“Apple plans to introduce organic light-emitting diode displays for iPhones starting in 2018, sending suppliers racing to fine-tune the technology and invest in capacity expansion,” Nikkei reports. “In light of the decision, South Korea’s LG Display is already planning capacity upgrades. But securing enough panels for the more than 200 million phones Apples ships globally every year will likely prove difficult. The U.S. company is thus likely to opt for offering OLED iPhones alongside those using LCD screens.”
“There are technical challenges as well. The brightness, energy-saving capacity and other functions of OLED panels tend to degrade over time,” Nikkei reports. “The companies will work over the next year or so to see whether those drawbacks can be eliminated and a stable supply of screens secured.”
“South Korea’s Samsung Electronics is currently the only company that can reliably mass-produce OLED smartphone screens. LG Display has a track record for producing OLEDs for television screens. Given this, the two companies will likely supply a large portion of Apple’s displays,” Nikkei reports. “Apple’s shift to OLED displays will have major implications for two Japanese suppliers — Sharp, which is scrambling to rebuild its faltering operations, and Japan Display, which relies on the technology giant for 30% of its business.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote last month:
Our Apple Watches’ OLED displays certainly do look gorgeous. If Apple can be assured of the quality level and lifespan they require for iPhone, we could see them making the move to OLED for iPhones, too.
SEE ALSO:
Ming-Chi Kuo: No Apple iPhones with AMOLED displays until 2019 at the earliest – November 10, 2015
Apple considering OLED displays for iPhone 7/Plus – October 30, 2015
2018? That’s a really long time from now. That’s the iPhone 8. I don’t want to wait that long. I love iPhone and hate Android, but it’s obvious when you compare them side by side that the OLED screens on Samsung’s flagship phones look much nicer than the backlit IPS screens on the iPhone.
Well, OLED screens look OK if you like oversaturation in the colors. If you want accuracy, like Apple does, they are substandard. Also, there is the quick degradation of screen quality over relatively short lifespans.
The blacks on Apple’s backlit IPS displays don’t look like black when compared next to Samsung’s OLEDs. They look gray because of all the backlight that seeps through.
Welcome to the new Apple. Flat, white and gray … and a tech laggard in a number of areas.
Jooop, Cool. Personally I could never go samsung / android as I am in love with the volume up button on the iPhone. Its beautiful and nothing else every comes near it. Not even the iPhone down button.
Now if Samsung could match that LOVELY Up volume button, I might consider leaving Apple, but not until.
Just so lovely………. /s
Yep leave one item for another cause of one item. Cool Trolling but cool . LOL
This is a vast simplification of matters and a red herring. Saturation can be controlled. OLEDs are more expensive to produce. LCDs also preserve Apple’s profit margin.
OLEDs allow even thinner devices. They also draw power variably allowing for the device to go into low power mode. An LCD draws consistent power no matter what’s displayed. Having the iPhone go into Low Power Mode and a darker theme would be a welcome option and extend the battery MUCH longer than the LCD could.
Possible, but doubtful, since OLED consume much more than IPS in all situations other than black backgrounds of video playback.
Apple went with OLED in Apple Watch because they came up with the new white on black GUI. If Apple wanted, they could move to OLED earlier, but there is not much practical sense.
*”black backgrounds AND video playback”
The problem with OLED is that they consume a LOT of energy when the background is white. That’s why most Android OS variants have white text on a black background. I personally prefer the black text on a white background and would be VERY sad to see Apple go with OLED if it meant having to switch to white text on a black background to get a long battery life.