We’re expecting to see an OLED MacBook Pro launching next year as part of a major redesign, but we haven’t previously heard anything about when Apple might bring the display tech to the iMac.
A new supply chain report says that Apple is now working on this, but there are a couple of key things to note …
Apple is currently on the third step of a four-stage roadmap for its displays. The company kicked off with IPS LCD with conventional backlighting before introducing the same display technology with improved backlighting, using miniLED for finer-grained control. The company is in the middle of transitioning to OLED, with microLED the longer-term goal.
OLED iMac plan
Apple first adopted OLED for the Apple Watch, followed by the iPhone and iPad, with the MacBook Pro expected to be next in line. The Elec reports that the company is now making plans for an OLED iMac.
The report suggests things are currently at a very early stage, with Apple at this point merely asking display partners Samsung and LG for information on how they would meet the company’s specs before it asks for a quotation.
Apple sent a request for information (RFI:Request For Information) related to iMac OLED development to Samsung Display and LG Display. RFI is a document that is exchanged before the set company sends a request for quotation (RFQ) to the part company after the product specification is determined. In the RFI stage, we inquire about the technical information necessary for product development. The specifications have not been confirmed yet.
That request does, however, contain the desired specs.
The iMac OLED specifications recently requested by Apple are known to be 24 inches, 600 nits of brightness, and 218PPI (Pixels Per Inch) in pixels.
This would make it 20% brighter than the existing 24-inch iMac, with the same resolution.
Two catches
The first piece of bad news for anyone waiting for an OLED iMac is the timescale. With things at such an early stage, the report suggests that development of the product wouldn’t be complete before 2027 or 2028, and the actual launch would likely be later than this.
The second catch for those waiting impatiently for a long-rumored, larger-screened iMac of 30- to 32-inches is that the specific OLED tech Apple wants doesn’t currently support such large panels.
Apple is known to have preferred the RGB OLED method that realizes light and color in RGB subpixel units, but RGB OLED technology that can reliably mass-produce 20-30-inch displays has not yet been developed.
The difficulty of scaling up the tech to larger sizes is one of the factors behind Apple bringing it to MacBooks ahead of the iMac.
Highlighted accessories
- Discounted iMacs on Apple’s official Apple Store
- Apple 40W Dynamic Power Adapter for iPhone 17
- Official Apple iPhone Air cases and bumpers
- iPhone Air MagSafe Battery
- Official iPhone Air case
- Official iPhone 17 cases
- Official iPhone 17 Pro cases and Pro Max cases
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