Samsung’s Privacy Display is the best iPhone feature Apple never made

At a time when our smartphones store banking apps, passwords, personal messages, and other sensitive data, privacy screen protectors have become a must for many users. These third-party add-ons rely on micro-louver technology to restrict the viewing angle of the display, limiting visibility from the sides. This makes it difficult for bystanders to see on-screen content at an angle, as the light emits in a controlled, forward-facing direction.

During its Unpacked event earlier this week, Samsung revealed its Galaxy S26 line. As you’d expect from phone manufacturers at this point, the keynote heavily revolved around performance gains and AI features. Perhaps the most jaw-dropping highlight, however, was the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s new Privacy Display, which mimics the aforementioned screen protectors natively. If Apple truly cares about iPhone users’ privacy, it needs to steal this ingenious invention as soon as possible.

How Privacy Display works

So, did Samsung just pre-install a privacy screen protector on the Galaxy S26 Ultra to save its customers $20? Far from it. Privacy Display does not rely on an external layer or filter to achieve the intended goal. It has been engineered on the pixel level, dictating how the screen emits light in the first place. 

Smartphone displays are typically made up of wide pixels, which emit light outward in multiple directions. This enables you to view on-screen content even when you’re not strictly facing the device. Here’s where Samsung applied its magic.

The Galaxy S26 Ultra is the first smartphone to feature what Samsung calls the Black Matrix. Marketing lingo aside, the technology essentially narrows a pixel’s light path using a ring, directing more of the light forward—rather than allowing it to scatter outward. This produces a narrow pixel that behaves in a restricted manner.

To make the feature dynamic, Samsung had to incorporate both wide and narrow pixels in its latest flagship phone. When Privacy Display is on, narrow pixels become the primary source of light, reducing visibility from an angle. Toggling it off enables both pixel types to work in tandem, restoring regular light emission. To see it in action is truly mind-blowing.

Why Privacy Display wins

Now, you may be wondering why iPhone users should care about Privacy Display when screen protectors can seemingly achieve similar results for just a few bucks. Mainly, Samsung’s implementation is neither permanent nor universal. You can toggle the feature on or off using the Quick Panel (Samsung’s Control Center) or tie it to daily schedules or routines.

For example, the screen can behave normally when you’re at home and switch to private mode when you’re out and about. More importantly, you can have Privacy Display conceal specific portions of the screen, such as incoming notifications, banking apps, password fields, etc. This maintains your phone’s proper illumination while still blocking others from viewing private content of your choosing.

Samsung

It is also worth noting that privacy screen protectors come with a few caveats. For starters, they make the screen a little thicker and tend to dim the brightness and alter the colors’ accuracy. They can also make the screen less responsive to touch input and interfere with some features. Samsung’s implementation achieves similar results while maintaining the image quality and the phone’s functionality. Once it becomes a default on all smartphones in the coming years, no one will want to look back.

The innovation race

Apple’s unwillingness to take risks is slowing down its innovation. Even as an iPhone enthusiast, I can’t help but acknowledge how mundane Apple’s product launches have generally become. Despite maintaining its status as a trendsetter, Apple has been lagging behind its competitors in terms of breakthrough technology and features. Sure, it is doing wonders with its silicon, but performance means little when the rest of the device is so tediously uninspiring. Privacy Display is objectively an actual, transformative screen innovation in a way the iPhone 18 Pro’s smaller Dynamic Island won’t be.