Apple is reportedly poised to swap its Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) in favor of the Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) technology for the future iPhones.
Come 2018, the Cupertino-based company intends to switch to OLED displays. The information comes courtesy of Nikkei, a Japanese site, which reveals that Apple has allegedly informed its suppliers of its forthcoming plans.
"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," notes the publication.
The report divulges that LG Display is already preparing for capacity increases to meet the demand for the production of OLED displays in massive quantities. The publication also suggests that both Samsung Electronics and LG Display would possibly share the production of the OLED panel for the next-gen iPhones.
If the rumors are true then Apple would be in the August Company of the likes of Samsung and LG, which currently deploy the OLED displays in their smartphones.
In the event Apple takes the leap of faith and transitions to OLED displays instead of using LCDs, the move could potentially have "major implications" for the company's current display suppliers, that is, Japan Display and Sharp. These two LCD suppliers rely primarily on Apple, which accounts for 30 percent of Japan Display's business.
However, there is a ray of hope for Apple's old suppliers as the high number of iPhones being shipped each year may result in the company selling iPhones with both LCD and OLED displays. Why? Because the production of OLED displays is technically challenging and Apple may not get the desired number of displays in time.
OLED displays offer brighter, sharper images and hues and power saving capacity in comparison to LCD ones. However, a minus of the former is that the production cost is higher than that of LCDs and they also have a shorter lifecycle.
Apple is apparently in consultation with the display makers on how to eliminate the drawbacks in OLED technology.
Since its launch eight years ago, iPhones have sported LCD screens and it would be interesting to see if Apple indeed transitions to OLED for its future iPhones.
