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The Next iPhone Will Feature An OLED Display, Says Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the dazzling-display dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Apple Inc. has big plans to outfit its next iPhone with vibrant, energy-sipping organic LED displays, seeking to entice consumers with new technology that's already been embraced by other high-end smartphone makers. The trouble is that the four main suppliers for such components won't have enough production capacity to make screens for all new iPhones next year, with constraints continuing into 2018, people familiar with the matter said, presenting a potential challenge for the Cupertino, California-based company. OLED screens are more difficult to produce, putting Apple at the mercy of suppliers that are still working to manufacture the displays in mass quantities, the people said. The four largest producers are Samsung Display Co., LG Display Co., Sharp Corp., and Japan Display Inc. While Samsung is on track to be the sole supplier for the new displays next year, the South Korean company may not be able to make enough due to low yield rates combined with increasing iPhone demand. The supply constraints may force Apple to use OLED in just one version of the next-generation iPhone, push back adoption of the technology or cause other snags. Apple plans to ship at least one new iPhone with an OLED screen next year, the 10th anniversary of the smartphone's debut, people with knowledge of the matter said. A pair of other new iPhone models will likely feature screens that use older LCD technology, partly because there won't be enough OLED displays to satisfy anticipated demand, according to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The OLED iPhone, at least, will have a new look that extends glass from the display to the device's back and edges, according to a person familiar with Apple's plans. This all-glass design will have a virtual Home button embedded in an edge-to-edge screen, rather than a physical button that can be pressed, the person added.

15 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. iPhone = elections by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We have to hear about the next one a year or two in advance, all the damn time.

  2. The real question is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Will this allow them to make the phone thinner?

    I love my iPhone 7, but the battery still lasts too long, and there's still too many goddam ports and buttons on the thing. I wish Apple would come out with a thinner phone that had half the battery capacity, no Lightning port, and a completely sealed and smooth chassis. Extra points for making it so thin there's no practical way I could ever put it in my pocket and sit down without breaking it. They're almost there with the 6 and 7, but not quite. I hate having any semblance of durability on my premium hardware. The phone should never last longer than the warranty, otherwise there's no reason for me to go out and buy new shiny hardware every 3 years.

    1. Re:The real question is... by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 5, Funny

      You know, I was totally with you until your last sentence. Then I realized you're just a hater and poser. No REAL Apple-lyte (Praise Be Unto Jobs' Name) would wait for the warranty to expire! The ONLY reason you need a new phone is because it is THE NEW MODEL. Waiting any longer than you possibly must is simply ludicrous. I mean, if your wife was having a baby I can understand not getting in line just 3 days early rather than the usual 7. But holding off for 3 years? That's just something no self-respecting Apple-lyte would do!

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    2. Re:The real question is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      I mean, if your wife was having a baby I can understand not getting in line just 3 days early rather than the usual 7.

      What are you talking about? She should be in line with you. When her water breaks, just ask Siri how to deliver the child.

  3. I can't be the only one who hates OLED by Rei · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, it consumes less power, but it looks terrible. Starts out dimmer than LCD, gets dimmer with age, color balance starts feeling off subpar, gets terrible with age, always looks bad outdoors, burn-in prone, etc. It also feels like the colors "bleed" more in LED, although that could just be my perception. I know that blacks are supposed to be better with LED than LCD (and thus they get higher nominal contrast ratios), but in most viewing conditions the black difference is not something you notice, unless it's very dark. I once went around to my coworkers and compared my Z2 (LCD) to their cell phones of roughly the same age and resolution and there was no comparison, the Z2 looked way better.

    Maybe the technology has advanced significantly since then... but otherwise, no thank you.

    --
    Wingus, Dingus! Listen up!
    1. Re:I can't be the only one who hates OLED by aNonnyMouseCowered · · Score: 2

      Smart phone manufacturers know OLEDs don't age gracefully, forcing the buyer to upgrade to a shinier model just when the old phone has passed its warranty.

