I bought the Paperlike screen protector for my iPad in the beginning of this year. I guess that means I’ve been using it somewhere between four and five months now. I’d been wanting to use the  Pencil more on my iPad, but the screen is slick when writing on it (I mean, it is glass). I’ve heard great things about Paperlike, so I bought one — well, two, since they come in a 2-pack.

When I first installed it, I remember noticing immediately that it reduces the clarity and beauty of the screen some. It’s not horrible, but definitely noticeable. This seemed like a small trade off for it making writing on the iPad more enjoyable… and it did! Writing with the  Pencil on an iPad that has Paperlike installed is niiiiiiice. I’m not sure it feels “paper like” exactly, but it does make it much better to write on.

Well, I’ve been thinking for a while now, kinda since first applying it, that I want to remove the Paperlike. It’s not for the screen protector not doing its job — which is to make the screen better to write on (not really about it being a “screen protector” so much). I still don’t write (or draw or sketch) as much as I’d like on the iPad… I do, however, do a lot of reading (blogs, Twitter, books, news, etc) and watching video (YouTube, shows, movies) — and that slight reduction in screen beauty hasn’t felt worth it anymore.

Last night I finally removed the Paperlike and WOW, the screen is so nice to look at again. I wrote on my iPad a little this morning to try out the bare-glass-writing feel again. Writing/drawing/sketching isn’t as good as it was, but that’s okay (I think). I feel it’s a decent trade off for my use case.

Am I crazy, though? When I look up reviews and comments about it, everyone seems to only say how great it is. I rarely see anything negative… and like I said, it is great at what it’s supposed to do — making writing on your iPad feel closer to paper (or at least better than writing on glass). And if you’re an artist or you do a lot of writing on the iPad, it’s probably better to have the Paperlike. For me, though, it’s probably something like 95% of the time I spend on my iPad is not using the  Pencil (maybe more), not the other way around.

Who knows, maybe I’ll end up installing the 2nd one that came in the pack on it at some point. 🤷‍♂️

Let me know your thoughts on Twitter (or wherever) if you’ve used the Paperlike before and/or are using it now. How do you feel about it?

- Jason

P.S. Just in case you wanted to see a before and after photo, here you go. It might be hard in a picture to tell the difference. At a minimum, you can see where the light's glare is, which sort of shows the reduced clarity.