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Apple will use nano-textured glass on iPhone and iPad
Sina Digital News reported on the morning of September 25 that Apple is studying the expansion of the nano-textured glass it introduced on the Pro Display XDR display in order to apply the advantages of this technology to the iPhone or iPad.
Apple introduced an optional nano-textured glass surface on Pro Display XDR and recently brought it to the 27-inch iMac. Now, there is news that Apple plans to apply it to portable devices, including iPhone and iPad.
“Anti-reflective treatment of textured shell components” is a newly exposed Apple patent application. Judging from the newly disclosed patent applications, Apple’s philosophy is to provide better protection for its own devices, so these devices include “mobile phones, laptops, tablets, portable media players, wearable devices or other types of portable electronics equipment.”
What’s interesting is that these drawings are mainly focused on iPad-like devices, while the rest of the information is not explained in detail, but mobile phones are mentioned several times.
Regardless of the device, Apple knows that there must be a display that displays “graphic output visible through the texture area of the glass member”.
The principle is quite complicated
The details from the patent show that nano-textured glass is used in portable devices. The “textured area” is designated as “the substrate surface, consisting of a set of protrusions extending outward from the substrate surface. The patent describes these protrusions in more detail, but it ultimately describes the method of etching on glass.
The end result is a device whose monolithic glass has this etched texture. It is for this reason that nanotexture plays a very good role in reducing reflectivity, because it can prevent light from being directly reflected on the user.
However, this is a big engineering challenge. Part of the reason is that even “nano”-level devices have more surface area and the devices may be more easily scratched. Apple requires the use of a special cleaning cloth to minimize this situation. It is still unclear how it will further protect devices like the iPhone, because these devices are often put in the pockets by users, sometimes accidentally and hard. The pieces are adjacent to each other, such as sand or coins in the pocket, keys, etc.