My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

> It's classic Apple to spend over a decade insisting that that glossy screens were the best option

I don't recall Apple ever "insisting" anything about glossy vs. matte. They simply eliminated the matte option without comment, and finally brought it back many years later.

If you have a reference to a public statement from Apple defending the elimination of the matte option, I'd like to see it.

To be clear, I've been complaining about glossy Macs ever since matte was eliminated, and I too purchased an M4 MacBook Pro soon after it was available.

The "matte" options also are totally different approaches, different quality levels. They're not the same product.

> They simply eliminated the matte option without comment, and finally brought it back many years later.

Wasn’t the matte option that disappeared just then removing the glass in front of the screen? I seem to remember that (my MBP from that time was glossy).

The nano textured coating they are using now is quite complex and I am not quite sure it was applicable at such scales cheaply enough back in 2015.

The PowerBook and the first MacBook Pro were only matte.

A glossy option was introduced in 2006, but the MacBook Pro was still matte by default.

In 2008, the MacBook Pro case was redesigned, and then the display situation changed significantly.

> “…featuring the Intel Core Duo processor and a gorgeous new 13-inch glossy widescreen display…”

> “…the MacBook provides incredibly crisp images with richer colors, deeper blacks and significantly greater contrast…”

This is positioning for glossy being superior.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2006/05/16Apple-Unveils-New-M...

In one quote they used glossy to describe it. How does that mean they said that glossiness made it better?

The other quote is just a list of ways in which the screen is better.

It is YOU that is conflating these and saying that this list of improvements is down to glossiness, not Apple.

It's indisputable that glossy displays have advantages over matte displays. It's also indisputable that matte displays have advantages over glossy displays, most importantly, fewer reflections of ambient light. The choice is a tradeoff.

A sentence in a PR that highlights an indisputable advantage of a glossy display does not position glossy as being superior overall but merely superior in the respects mentioned, which is not controversial.

Moreover, Apple continued to offer a matte display in the MacBook Pro for years after that PR, so why would they sell an "inferior" option?

I don't think this is exactly accurate. The matte was a ~$80 upgrade option after they released the glossy. I definitely preferred the matte screens and still do. For coding reducing glare in uncontrolled environments is way more important to me than color fidelity, but to each their own.