14 DAY TRIAL // Apple is reportedly in talks with The New York Times and HarperCollins Publishers about offering content for its upcoming tablet device. Other tablet-related rumors say Apple isn’t likely to equip the device with OLED screens. Read on for more details on both matters.
HarperCollins Publishers and NY Times deals
It is rumored that Apple has secured, or is in the process of securing deals with HarperCollins Publishers and The New York Times, for offering paid content to future tablet owners. A report by the Wall Street Journal citing unnamed sources reveals that details haven’t been finalized yet. However, HarperCollins is expected to offer e-books with “added features” and to determine their prices itself, leaving Apple with only a portion of the sales. The same would probably go in the deal with the NY Times, with reports hinting at an upcoming paid model to be adopted by the paper, for buyers of the Apple tablet.
No OLED Screen
Rumors about Apple’s tablet employing a 10-inch OLED touchscreen panel seem to have hit a dead end, going by an Ars Technica report, which has been talking to Barry Young, managing director of the OLED Association. Although Apple was said to be responsible for depleting 10-inch OLED panel supplies, Young is not convinced that the inclusion of an OLED screen in Apple's tablet is likely to occur, given the quantity of such screens available on the market, Ars reveals.
The tech-focused site asked Young about the state of OLED and the Apple tablet rumors, and obtained the following information from the Managing Director of the OLED Association:
“[...] 10.1-inch AMOLED displays are not ‘similar to 13.3-inch or 14-inch LCDs, which are available from multiple sources.’ Rather, ‘AMOLED displays in volume are only available from Samsung SMD.’” And Samsung, it seems, isn't a plausible candidate for an iTablet AMOLED panel.
“On the Samsung configuration they could produce about fourteen 10.1-inch panels per substrate,” Young told Ars. “With a 70 percent yield, if all their capacity was dedicated to 10.1-inch, they could produce about 150,000 per month. Given that Samsung cannot meet its current order backlog, they are unlikely to build that many 10.1-inch displays,” he said.
Young acknowledges that Apple has been working with LG recently on displays. However, the South Korean electronics maker seems to be in even less of a position than Samsung to satisfy 10.1-inch display orders. “LG has 10 to 15 percent of Samsung's capacity,” Young revealed to Ars.