, planning, emails, notebooks and very rarely videos.
 

pdoherty

macrumors 65816
Dec 30, 2014
1,375
1,631
E-ink screens are not full color and are slow to refresh. The primary use case is primarily static info (like books or comics for color e-ink displays). They're not suitable at all for a tablet that needs to be updated constantly, scrolled on, used to play games, etc.
 

sracer

macrumors G4
Apr 9, 2010
10,305
13,051
where hip is spoken
As others have said, e-ink isn't feasible on an iPad. However, there is a color alternative... I suspect that it will be TCL's NXTPAPER technology or Apple is developing their own version of NXTPAPER.
 

jaehaerys48

macrumors member
Feb 24, 2023
70
105
E-ink is fundamentally different and would require a highly modified (read: stripped down) OS to be half-way decent. I think at that point it'd be it's own product line and not just an iPad variant. Given that Apple got wiped in the ebook business by Amazon I wouldn't expect an e-ink reader from them anytime soon.
 
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