Fix for Apple's way-too-glossy screens

Just thought I'd post a heads-up about this, since I remember a lot of Coffee Lounge posters use Macs, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who has this problem.

Apple's infatuation with putting a gloss screen on everything that moves, while to some extent being a good thing (providing punchier colours, deeper blacks), is a bother for the rest of us who want to avoid screen glare. This is a particular problem with the aluminium iMacs, which pack a backlight bright enough to stun a pigeon, but no setting low enough to protect your eyes.

I've been having this problem with my 24" iMac for months, getting bloodshot eyes after even short periods of usage. I tried turning the brightness down to minimum, then installing Shades to turn it down even lower. But making it darker gave me more screen glare, and making it brighter was just as bad for my eyes. Tried getting a different lightbulb, got a diffuser lampshade, even tried putting the damn thing in grayscale. But no matter what I tweaked, I couldn't get it comfortable enough to use for extended periods.

At this point I was starting to consider getting a new, matte, monitor. Obviously replacing 24" of monitor is wasting quite a lot of money, and there's no way for me to turn off the built-in screen in favour of an external one. Then I heard a jokey comment on a forum about some guy who strapped a polarising film to his screen, which fixed the problem for him.

I did a bit of digging and found a pre-cut 24" anti-glare film for iMacs, by Photodon. Applied it to my screen (if you plan to do this, make sure you have two people so it goes smoothly) and blam! instant matte. Screen glare is now a thing of the past, I get to keep my monitor/computer and my eyes live to see another day (no pun intended). Wouldn't recommend it to anyone doing colour-critical work, 'cause the film casts something of a shimmery dither across your monitor, but for people who can't use their computer otherwise, it's a godsend.

Anyone else here having problems (or getting along just fine) with an Apple gloss screen? Discuss!

I weighed this very heavily when I was picking out my macbook and after a ton of reading and deliberation I chose matte. Your post makes me very happy that I did.

Considered sitting further away from the screen?

I'm not too keen on gloss screens, just merely because of the look, rather than any health-related issues. I guess my iPhone is glossy, but I don't stare at that all day and the screen's a little smaller/dimmer.

I hate macs

Ooh, now you're going to have wrist/ass sprains/cramps cos you're using the mac wayy too long. So now you know that there's a reason why they made em glossy.