Jim Jamesson

The other day Apple introduced a brand-new 24″ LED display that compliments their line of notebook computers. As I was glancing at the features, I noticed that one of their pictures adds a giant shiny glare thing, directly through the middle of the loupe tool in Aperture.

Here’s the thing. To my knowledge, (of being a professional graphic designer and a semi-hardcore digital photographer) most professionals prefer to use non-glossy computer displays compared to glossy ones. Glossy displays inherently have much more glare and reflection than their non-glossy counterpart. When you spend hours a day working on projects where color accuracy and contrast are important, glare can really start fucking with your head. In my personal setup, I use both (main display is a non-glossy 24″ and 2nd is a 17″ glossy). Working in Photoshop or Aperture on the non-glossy display is hands down better for me (not considering the size/resolution differences).

Here you can see the ginormous (Photoshopped in) glare running across the loupe tool in the Aperture full-screen interface.

Anyways because of this, I find it just a little odd that an Apple designer chose to make the graphic ‘glossy’ and didn’t take into consideration the irony of using the loupe tool (magnifying glass) on an area that is supposedly completely washed out from the operators point of view.

Hmm I don’t really know. Maybe they are trying to dissuade professionals from this monitor. Maybe they were more interested in changing the display adapter YET AGAIN just to fuck with us. All I do know is that it still looks cool and wouldn’t mind a couple sitting on my desk.