Apple Needs to Copy Samsung's New Security Smartphone Screen ASAP

https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/samsung-galaxy-s26-privacy-display-d5bce9ab

by Brajeshwar • 5 months ago

30 18 5 months ago

dsdxd• 5 months ago

There’s been screen protector film on the market that does exactly this for almost as long as the iPhone‘s been available. Almost 20 years?

TheDong• 5 months ago

Can the screen protector film only mask banking apps and notifications, but not the lock screen and homescreen?

It's a real, albeit minor, quality of life improvement for the phone screen to only become less-vibrant for a subset of content.

SilverElfin• 5 months ago

The Samsung masking tech can selectively mask parts of the screen. And it has configurability so it automatically is turned on only in certain apps and things like that. Because it dims the screen slightly (when you look at it straight on), just like a screen protector, it’s really useful that it can be customized in these ways. You get to keep the quality of the screen high to a much greater amount while still keeping your privacy.

iknowstuff• 5 months ago

It’s clear that you haven’t really looked much into this. It’s per pixel.

Screen protectors also degrade light output

Kirby64• 5 months ago

Screen protectors also degrade light output

So does this function from Samsung. You can see in all the video demonstrations that the 'privacy' pixels are notably dimmer even head-on compared to normal pixels.

juancn2• 5 months ago

This also degrades light output off angle. If you're showing someone a picture, you lose up to 50% of light output.

yftsui• 5 months ago

When your display fails in viewing angles, we call it privacy screen

that_lurker• 5 months ago

Samsung makes the screens for iPhones so they most linely will make this tech available after the testing period with the new phone

tremarley• 5 months ago

They will likely copy it in 8 years and label it innovative.

c22• 5 months ago

You could try doing this[0] to your iphone... ([1]).

[0] https://www.instructables.com/Privacy-monitor-made-from-an-o...

[1] https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/570453/How+to+remove+iPh...

WithinReason• 5 months ago

Currently a lot of smartphone power consumption is used to drive the screen, but only a small fraction reaches someone's eye. This could be used to improve the power efficiency of screens by at least an order of magnitude

kevin061• 5 months ago

I think it's a gimmick that Samsung will cut out in future models for cost savings reasons. Like Samsung ditched the edge displays, or the Bluetooth in their S-Pen, or like Apple ditched 3D touch.

juancn2• 5 months ago

It's a gimmick, it reduces overall brightness when off-angle.

I much rather have a tandem oled screen.

nipperkinfeet• 5 months ago

Do people really care if someone looks at their phone like that? Especially when the apps themselves spy on everything you do?

kyriakos• 5 months ago

Reading comments here looks like most of the commenters didn't read past the title.

This is not the same as a privacy screen protector. The screen hardware itself can dynamically protect parts of the screen on demand down to pixel level, the OS can then dim only the app or notifications you want dimmed. There is no screen degrading for parts that are not in privacy mode.

Apple Needs to Copy Samsung's New Security Smartphone Screen ASAP

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