14 DAY TRIAL // Apple has a dream of reducing reliance on Samsung and building an iPhone that doesn’t come with OLED screens manufactured by the South Korean company, but up to this point, all the work in this regard doesn’t seem to be going exactly as anticipated.
And it’s all because BOE, one of the companies that Apple has turned to for the manufacturing of OLED panels, has failed to pass quality control tests, according to a recent report.
The Chinese display maker has already manufactured LCD panels for a series of Apple products, including the iPad and the MacBook, but it’s now working on expanding production to OLED as the Cupertino-based tech giant is moving the entire iPhone lineup to this display technology.
At the same time, BOE could also help Apple have a backup supplier for the iPhone, as right now, some 80 percent of the OLEDs used on the latest-generation models are produced by Samsung.
iPhone 12 launching this fall
A report from Korean site DDaily reveals that BOE failed to meet Apple’s quality standards, so for the time being, it shouldn’t be allowed to provide OLED screens for the iPhone 12.
At this point, there are two possibilities. Either BOE failed to pass the OLED quality control tests many months ago and the report surfaces only now, which means there’s a chance the problems have already been resolved, or the whole thing happened recently and this could impact the iPhone 12 launch.
If the latter is the right one, then this could be a reason some people indicate a possible delay for the iPhone 12, albeit for now, there’s no confirmation in this regard.
If anything, Apple can very well launch the iPhone 12 with a limited inventory until all production challenges are addressed, as there’s no report of similar quality issues with Samsung’s displays.