New iPhone could come with new Samsung screen tech

Dec 13, 2018 07:41 GMT  ·  By

Despite Apple’s efforts to reduce reliance on Samsung, the Cupertino-based giant still has to work with its long-term rival for certain technology especially when it comes to displays.

According to a new report, Samsung is the only company that can help Apple make the next-generation iPhone thinner and lighter than the current models, and it’s all thanks to a new screen technology that the South Korean company invented earlier this year.

Basically, what Samsung managed to do is to integrate the touch-sensitive layer that is normally placed on top of the display right within the screen, so the company saves some extra space that would essentially make the device overall a little bit thinner and obviously lighter.

While it’s too early to tell how significant the change is going to be, the linked source indicates that Samsung has already discussed with Apple a possible partnership for the technology called Y-OCTA.

Limited supply at first

At the same time, however, Samsung Display has also discussed similar partnership with its suppliers to manufacture the new OLED screens, but it’s likely that the production output would be rather limited at first.

In other words, there’s a chance that original inventory of the new iPhone would be impacted as well, and the source says supply could be constrained. This means Apple could either launch the 2019 iPhone featuring this technology with a slight delay as compared to the rest of the lineup – a strategy that the company also embraced last year when it debuted the iPhone X.

But at the same time, there’s also a good chance that Apple would only offer the tech on its top-of-the-range models that are anyway expected to sell in smaller numbers due to their high price.

At this point, the top iPhone configuration is the iPhone XS Max with 512GB storage, which in the United States reaches $1,449.