Apple had been using LED-backlit IPS LCD display panels for its iPhones for a very long time. All that changed with the launch of the iPhone X — Apple's first smartphone to feature an OLED screen.
And Apple's choice of display technology led to speculation that all three 2018 iPhones would come with an OLED screen. Now, a report in the Wall Street Journal tells a different story.
According to the WSJ report, Apple is considering using some advanced LCD screens made by Japan Display for some of the iPhones being manufactured in the future.
The "Full Active" LCD panels by Japan Display are expected to make up for in as much as 70 percent of the company's revenue in the smartphone and smart devices display sector for the next fiscal year ending March 2019. Many other smartphone manufacturers are showing interest in the "Full Active" advanced LCD panels. Xiaomi, which is dubbed as the Apple of China, reportedly uses these panels for its new edge-to-edge display smartphone phone, the Mi MIX 2.
Just to recall, there was a shortage of AMOLED display panels in the past as Samsung was perhaps the only smartphone manufacturer that was able to keep up with the demand. Manufacturers like HTC whose early batches launched with AMOLED screens had to resort to LCD screens later due to the limited supply. But that doesn't seem to be the case here.
The "Full Active" LCD screens will help smartphones manufacturers make their edge-to-edge smartphones even more compact by cutting-down the bezels surrounding their display by a full 0.5 mm compared to that of OLED screens. The bezels surrounding the "Full Active" LCD screens can be as small as 0.5mm, while bezels on current OLED panels including that of the iPhone X are approximately 1mm thick.
Apple chose an OLED display exclusively for this year's iPhone X. Both the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus came with the same 4.7 inch and 5.5 inch LED-backlit IPS LCD screens as last year's iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus with some minor tweaks. But next year's sequels of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus are expected to come with OLED displays. Japan Display says that its new LCD screens provide the advantages of an OLED panel at a lower price.
The OLED panels that will be used on the iPhone X are currently sourced from Samsung Display, a unit of Apple's biggest smartphone rival Samsung. Each unit is priced at $110, which is as expensive as a mid-range smartphone and almost twice the price of an IPS LCD screen. Japan Display will start mass producing its OLED screens only by April 2019.
All these points at the possibility that Apple might use Japan Display's LCD panels for its older models such as the iPhone SE, should it choose to produce it next year.
