Hold off buying a new iPad or MackBook: Apple to introduce mini-LED screens in high-end MacBook and iPad models as early as next year, report claims
- Likely devices will be in the MacBook Pro and iPad Pro ranges.
- Samsung currently supplies OLED screens for its high-end iPhone models.
- Targeted release window between holiday 2020 and summer 2021.
Apple is preparing for a major upgrade to the screens used in MacBooks and iPad, part of an effort to minimize the company’s reliance on components from Samsung.
In a research note from TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, picked up by MacRumours, the new devices are planned for release sometime between holiday 2020 and summer of 2021.
The targeted devices are likely to be 10-inch and 12-inch iPads, and 15-inch and 17-inch MacBooks, which would be branded as Pro models given the high cost and general difficulty of manufacturing mini-LED screens.
Current MacBook Pro models will receive a major display upgrade, but it will likely come at a high price.
Mini-LEDs are like ordinary LEDs, just much smaller, which makes it possible to pack in thousands more of them into an display.
The extra light sources makes screens are substantially brighter and creates more vibrant and nuanced colors through the greater combination of lights made possible by the higher LED count.
There aren’t many mini-LED displays currently on the market, one of the first is TCL’s 8-Series TVs, which start at $1,999 for a 65-inch model.
Apple has relied on Samsung to produce the Retina screens used in current MacBook and iPad lines, and it also provides OLED screens for iPhone X and iPhone 11.
In 2018, Apple reached an agreement with LG to become a second screen supplier, with an initial shipment of between 2 million and 4 million screens.
Over the same period, Samsung has emerged as one of Apple’s main competitors in the mobile market.
In 2018, Samsung beat out Apple with the most smartphone shipments in the world. In the U.S. Apple maintained a narrow lead over Samsung accounting for 36% of total smartphone activations compared to Samsung’s 34%.
Last month, Samsung claimed the top spot in a survey from the American Customer Satisfaction Index measuring how happy smartphone owners were with their particular devices.
The Galaxy Note 9 scored an index score of 86, earning the distinction of the most well-liked device on the market. Apple’s iPhone 8 Plus earned an index score of 83.
Last year, Apple won a victory of their own when a San Jose jury found Samsung had violated a number of its smartphone patents. The jury awarded Apple $539 million in damages, citing copied features including the tap-to-zoom function, app icon design, and form factor of the phones themselves.
According to Kuo, Apple’s push toward a new screen technology is also meant to address burn-in issues on its OLED devices.
Apple’s new XDR Display, announced in tandem with a new revision of the Mac Pro, will support 6K resolution. Mini-LED displays would promise even more color saturation, brightness, and detail.
Compared to OLEDs, Mini-LEDS are not only brighter but less prone to declining image quality over time as the organic material in OLEDs degrades.
Mini-LED screens are made up of 10,000 light emitting diodes, an enormous step up compared to Apple’s own current high-end display the Apple Pro Display XDR, which has 576 LEDs.