The rumors about the debut of an OLED iPad are becoming more and more insistent. We have been talking about it for a long time, but in the last period the rumors insist on the story and tell of a potentially evolving picture. Apple first of all would count on producing it for real an iPad with OLED display that, according to rumors, if everything went exactly according to plan would arrive on the market in 2024.
Today’s rumor coming from DigiTimes not only does not change by a comma what was said at the beginning of last month, but adds a potential detail: Apple may have identified a new supplier to which to commission the production of its panel, an OLED composed of a rigid glass substrate and a thin plastic layer, therefore flexible. In short, a hybrid OLED, a mix between the structure of a non-flexible OLED (glass) and one that is (plastic).
APPLE WOULD HAVE A NEW SUPPLIER OF MINI LED PANELS
In September it was said that Samsung Display and LG Display were already working to fulfill Apple’s requests and get the order, but now it turns out that a third supplier (potentially inconvenient for the two) could be in the game. It is Taiwan Surface Mounting Technology or Taiwan SMT, but it is advisable to immediately clarify the contours of the indiscretion and the hypothesis, remote at present, that derives from it.
According to DigiTimes, the third would have entered for the first time in the supply chain of Apple for the production of the mini LED panel of the iPad Pro 12.9″and MacBook Pro. It is an indiscretion but if it were correct it would tell a fact, an event that has already happened. Here – and it is clearly a pure speculation, being based on a rumor – Apple could submit to Taiwan SMT the question of hybrid OLED, in an attempt to understand if the new player in the supply chain is able to realize it and possibly with what results in terms of quality and time for the start of mass production.
After all, it is an idea shared among observers that Apple will continue on the path of mini LEDs until the hybrid OLED panels are ready, so at that point Taiwan SMT would have a crossroads at ahead: provide Apple with hybrid OLEDs, perhaps together with Samsung and LG, or get out of the supplier count.
