“Apple is working on the use of flexible-glass touch displays,” Mike Elgan writes for Cult of Mac. “Which products will Apple use flexible displays in? The answer is: all of them… Apple has a massive effort that is already working very hard on developing and using display technologies for every major product line they make”
“How do you improve the iMac? It’s sleek, elegant, thin, brilliant and beautiful. Sure, you can later up the processor, memory and storage capacity. But how do you make it jaw-droppingly better?” Elgan asks. “You triple the screen size. But how?”
“If you’ve got a 27-inch iMac, you know that the screen is already a little too big in one respect: If you want to look at something onscreen near one side, then the other, you need to lean from one side to the other and crane your neck to see it. Otherwise, you’re looking at the screen at an angle,” Elgan writes. “Desktop monitors like the 27-inch iMac are pushing the limits of straight-on visibility. By using flexible display technology, I believe Apple will build wrap-around iMacs that could be about 30 inches high and four or five feet across, curving around in a semi circle so that the middle is about the same distance from your face as the edges.”
Read more in the full article here.
I don’t usually have to lean either way when I’m using my 27″ iMac…weird, but this could be cool.
Yeah, no leaning for me either. I don’t have that problem with either of my 27 inch iMacs. But the curved screen sounds pretty interesting. I hope they’re designing something new. It’s not like they don’t have enough money and enough people in research and development. Apple needs to get something going. The 5S isn’t going to move the needle whenever it finally comes.
I don’t have this problem with my iPad mini, go figure.
Except this might falsely distort graphics work. Not sure about this.
Maybe, but is it any different than a lot of the immersive technologies that are used for simulation?
In that respect, would it not be possible to correct any distortion in software using techniques that may already be well known by companies operating in visualisation & simulation or CAD/CAE such as Evans and Sutherland or CATIA (Dassault)? I would have imagined that the answer would be yes, but maybe someone with a better grounding can comment with more authority.
Flight simmers will love it
Dude is sitting WAY to close to his iMac. I actually prefer turning on HiDPI mode and sitting 3 or 4 feet back sometimes. I’d use that 24/7 if more apps I use had Retina support.
I was just thinking this. “He is sitting as close to his monitor as I am!” Like me, anyone with bad vision or less than perfect does this “leaning” regularly on 27″ monitors.
Like trondude said, folks who love simulator games will love this…heck..ALL games!!
Think about peripheral vision in your FPS, Flight Sim, Racing…. Awesome!
That’s what I dream of having in a big screen TV. One of those huge curved screens like Charlize Theron had in Promotheus, where it’s like you’re sitting in the middle of it with the picture wrapped all around you. Could that be a part of what makes the Apple TV a game changer?
The only problem is that I’d never leave the house.
This person must be an ant.
elgan is a hack. really? a wrap around imac? isn’t he the same guy who said apple needs to make a social network to compete with facebook
Not that Apple should, but with Facebook Home, FB is shooting across Apple’s UX/UI bow. It should not be ignored.
I do have my 27″ iMac angled slightly with respect to the 27″ Thunderbolt Display next to it, but there’s no craning the neck to see things. This guy just needed to try and give a foundation for his argument.
Dare I say his argument for curved glass falls flat?
This simply doesn’t sound like the Apple way of doing things.
I think that a huge, curved display would be ungainly and unnecessary. Apple would be more likely to concentrate on thinking about what you really need to see and then presenting that information to you in an efficient and elegant manner.
A computer with a giant screen is the sort of thing that ‘me too’ companies will do in order to win the specification battle. It’s a relatively easy thing to do and doesn’t require much imagination to do it. Very few people would actually need a monster display like that, although I would expect gamers to be interested, but that’s not Apple’s key market.
That large a screen would be insanely expensive, especially when first introduced. I could see them doing something more subtle like giving it a slight concave angling for the sake of ergonomics and maybe bumping to a 30″ screen.
“How do you improve the iMac?”
I’ll tell you how to improve the iMac:
1. Do not prematurely remove the optical drive.
2. Put the SD card slot in an accessible location.
3. Place one or two USB ports in a conveniently accessible location.
4. Do not remove the ability for the user to replace RAM (In one model anyway).
Who cares how thin the iMac is! You look at it from the front 99.9% of the time anyway!
+1
Perfect summary of my issues with the current iMacs.
Maybe, though, we’re just looking for a new MacPro?
I just hate to spend all the extra money when I love my 2011 iMac.
You are 100% correct.
…and add Blu-ray read/write capabilities.
Curved displays have been around for decades. Better theatres have long used curved projection screens, and they’ve available for home theatres too. Problem is, few people are willing to invest in the greater installation challenge of a dedicated projection setup.
Heck, relatively few people appreciate the advantage that BluRay 1080p resolution provides over NetFlix’s typical 720p — so why would anyone conclude that the optical advantage that a curved screen optimized for a specific viewing distance would be a big seller?
http://www.hometheater.com/content/elite-lunette-curved-projection-screen
I think this would be great. Those of you with perfect eyesight, just you wait. When you get old, like me, you need reading glasses. The problem becomes that you can only focus at certain distances. I can focus beyond 5′ without glasses, and from 12 to about 18″ with glasses. But I can’t focus at all beyond 18′ to 5′ with or without glasses.
For us guys with glasses, this would be great! I would certainly pony up for one of these!
Wrong direction. Curved glass, very small, about the size of a contact lens and worn the same way.
Apple will introduce, wait for it.
The ieye.
blue tooth enabled
iLens (iEye?)
hmmm sounds better then google glasses already
yeah, this is cool that they are working on stuff like this … but really, Apple let’s get a new product out there. I don’t care what it is. Get a new product on the streets for sale in the next 45 days, preferably the next 15 days, better yet, before earnings next week on the 23rd?
where is what those 5,000 apple engineers having been working on ? Gotta be something ready (hopefully better than an Apple Hi-Fi Speaker System, Version 2.
Keep up the very good work.