A report Wednesday by ET News contends that Apple is “close” to signing a definitive supply agreement with both Samsung Display and LG Display concerning OLED screens for future iPhones.
Although iOS devices have used ubiquitous liquid-crystal display (LCD) panels since their inception, organic light emitting diode (OLED) technology features deeper blacks and requires less power because it doesn't need a power-hungry backlight module to illuminate the pixels.
According to a new supply chain rumor out of Taiwan, Apple's 'iPhone 7' will be waterproof and feature a brand new antenna-concealing technology that will hide those unsightly antenna bands which iPhone 6/6s owners have been complaining about.
As reported this morning by Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes, Apple's supplier Catcher Technologies will provide the iPhone 7 chassis which is said to be waterproof and use “new compound materials”.
The fourth-generation Apple TV has been available for less than two months and already talk is turning to a next-generation model.
A new report by DigiTimes, a hit-and-miss Taiwanese trade publication, cites unnamed supply chain sources as saying that a fifth-generation Apple TV with a brand new CPU and a heat-dissipation solution is entering into trial production in December and volume production in the first quarter of 2016.
LG Display, which supplies Apple with flexible OLED screens for the Apple Watch and LCD panels for other gadgets, is reportedly building a brand new facility that will significantly increase its OLED panel production as the firm looks to meet expected market demand as of 2017 onwards, according to a report from Korea's Digital Times cited by DigiTimes.
The new plant will cost north of $4 billion to build, with assembly lines expected to start churning out OLED panels for smartphones, tablets and TVs sometime between 2017-2018.
Samsung, which uses AMOLED screens in many of its flagship smartphones and tablets, could become a major provider of OLED panels for the iPhone maker as a deal is all but secured, according to an ETNews report Friday citing a Samsung Display employee.
The report arrives hot on the heels of a research note that KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo sent to clients earlier this week, in which he estimated that Apple won’t be switching to AMOLED screens for iPhones anytime soon and will continue using the existing LCD display technology for at least the next three years.
The Apple Watch may have been met with a muted response from critics (and it's still being rolled out around the world), but that's not stopping Tim Cook & Co. from working on a next-generation model.
According to an Apple supplier, a second-generation Apple Watch is already in the works.
It's said to be released late in the second quarter of next year, a little more than a year after the original model’s debut. As reported by Taiwanese media, Barry Lam, the chairman of Quanta Computer, the company that assembles the Apple Watch, said during an investor meeting that the Apple Watch 2 is being developed, shockingly, as we speak.
Launch supply of Apple's new iPad Pro could be constrained as the supply of panels for the 12.9-inch device faces shortages, DigiTimes reported Tuesday. As per their supply chain analysis, iPad Pro shipments are expected to reach less than 3 million units in the fourth quarter of this year, which amounts to an average of one million iPad Pros a month.
Apple's 'iPhone 6s' and 'iPhone 6s Plus' may have entered volume production one to two weeks later than originally expected, but the Cupertino firm is now asking component suppliers to increase their output ahead of next Wednesday's unveiling.
A new report Thursday by Reuters alleges that increased orders might serve as a confirmation of Apple’s faith in the new handsets. The report cites Japan Display CEO Mitsuru Homma, who said that his company's “biggest client” is “coming to us with more orders, saying ‘give us more, give us more’.
Apple's rumored 'iPhone 6c' boasting an in-house designed 'A8’ processor, a four-inch Retina screen, Touch ID fingerprint scanning and Apple Pay mobile payments could be with you in time for Thanksgiving, according to latest reports from Apple's supply chain.
Assuming the reports are true, the mythical device will pose a significant jump in terms of hardware versus the iPhone 5c, which runs the iPhone 5's three-year old A6 processor and has no biometric authentication or NFC.
The plot is thickening following yesterday's analyst report that Apple's larger-screened iPad is entering mass production in September and October and recent sightings of an unreleased “iPad6,8” model with a screen resolution of 2,732-by-2,048 pixels in commercial app analytics data.
According to Asian trade publication DigiTimes, Japanese giant Sharp and Foxconn, the world's top product assembler, will be supplying touch modules for the larger iPad, tentatively dubbed by the press the iPad Pro.
A trio of supply chain reports out of Asia are making the rounds this morning. The first rumor suggests that one of a future-generation iPhones is a four-inch handset that should be released in Q1 2016.
The second report claims that Apple will formally announce walk-in purchases for its wearable device at its Worldwide Developers Conference next week.
And the third story informs us that an Apple and Samsung supplier is investing $260 million in a production facility to churn out 3D curved glass, suggesting the faint possibility of sapphire-protected screens on some iOS devices.
Though designed in California, the vast majority of Apple's products are being assembled in China using parts predominantly provided by the vast network of suppliers from Taiwan.
But that may be changing now as Japanese manufacturers are reportedly making a concerted effort to secure more iPhone orders from Apple, according to DigiTimes on Monday.
Citing industry sources, the trade publication claims that Japan-based printed circuit board manufacturer Ibiden has bolstered up its manufacturing capacity as it hopes to solicit more orders from Apple.