    2. Re:I can't be the only one who hates OLED by Gr8Apes · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yeah, it consumes less power, but it looks terrible. Starts out dimmer than LCD, gets dimmer with age, color balance starts feeling off subpar, gets terrible with age, always looks bad outdoors, burn-in prone, etc.

      OLED, at least recent screens, are far superior to LCD in a number of areas, including brightness, color balance and gamut, and especially viewing in the dark and in bright light areas. If you move to TV technology, the worst tech in the last 40 years has been LCD screens. The motion blur, lack of color depth and lack of gradient abilities are what keep bothering the crap out of me, and that includes even the newest LCD based TVs.

      It also feels like the colors "bleed" more in LED, although that could just be my perception.

      Actually, that's the gradient effect, something highly desirable in a screen over the LCD square pixel edge to edge single color capability that gives rise to that aforementioned blockiness and color banding, which just don't exist in nature. A little color edge bleed between pixels allows for a natural gradient to occur, mimicking real life color gradients. This is, of course, discussing things like photos and movies. Note that most phone screens today have a high enough pixel density that unless your eyes are good, you won't notice any significant bleed unless its a defective screen. TVs, OTOH, are a different story.

      I once went around to my coworkers and compared my Z2 (LCD) to their cell phones of roughly the same age and resolution and there was no comparison, the Z2 looked way better

      I have no idea what a Z2 looks like, nor what phones you compared to, but a good LCD screen can look better than a crappy OLED screen. Quality of components matters and one well implemented technology can exceed an inherently better but poorly implemented technology. Quality OLED screens have only really started coming out in the last year or two, so aging is something that you could only start to really look at in the next couple of years, IMHO.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  4. Re:Somehow by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

    This is an opportunity for American manufacturers to step up. Isn't anyone interested in being a domestic display supplier?

  5. Welcome ro 2009 by ukoda · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You mean an OLED display like on the Nexus One back in 2009? What's next, wireless charging?

  6. Re:LED vs LCD by thegarbz · · Score: 2

    I have yet to use an LED display of any type. Have they improved over the last few years? Last I checked, the colors always looked way off when compared to an LCD and they seemed a bit more "pixely".

    Short answer is yes. Long answer is:

    The color reproduction of OLED was from the start far better than any LCD on the market, even with the early phones. The problem was that this was not compensated for with colour management resulting in hyper over saturated colours that looked horrible.

    The pixely problem was due to the use of a pentile pattern with early OLEDs. These were used partially because at the time they needed more space between pixels during manufacture and partially the red and blue pixels faded faster than the green ones so by making them larger they extended the life of the display. They aren't used anymore in high-end phones and with the resolutions these days pixels shouldn't register unless you start getting a good magnifying glass.

    I am guessing LED is the future and will eventually replace LCD TV's and monitors as well as phones, it is just that the displays are starting small so phones get to be first.

    It's an issue of lifetime more than anything. Phones and tablets have a much shorter life expectancy than TVs or monitors and a lower duty cycle compared to some always-on displays. There's still some things that need to be improved before the technology is ready for TVs or monitors, but personally I can't wait. The colour gamut of my phone is better than that of my $1600 LCD which is just depressing, but at the same time an exciting example of technological progression.

  7. Please God No by 2ms · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I was thinking I might go iPhone next time, but partly because of how impressed I am with the iPhone 7 display! Why anyone would want an OLED on phone is beyond me. The colors look ridiculous. You can spot an OLED phone from a mile away from the psychedelic color rendition. Can't do it!

    1. Re:Please God No by Solandri · · Score: 4, Informative

      That has nothing to do with OLED. It can be addressed with a simple color profile; but unfortunately Google hasn't yet added color profile support to Android. Samsung has addressed it by hacking color profiles into the version of Android running on their phones. iOS does support color profiles, at least internally (it's how Apple makes their screens so color accurate).

      In a nutshell, OLED has completely black blacks, and has a wider color gamut than LED - it can display more saturated colors like in real life. The current TV and web standard for color gamut is sRGB, which unfortunately was a reduction in color gamut from the NTSC standard that was used for CRT TVs. Early LCDs were vastly inferior in color reproduction than CRTs, and manufacturers managed to get the sRGB color standard hobbled to compensate for this. So all images you see designed to sRGB can only display up to about 50% the color saturation of real-life. OLEDs easily cover the Adobe RGB color gamut, which is pretty close to the old NTSC gamut.

