Apple iPhone OLED Screen To Be Used in 2018? Company Gets Competitors' Supplies?

by Krezna de los Reyes / Nov 27, 2015 01:40 PM EST

Apple iPhone OLED screen will be used in 2018, following its competitors, according to reports.

A Japan-based report from Nikkei Asian Review announced that Apple will be switching their iPhone's LCD display for to OLED, reported Forbes.

If this change pushes through, Apple will be following LG and Samsung, which were already using OLED for their devices. By the time Apple makes their final decision, suppliers would be rushing into enhancing the technology's quality including LG, which is based in South Korea, "is already planning capacity upgrades."

The company's plan of changing their devices' screen to OLED might be supplied by Samsung and LG. This will also affect Apple's partnership with their current screen manufacturers like Japan Displays and Sharp, both of which gets 30% of their business income from Apple, according to Mac Rumors.

Apple sends out more than 200 million iPhones every year and along with the technological switch the company might ship devices with LCD and OLED screen displays together. The OLED screen panel provides a better contrast and has light emitting pixels that brings out a better screen resolution.

This switch is expected to happen in 2016 or 2017 since Apple has to revamp the iPhone's design. KGI's chain analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo mentioned that Foxconn, an iPhone manufacturer invested $4 billion for an LCD plant that might avert Apple's plan on switching to OLED, according to 9to5Mac.

DisplayMate Technologies expert, Raymond Soneira said that OLEDs are better compared to LCDs in many factors.

Soneira said that, "OLED displays have been advancing at a relentless and fast pace with a constant series of systematic and strategic improvements, while LCDs have been coasting on their laurels for years...the Galaxy S6 has more than double the resolution and more than 4 times the number of pixels as the iPhone 6," according to Forbes.

"It also has significantly higher peak brightness, significantly higher contrast ratio in both low and high ambient light, significantly higher absolute color accuracy, significantly better viewing angle performance and has 4 selectable screen modes instead of a single fixed one on the iPhones," Soneira added.