Apple is widely expected to expand OLED display technology to the iPad as soon as next year. A new report from researchers at Omdia, however, says that Apple’s to release MacBook Pros with OLED displays has been pushed to 2027 at the earliest.
The report explains that Apple is still on track to update the iPad Pro with OLED sometime next year, including both the 11-inch and 12.9-inch models. As it stands today, the 12.9-inch version of the iPad Pro uses Apple’s mini-LED display technology, while the 11-inch iPad Pro uses an LED display. If this rumor pans out, the iPad Pro would unify on OLED sometime next year (via The Elec).
Apple’s plans to move the iPad to OLED have also been reported by Bloomberg and analyst Ross Young, who have both corroborated this timeline. Most recently, Bloomberg reported that Apple is planning a “major iPad Pro revamp” with a revamped design and OLED displays for spring 2024.
As for the MacBook lineup, things are a bit more unclear. This week’s report explains that the MacBook Pro was originally slated to move to OLED by sometime in 2026. Recently, however, Apple made the decision to push this change to 2027 at the earliest.
Top comment by BelgianWaffle
The only thing I dislike about the iPad going OLED is that it will surely lead to another big price increase.
Here are the cheapest iPad Pro Apple prices in Belgium for the past 6 years:
2017 iPad Pro 10.5" 64GB Wifi: 739€
2018 iPad Pro 11" 64GB Wifi: 899€
2020 iPad Pro 11" 128GB Wifi: 899€
2021 iPad Pro 11" 128GB Wifi: 899€
2022 iPad Pro 11" 128GB Wifi: 1069€
That's +330€ in 5 years. I expect the next one to come with another +100€ price hike at least.
And the problem is the lack of innovation of this product. There's barely a difference between the 2018 11" and 2022" model. The differences that are there are not that compelling either.
What I hope for most is:
selfie camera on the long side of the iPad as on the regular iPad
better battery life
even better speakers (if possible)
256GB base storage and for every model to feature 16GB of RAM, not just the 1TB and up models.
Currently, Apple sells MacBooks that use either LCD or mini-LED displays. The MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro use LCD screens. The 14-inch and 16-inch versions of the MacBook Pro use mini-LED screens.
Despite today’s report, other sources believe that Apple will release a MacBook Air with an OLED display as soon as 2024. This has been reported by sources, including analysts Ross Young and Ming-Chi Kuo.
As a refresher, mini-LED is an alternative to OLED that is worse in some ways and better in others. Many experts will tell you that OLED screens are superior to mini-LED because of the much better black levels. This is because the pixels themselves are the things producing the light, so when those pixels need to be black, they can be turned off entirely.
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