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MattXDA

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 18, 2014
478
471
UK
Currently all phones have a black display while turned off. Apple should make the display white on the white models so that it blends in when the screen is off.

Thoughts?
 
Is there such thing as a white display while it's off? Any devices you see as examples?
 
Currently all phones have a black display while turned off. Apple should make the display white on the white models so that it blends in when the screen is off.

Thoughts?

Honest question, do you understand how a display fully works when it's not illuminated? Why would somebody want to look at a white display if the iPhone is not activated?
 
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Honest question, do you understand how a display fully works when it's not illuminated? Why would somebody want to look at a white display if the iPhone is not activated?
Certainly do, maybe a mirror behind the backlight would work. Not on OLED though!
 
First you wanted an iPhone made from wood, then an iPhone without a screen, and now an iPhone with a white display. What's next ?
 
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well... at least he's thinking outside the box...
 
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well... at least he's thinking outside the box...
Thinking outside the box is still inside the bigger box that contains the physics of our universe. This dude is thinking inside the multiverse
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The display would be powered off, hence why I used those words. If it was to be powered on then I wouldn’t make a thread, as that is a ridiculous idea
I actually have a solution to your near-impossible idea. And it's thinking outside the box, but within the laws of physics, so I'm pretty proud I came up with it just now.

Anyway; solution:

First we get a satisfactorily sophisticated understanding of the human brain, and specifically the sense of sight. Then we recode the photo neurons so firstly, we see infrared light, and see it as 'white', and then we place infrared emitters behind the display component and when the display is powered off, the infrared light emitters power on, sending infrared light out, which is interpreted as white to the human mind.

That's my thesis for my PhD in neuroscience.
 
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The display would be powered off, hence why I used those words. If it was to be powered on then I wouldn’t make a thread, as that is a ridiculous idea
Here is the problem with that.

The natural state of ANY screen when powered off is to be dark. That is just the nature of displays.

To get what you want the screen would have to be ON and displaying white pixels.

You cannot get what you want without power.
 
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There wouldn’t be a need for any power...
A sheet of paper is white because it reflects all visible light.

It would be posible if the glass that covers the oled screen was made of some kind of meta-material or some dinamic wave guide.
When the screen is off, the glass on top would reflect all the colors from the visible light spectrum and therefor you see it white.
Powering the screen would by some mecanism, change the state of the meta-material or the directions of the wave-guides, changing the refractive index of the glass so that there would be no reflection and the only light that gets out comes from the inside, from the oled screen.

Making the glass look like a sheet of paper instead of a specular surface is just a question of giving texture to it.

Honestly I really don’t have much idea of what I’m talking about but this is my solution.
 
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There wouldn’t be a need for any power...
A sheet of paper is white because it reflects all visible light.

It would be posible if the glass that covers the oled screen was made of some kind of meta-material or some dinamic wave guide.
When the screen is off, the glass on top would reflect all the colors from the visible light spectrum and therefor you see it white.
Powering the screen would by some mecanism, change the state of the meta-material or the directions of the wave-guides, changing the refractive index of the glass so that there would be no reflection and the only light that gets out comes from the inside, from the pled screen.

Making the glass look like a sheet of paper instead of a specular surface is just a question of giving texture to it.

Honestly I really don’t have much idea of what I’m about but this is my solution.

And how easy and cost effective would it be to incorporate such a cover that in no way diminish the clarity and colour accuracy of the display when active?
 
And how easy and cost effective would it be to incorporate such a cover that in no way diminish the clarity and colour accuracy of the display when active?
No idea, probably prohibitive for now.
But In teory,not impossible to make, I guess.

The Iphone 8 won’t support it anyway. I wasn’t agreeing with the op, I was just saying how it could hypothetically work.
 
Is there such thing as a white display while it's off? Any devices you see as examples?
The early iPaq's had "daylight readable" color displays. The color was a bit washed-out, admittedly - but that was over a decade ago.

Now there's this:
 
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