A new supply chain report suggests that Apple could bring the same advanced display technology to two of its devices in 2027.
Previous reports have indicated that Apple is planning to adopt a new approach to making displays thinner and brighter in the upcoming Vision Air, and a new report today says the company could also use this tech to at least one iPhone in the same year …
The ongoing quest for thinner and brighter displays
Smartphone displays initially required separate layers for each function. There was one layer for the display output itself, another for touch sensing, another for filtering out internal reflections, yet another for protection against scratches, and so on.
Each layer adds thickness, cost, and complexity – and also reduces the amount of light making it through the stack. What we’ve seen over the past number of years is an ongoing quest to incorporate multiple functions into fewer layers in order to reduce thickness and boost brightness.
An approach Samsung has been using for its foldable phones could be extended to both standard smartphones and headsets like the Vision Pro: CoE.
Eliminating one more layer with CoE
Although we typically think of OLED screens as having color light-emitting diodes, they actually use white emitters with RGB color filters on top in order to create the colors, adding a layer.
What Samsung has developed is a method of combining the light-emitting and color filter functionality into a single glass board: color filter on encapsulation (CoE). This makes displays both thinner and brighter.
Maybe coming to Vision Air and a 2027 iPhone
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