After some six years of development, Apple is nearing the launch of perhaps one of its most impressive new innovations: its own microLED displays.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
Around 2017, Apple kicked off its secretive T159 project to build microLED displays that could one day replace parts from Samsung, LG and others. The screens are brighter, have better color reproduction and can be seen from more angles. They make images look like they are painted on top of the device’s glass and are quite the technological feat.
The screens will show up first in an update to the Apple Watch Ultra currently planned for the end of 2024. I’d expect them to then make their way to the iPhone a few years after that, and maybe, one day, iPads and Macs.
MacDailyNews Take: Earlier this month, Haitong International Tech Research analyst Jeff Pu said that Apple would likely release the first Apple Watch with a microLED display in 2024.
microLEDs offer excellent color gamut, high luminance, a wide viewing angle, notably low power consumption, high dynamic range, high contrast, and transparency vs. LCD and OLED. The ability to control each pixel for local dimming and brightening offers significant advantages. microLEDs offer long lifetime and work well even in extreme weather – in other words: perfect for Apple Watch Ultra!
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Perhaps this is the differentiating technology that could one day find itself on a true Apple television. To this point, it has made really no sense for Apple to play in that market because other than a sweet industrial design and superior calibration, it really would just be an LG panel with an Apple TV built into it. But, if Apple has actually created something unique and continues to iterate off of this tech, maybe there’d be a reason to pay a premium price for a full-fledged Apple TV?
Perhaps, though the usual suspects are also working on microLED tech so it will probably be more a case of Apple lessening its reliance on suppliers (and cutting costs in the process).
I’m all for this…but could we get a realistic handle on the price tag?