      When you display an sRGB image on a display which is capable of a wider gamut, it basically stretches the sRGB colors to map them onto the display's gamut. This is what leads to the lurid colors. The green which is supposed to be 50% of the deepest green you can see in real life (maximum green for sRGB) gets mapped to 70% of the deepest green you can see in real life, making it look unnaturally green. But if you calibrate the display with a color profile, the OS sees that the image it's trying to display is sRGB, and correctly maps it to the (roughly) lower 2/3rds of the color range the display is capable of, and the 50% green remains 50%. It's like how a stereo system which can output 200 Watts can also output 100 Watts. But to play music normalized for a 100 Watt stereo system, you have to turn down the volume on a 200 Watt system. Android currently doesn't have a standardized way to turn down the volume. (Meanwhile, the 100 Watt system can never output sound at 200 Watts.)

      With proper software support, there's basically no downside to OLED other than burn-in. Color shift and fade can be compensated for by profiling the screen again. Color professionals (photographers, graphics artists, videographers) do this with their own colorimeter they buy. But there's no reason phone stores couldn't have a colorimeter on hand. You could drop by the store once a year, they use their colorimeter to profile your phone in 10 minutes, and you're out the door with a new color profile and accurate colors. But the OS has to support custom color profiles to be able to do this. And the burn-in problem was more or less solved in the CRT days with screen savers. CRTs used phosphors which also suffered burn-in, and a screen saver evened out phosphor use enough to mitigate burn-in. (You younger folks have probably wondered why they're called a screen "saver" - now you know).

  8. If you want OLED now... by matbury · · Score: 2

    ...buy a Samsung. Simple.

  9. Re:LED vs LCD by darkain · · Score: 2

    About color management: This is a two-fold problem. Both Google and Apple refuse to support *ANY* color management in their mobile OSes at all. Save an image in the AdobeRGB or ProPhoto RGB color space, view them in your web browser on the desktop and it'll properly translate the color information to what ever color space the desktop OS is running in. On the phones, they absolutely ignore all color-space information from the image, not even trying to convert it to sRGB. Checking bug reports online for both Android and iOS shows that both companies actively mark colorspace issues as "not fixing", as in, they actively acknowledge the issue and have done so for years, and are actively refusing to address it.

  10. Re:LED vs LCD by thegarbz · · Score: 2

    That is not directly the problem. Yes it would be nice for the OS to naively support internal colour management algorithms but the ability for a display to display accurate colour does not depend on the OS being able to translate the colour (save for the example of not understanding the source material which is what you describe).

    Colour management baked into the OS is important if you have multiple display with multiple different output gamuts. It then becomes important for this to be a feature. *sidenote* Windows and Linux don't have this feature either. They provide APIs for colour management and they provide information to applications on what colour space to the monitor uses, but it relies entirely on the application to implement the colour management or call on the API to do it */sidenote*

    However a phone is not a desktop. The monitor is built in to the device and the OS is specifically written for it. It is therefore possible for the driver itself to simply re-map the RGB space (this is what Samsung do to make their displays look normal if you look under display options). This fixes the specific problem (I think) the GP was complaining about which is that colours looked unrealistic on an OLED display.

    What it doesn't do is allow you to display accurate normal colours and also display a wider colour gamut if that information is available at the same time. For that you are most definitely right, the OS needs some intelligence and as someone who surface the web with a wide gamut monitor and looks at the slashdot logo it is incredibly disappointing for me that it looks hypersaturated. The only browser currently supporting output colour space translation is Firefox, and I gave up on that.
    *another sidenote* Chrome used to support colour management completely but that died sometime around version 34. Now it only supports colour management for images with embedded profiles so on a website you can have an sRGB image and an sRGB image with an embedded profile for sRGB look different if your monitor isn't also sRGB */another sidenote*

    Developers just don't frigging get it.