Apple iPod Incompatible With Polarized Sunglasses

As the weather gets nicer, I found myself outside more, enjoying my iPod. It's only now that I've discovered that I can't see the display in bright daylight when I am wearing my sunglasses. That is because I wear polarized sunglasses, and the iPod display, being liquid crystal (LCD), is also polarized. They oriented the polarization of the display screen to be at a slant with respect to the normal viewing angle. This means that the display is only roughly half as bright as it should be, unless I tilt the iPod at a funky angle.

Apple's engineers must be lazy. I can't think of a good reason why they didn't oriented the screen for maximum brightness when viewed horizontally. They went to such an effort to make the screen super bright, so that you can enjoy it in daylight. Did they not expect you to wear sunglasses? Maybe they are working on iShades (coming out in August) that will be more compatible with the iPod.

I wonder if the screens are installed randomly (though I seriously doubt it)? Does anybody else have the same problem with their display? I will be examining my friends' iPods closely.



For what it's worth, I checked my GPS unit display and it is set up properly for full brightness when viewed horizontally. Kudos Garmin!