According to a new report circulating on the Web, Samsung and LG could be in the process of trying to convince Apple to switch the display tech that has been traditionally included on its iPhones. Consumers are still rushing around to get their hands on the company’s flagship iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus handsets, but this latest report is looking a little beyond the current roadmap by suggesting that Samsung and LG are hoping to introduce Apple to the benefits of OLED display technology by 2018.
Make no mistake about it, LG and Samsung aren’t making a concerted effort to convince Apple to switch over to OLED displays and drop the LCD displays as a corporate favor. Both South Korean-based companies are two of the biggest players in the production of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology. It would obviously be in their best interests to engage Apple in this particular conversation in the hope of convincing the Cupertino-based company to utilize this particular screen tech in future iPhone and iPad hardware. It’s likely that Apple would immediately come of as their biggest customer if the change was made.
There’s also the fact that both Samsung and LG are investigating the possibility of generating new revenue streams. Both companies are well-known for producing excellent, and generally successful, mobile hardware that’s powered by the Android platform. However, with Android sales starting to show significant signs of slowing down, and with iOS closing the gap on Android’s market share, the interest in pushing OLED technology to Apple seems to be a selfish one designed to capture a new customer that would order a significant amount of these displays.
An anonymous source, speaking to the reporting publication, suggested that “Samsung Display has recently renewed talks with Apple to supply its small-sized OLED displays for the next iPhones to be released in a few years”. The significant part of that is the “few years” part. If Apple do indeed decided to switch to the OLED tech provided by Samsung Display, then it’s likely that such an integration wouldn’t make it onto a production device until approximately 2018. That should take us to the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus based on Apple’s current naming and release schedules.
It will actually be extremely interesting to see how discussions between the companies turn out. In the current climate, Apple is a revenue generating machine with profits that most companies could only dream of. Integrating LCD technology into iPhones is clearly the cheaper option when compared to OLED displays, which in turns yields higher profits for Tim Cook’s outfit. It will be interesting to see if the benefits of OLED over LCD internally outweigh the appeal of higher profits per device.
It’s important to note here that Apple already uses LG and Samsung made OLED displays in one of its products, the Apple Watch. If you have played with an Apple Watch, you would know how great the display looks with its deeper blacks and all. Here’s to a hoping that Apple adopts OLED tech for iPhone displays sooner rather than later.
(Source: The Korea Times)
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