Apple making its own displays, instead of using Samsung screens
According to media reports, Apple is, for the first time, designing and producing its own device displays. Currently, the company's first OLED phone iPhone X uses screens from Samsung while the Apple Watch uses screens by LG Display. Apple is making a small number of screens for testing purposes at a secret manufacturing facility near its California headquarters.
MicroLED over OLED
The technology giant aims to develop next-generation MicroLED screens, which use different light-emitting compounds than the current OLED displays. MicroLED screens can reportedly make future gadgets slimmer, brighter and less power-hungry, and thus are far more difficult to produce than OLED displays.
Apple inching towards end-to-end hold over its devices
Though reports claim that Apple engineers are now at an advanced stage with the technology, which was incepted a year ago, it will still take a couple of years to reach consumers. This is the latest example of Apple making all key components of an electronic device in-house and customizing them according to the company's unique standards. Apple already designs chips for its smartphones.
Commercial screen makers like Samsung, LG need to buck up!
If Apple succeeds, the move will directly affect commercial screen makers like Samsung Electronics, Japan Display, Sharp Corp, LG Display, Synaptics that produce chip-screen interfaces. It will also compete with Universal Display, a leading developer of OLED technology. In the past, Apple has tweaked iPhone screens in line with its own specification for color accuracy but never designed them end-to-end itself.
MicroLED screens might first launch in Apple wearables
In a significant milestone, Apple had manufactured a fully functional prototype of a future Apple Watch with a MicroLED screen last year. This indicates that the company might make the new technology available in its wearables first. The prototype screen was reportedly brighter than the current OLED Watch displays with a finer level of control over individual colors.
The initiative is codenamed T159
The secret facility is a 62,000-square-foot manufacturing space housing about 300 engineers who design and produce MicroLED screens. The initiative is codenamed T159 and is being overseen by Lynn Youngs, an Apple veteran who developed touch screens for the original iPhone and iPad.
