14 DAY TRIAL // Apple added the Touch Bar to its new range of MacBook Pro notebooks as a step forward in terms of usability, but OLED technology might be harder to implement when it comes to larger screens.
Nevertheless, it looks like the company is actively working on doing just that. “Apple is currently looking into ways of using OLED panels for MacBooks and testing their performance,” said industry representatives quoted by Korea IT News.
While this technology is currently used on Apple Watch and Touch Bar, introducing it to its notebook displays might be of less benefit in terms of power consumption due to the fact that most apps use a white background; at least for now, there are limited areas of solid black that wouldn’t make this change more economic.
As for the upside, the OLED technology provides increased brightness, sharper and more vivid colors, as well as faster response times compared to LCD panels, and also allows the displays to be made considerably thinner (as there is no need for a backlight).
However, implementing OLED displays to larger screens (not just to small Watches and Touch Bars) will pose certain manufacturing challenges.
Waiting for Apple iPhone’s 10th Anniversary
Apple might take this leap forward with its future iPhone model to boost sales for the iPhone’s 10th anniversary next year, as Sharp President, Tai Jeng-wu, told students at Tatung University that “The iPhone has been evolving and now it is switching from LTPS (low-temperature polysilicon) to OLED panels. We don't know whether Apple's OLED iPhones will be a hit, but if Apple doesn't walk down this path and transform itself, there will be no innovation. It is a crisis, but it is also an opportunity.”
When it comes to the manufacturers, some say these new displays might be provided by Samsung (since it’s known to have made the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar) or by Sharp, as Tai Jeng-wu lets us believe: “We are now building a new [OLED] facility in Japan. We can make [OLED panels] in the U.S. too. If our key customer demands us to manufacture in the U.S., is it possible for us not to do so?”
