Apple’s next Studio monitor may use a QD-OLED panel

By Fionna Agomuoh Published November 10, 2022

Apple may be preparing to design upcoming products with OLED panels manufactured by Samsung, according to NotebookCheck (via The Elec).

Devices expected to get the panels range from iPads to MacBooks to foldable laptops, the latter of which the brand has not yet introduced, in addition to its Apple Studio Display.

Apple Pro Display XDR WWDC 2019 Hands On — Julian Chokkattu / Digital Trends

UBI Research analysts at a recent seminar in Seoul had the most details about the future Studio Display model, claiming that Samsung is currently developing 27-inch QD-OLED (Quantum Dot OLED) panels in its A5 manufacturing line. Samsung’s “main customer is expected to be Apple,” according to analysts.

Recommended Videos

The relationship would likely continue exclusively thereafter, giving Apple a big upper hand over its competitors.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Notably, there have been several suggestions about what display components the next Apple Studio monitor will use. Reports in October suggested that a 27-inch Apple mini-LED external display had been delayed until 2023 due to high-cost concerns. However, analysts expect the OLED Apple Studio display might release sometime in 2024.

If current reports are accurate, this would be Apple’s first monitor with an OLED screen. Prior monitors, including the original Studio Display and the Pro Display XDR use conventional IPS screen technology. We’ve seen QD-OLED monitors, of course, such as the Alienware 34 QD-OLED, but they’ve so far been limited to large, curved gaming monitors.

The reports conclude that Apple might collaborate with both Samsung and LG for its first OLED iPad in 2024, using panels made with a gen 8 substrate. These panels are typically larger and last longer than those used on smartphones, the publication added.

Lastly, Apple is expected to begin introducing MacBooks with these OLED panels in 2025. Analysts also claim Samsung and LG hope that their display sectors will have new OLED technologies perfected and commercialized by 2025, so they can benefit from implementing them into upcoming Apple devices.

Apple also has a future goal of introducing laptops with foldable display panels. Reports have suggested that Apple has a “foldable notebook” with a 20-inch display in its release pipeline for the 2026 or 2027 time frame.

Topics

Computing Writer

Fionna Agomuoh is a Computing Writer at Digital Trends. She covers a range of topics in the computing space, including…

Computing

An all-glass MacBook? Here’s what Apple thinks it would look like

Bladur's Gate 3 being played on the M3 MacBook Air.

Patents and clues pointing to all-glass MacBooks and iMacs have been floating around since 2011, and this week, another patent has appeared on Patently Apple -- a "glass housing" for a MacBook-like device. It has a virtual keyboard and trackpad, and there's even a separate patent for "finger devices" that would decrease the strain of typing on a glass surface.

One of the most interesting things about the glass housing is that it "provides I/O functionality." This means, that instead of inserting a separate trackpad or keyboard keys into the housing for users to interact with, the housing itself would provide a method of input and output. In some areas and contexts, the surface would function simply as housing to protect internal components, and in others, it would display information and react to user input.

Gaming

Apple’s gaming push is heating up faster than you think

Frostpunk 2 runs on a MacBook.

A few years back, I was invited to meet with Apple about its new push into gaming. The company wouldn’t show me a flashy new product to enable that. Instead, it showed me something more modest: No Man’s Sky running smoothly on a MacBook. It looked great, but it wasn’t exactly earth-shattering. It was an independent game from 2016 running on a laptop as well as it had already been running for years on other PCs. I got the sense that I wasn’t there to cover a big development in tech, but rather to see a proof of concept that had bigger plans attached.

Years later, those plans are coming into focus even if they still aren’t fully realized yet. I recently attended a repeat of that showcase, only this time I wasn’t just watching an eight-year-old game running on a laptop. I demoed several games, including brand new ones, this time running on a range of devices including the MacBook Air M3 and a 13” iPad Pro M4. While we’re still a long ways away from the App Store being up to snuff with Steam on Windows, I’m starting to see where gaming on iOS is headed -- and Apple is getting there faster than I expected.
Growing gaming
During my recent session with Apple, I’d get to see and play several games running across iPhone, iPad, and Macbooks. Some of those experiences are more exciting for Apple than for casual players. It’s neat that Resident Evil 7 can run well on an iPhone, but that’s not so surprising when I already know that the much more recent Resident Evil 4 does too. I’m happy to see games like Control and Valheim looking great, but those are existential wins for Apple as it seeks more partners to expand its gaming efforts. I don’t imagine that gamers are jumping to play games that have been out for years on an Apple device (and according to reports, they very much aren’t yet).

Computing

Apple customers to finally get a share of $50M MacBook settlement

Some 2015 MacBook Pro models use a butterfly keyboard.

A 2018 MacBook Air with a butterfly keyboard. Digital Trends

A $50 million fund paid by Apple to settle a class-action lawsuit over faulty butterfly keyboards on MacBooks is about to be shared among affected customers following an approved claim, MacRumors reported.

nproxy.org