German magazine Curved.de and Dutch 3D artist Martin Hajek created plausible concept renderings of a future Magic Keyboard with a contextually aware OLED strip replacing the physical row of function keys, but that was months before Apple unveiled the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar.
Now that the new notebook has been formally announced, Reddit user “Hazza42” felt inspired to create his own mockups of what a standalone extended aluminum Apple keyboard with an integrated Touch Bar might look like.
Forget about Apple's just-refreshed MacBook Pro with the Touch Bar and Touch ID: Korean outlet ET News says the next refresh to the Pro might swap out LCD panels for the more power-efficient OLED screens not unlike AMOLED displays found on flagship Samsung smartphones and tablets.
“Apple is currently looking into ways of using OLED panels for MacBooks and testing their performance,” reads the report. In addition to power savings, an OLED screen on a future MacBook Pro could render brighter colors, provide better contrast and fast response speed whilst enabling ultra high resolutions.
Sharp President Tai Jeng-wu—who is also a high-profile executive at Foxconn, Sharp's parent company and Apple's favorite contract manufacturer—said publicly that Apple's next iPhone will use a curved screen based on organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology akin to that on Samsung's Galaxy S7 smartphone, Nikkei reported Saturday.
As you know, Apple currently uses OLED screens on the Apple Watch and the new MacBook Pro's Touch Bar. All iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices to date have used traditional LCD screens.
“The Mac is more than a product to us. It's a testament to everything we do and create at Apple,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook at today's “Hello again” Mac event as he unveiled long-expected updates to Pro notebooks. The new MacBook Pro has, as rumored, a programmable OLED touch bar substituting the function key row, called Touch Bar.
There's also a Touch ID sensor powered by a new Apple-designed T1 chip. Like its predecessor, the new MacBook Pro comes in 13 and 15-inch flavors and each is available in Silver or Space Gray finish.
With less than 24 hours away until Apple's “Hello again” Mac event, images of an unreleased MacBook Pro found in the latest macOS Sierra 10.12.1 update have all but confirmed a rumored OLED touch bar replacing the row with hardware function keys.
The Internet immediately complained about the apparent loss of the hardware Escape key that seems to have fallen victim to these programmable OLED keys. While the OLED Bar could display a soft-Escape key in the left corner, users can now assign its function to one of the hardware modifier keys.
As Jeff Geerling first noted yesterday, the latest macOS 10.12.1 Sierra update now conveniently lets you remap an Escape action to a Caps Lock, Control, Option or Command modifier key—which wasn't possible in earlier macOS editions.
If you need another “proof” that the next MacBook Pro will indeed feature an OLED touch bar in place of the function key row, feel free to comb through system resources in the macOS Sierra 10.12.1 software update which released yesterday.
As first discovered by MacRumors reader Gabriel Lorin, the System Preferences assets for the Mac's virtual keyboard now come with refreshed image assets depicting an updated keyboard layout which no longer shows the standard row of function keys.
Apple is holding a media event on October 27 to unveil new Macs. Everyone is expecting the company to announce a next-generation MacBook Pro with a rumored OLED strip that would replace the physical function keys at the top of the keyboard with programmable shortcuts which would change from one app to another. But what could Apple call that rumored OLED touch bar?
According to trademark agent Brian Conroy who was able to uncover a trademark application that a shell company quite likely filed for on behalf for Apple, the feature could be marketed as “Magic Toolbar.”
Bloomberg is reporting that Apple is in negotiations with Japanese consumer electronics maker Sharp to supply organic LED displays (OLED) for future iPhones. Any potential agreement is contingent upon Sharp’s production capability. The rumored discussions reportedly stem from Apple’s desire to secure multiple suppliers for organic LED screens and minimize exposure to any single supplier.
Apple's Tenth Anniversary iPhone due next year is widely expected to use the superior AMOLED display technology, but only for a short while as the Cupertino company looks to adopt the emerging Micro-LED screens in the long run, according to a report from Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes.
Micro-LEDs waste far less battery power compared to other commercially viable display technologies, making them ideally suited for mobile devices like iPhones and iPads. Traditional TFT LCD panels waste a lot of energy because they require a backlight.
As you may have probably heard by now, Apple is expected to save its most significant smartphone overhaul—which many rumors said would include a wraparound screen based on advanced organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) display technology—for the Tenth Anniversary iPhone next year.
Japanese outlet Nikkei said today that Apple will position an AMOLED iPhone as a new premium choice. The device should come with a screen possibly measuring more than 5.5 inches diagonally. Moreover, existing 4.7 and 5.5-inch models will be updated next year, too, but are expected to retain flat screens like existing iPhones.
As Barron's reported this morning, Gabelli & Co. analyst Hendi Susanto and Universal Display executive Darice Liu speculated that AMOLED display might be limited to a “specialized edition” of an 'iPhone 8' (also referred to as '2017 iPhone' and 'Tenth Anniversary iPhone') until suppliers are able to meet Apple's needs for a full rollout.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo—who has a decent, but not stellar track record in predicting future Apple products—just issued a peculiar note to clients regarding the future of Apple's iPad lineup.
In the note, a copy of which was obtained by MacRumors, the well-connected analyst does not expect any major refreshes to iPads in this year.
But for 2017, the analyst is calling for three new models: a brand new 10.5-inch iPad Pro size joining a second-generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro and a low-cost 9.7-inch iPad. These devices are predicted to be followed by a “revolutionary” iPad model in 2018 that should bring “radical changes” in form factor design and user behavior while adopting flexible AMOLED panels, which so-called Tenth Anniversary iPhone is expected to gain in 2017.