While we look forward to seeing if the new iPhones (really) will come with LCD and OLED screens (or just OLED), Apple is, of course, already thinking about the future of display technologies for its gadgets. A big bet is the microLED.
Last March, we commented that Apple would be secretly developing microLED screens at a factory near its headquarters in Santa Clara, California. This week, Apple representatives attended a display innovation convention in Taiwan and had private meetings with some of the country’s largest screen makers, such as AU Optronics and the Epistar, as disclosed by Economic Daily News.
The website stated that Apple representatives wanted to know more about the development of each of the technologies in microLED and also miniLED displays, shown during the convention and that would be “suitable for future generations of iPhones and Apple Watches”. For the analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, it is likely that this technology will already be implemented in the 2019 version of the Apple Watch, and then transferred to iPhones, iPads and even MacBooks, who knows.
As the name suggests, these screens use arrays of tiny LEDs, but they have even more advantages: they are bright and suck less energy than current displays. Like other manufacturers, it is possible that Apple is more interested in microLED, since miniLED is known to be a transitional technology.
Furthermore, Apple’s investments in microLED are not recent; in 2014, Maçã acquired LuxVue, a company specialized in this technology. In addition to the talks with AUO and Epistar, Apple would have contacted its current chip supplier, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), to develop methods of mass production of microLED screens.
The technological world does not stop.
via MacRumors
