Display

Apple expected to increase holiday-quarter iPad screen purchases from Samsung

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 11, 2013

Samsung of South Korea may have gotten itself into hot water with Apple over patents and design issues, but its semiconductor unit continues to churn out unabated the Apple-designed engine which powers the iPhone, iPad and iPod devices. As for Retina screens, Apple originally sourced mobile displays from non-Samsung suppliers such as Sharp and LG Display.

Last we heard, recent yield and quality issues have reportedly prompted the iPhone maker to turn to its frenemy for help. Korea’s ETNews last Friday claimed Apple has asked Samsung for help as Sharp struggles to solve burn-in issues with IGZO panels for the iPad Air.

At the heart of the production issues is Japanese giant's malfunctioning of the thin-film transistor display technology. Corroborating the report, a display research firm on Monday said Apple's purchase of Samsung-made panels for the iPad is about to skyrocket in the fourth quarter...

Screen burn-ins apparently causing delayed Retina iPad mini launch

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 8, 2013

Apple's web page advertises the new iPad mini with Retina display as coming in late November. In Apple's parlance, that's probably November 29, a Friday. Apple's penchant for making new products available shortly following the announcement was not on display at the October 22 media event as the company said the new iPad mini would not launch alongside the iPad Air.

We already heard that Apple was looking to both LG Display and Samsung as the primary iPad mini screen supplier Sharp has been experiencing issues producing high-resolution 7.9-inch IGZO panels, causing limited supplies at launch. A new report alleges Sharp's LCD panels are actually suffering from burn-in problems, prompting Apple once again to seek help from arch-rival Samsung...

Samsung talks future: folding screens and 4K smartphones coming in 2015

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated December 23, 2017

One of the thrills of writing about technology is that more often than not one gets to blog about the next big thing always lurking just around the corner. Fans of technology have been living in the future forever and today Samsung spoke to the technophiles, sharing some of the upcoming technologies its mobile display unit is aiming to bring to market in 2014 and 2015.

We'll be living in the post-Retina world next year as Samsung preps to double the pixel count on smartphone and tablet screens, we're being told. And by 2015, your mobile devices will have full 4K resolution displays - that's a whopping 3,840-by-2,160 pixels normally found on Ultra HD TV sets, or four times the pixels of the full HD (1,920-by-1,080) Blu-ray movies.

By comparison, the iPad's Retina display maxes out at 2,048-by-1,536 pixels. But that's just scratching the surface...

Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX tops iPad Air in display shootout

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

With the recent releases of both the iPad Air and Amazon's Kindle Fire HDX, the folks over at DisplayMate thought it was time to pit the two new tablets against each other (and against Google's Nexus 10 tablet) in one of its signature display shootouts.

DisplayMate, a highly-regarded authority on display technology, likes to measure various aspects of device displays such as screen reflectance and absolute color accuracy, to see who is using the best panels. And according to its latest test, Amazon is...

Rumor: LG nears OLED iWatch deal, Google smartwatch due ‘within months’

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 9, 2018

LG Display, a prominent Apple supplier that provides LCD panels for the iPad, MacBook and iMac devices, is apparently close to striking a deal to supply a portion of flexible OLED screens for Apple's rumored iWatch wearable device. Furthermore, Apple is understood to have discussed the possibility of a similar deal with its biggest supplier Samsung, but talks apparently fell apart.

In addition to LG Display, the rumor also mentions Taiwan's RiTDisplay as another possible iWatch screen supplier...

iPhone 6 may adopt IGZO screens as Sharp finally commercializes tech

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 21, 2013

Apple has long wanted to make a switch from the traditional LCD IPS display technology utilized on iOS devices to Sharp's cutting-edge IGZO technology.

Unfortunately, Apple's been unable to offer an IGZO iPhone because the struggling Japanese giant had been facing tremendous technical hurdles preventing mass production of these sophisticated panels.

According to the latest supply chain chatter, Sharp has now successfully commercialized production of IGZO panels for smartphones and will begin manufacturing them at its Kameyama Plant Number 2 before the end of 2013...

iPad and iPad mini found to have most responsive tablet touchscreens

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

Apple's iPad mini has the most responsive tablet touchscreen, according to some new tests by Agawi. The app-streaming company recently ran it and several other slates through its rigorous TouchMark benchmark to measure the field.

The mini registered a 75ms delay on the latency test, coming in just 6ms ahead of the iPad 4, which posted an 81ms lag. And the rest of the competition was pretty far behind, with the Surface RT at 95ms and the Kindle Fire HD at 114...

Why Retina display is more than twice as responsive as the competition

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 1, 2013

Say what you will, but Apple owns the most responsive mobile OS and has the smoothest multitouch implementation by leaps and bounds.

Unsurprisingly, the Retina display hardware is a major part of that accomplishment - and I'm not talking about pixel density or image quality.

No, the key contributing factor to the iPhone's multitouch immediacy is the short response time of the device’s touch panel on the hardware level. In fact, Apple's capacitive touchscreen implementation runs circles around competition, a recent barrage of tests have proven.

The iPhone 5's four-inch Retina screen is significantly faster than any of its rivals - up to twice as fast as its nearest competitor. Jump past the fold for detailed findings...

WSJ: Apple testing larger iPhone displays of up to 6 inches

Cody Lee ∙ Updated October 12, 2018

Apple is currently testing iPhone screens as large as six inches, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. The news comes as many of the company's competitors are releasing handsets with 5 and 6 inch displays—the new Note 3 measures in at 5.7.

This isn't the first time we've heard that Apple is toying with the idea of making a larger iPhone. In fact, The Journal told a similar story in mid-July. So it seems that while the bigger displays are not expected to debut on this year's model, they are on the way...

Quality issues reportedly prompt Apple to cozy up to Samsung for iPad screens

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 7, 2013

It's no secret Apple's been working around the clock to decrease its reliance on Samsung for components. I'm also sure you know the two frenemies have been entangled in a complicated web of lawsuits the world over for two years. Now, various market repots have indicated Apple months ago showed Samsung the door by introducing other mobile display makers to the iPad supply chain, namely LG Display and Sharp.

In an interesting reversal, research firm NPD DisplaySearch said Wednesday it believed Samsung actually gained on the iPad screen supplier LG Display because Apple in April and June reportedly sourced more 9.7-inch iPad panels from LG Display than from Samsung...

As Apple misses a beat, Amazon is Retina-fying Kindle lineup

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 25, 2013

Hot on the heels of yesterday's Google event which saw, among other goodies, introduction of the second-generation Nexus 7 tablet with an improved 1,920-by-1,200 screen, the Kindle maker Amazon is now said to be refreshing its Fire tablet family around higher-resolution displays, too.

And as Apple and its Asian suppliers scramble to solve manufacturing challenges that continue to plague a second-generation iPad mini, Amazon's top-of-the-line Kindle reportedly features a significantly overhauled display that packs 30 percent more pixels than the Retina iPad, into a smaller 8.9-inch screen compared to Apple's 9.7-inch device. Ouch!

Apple updates touch tech in upcoming iPads

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 24, 2013

DigiTimes in January wrote Apple's fifth-generation iPad could adopt the iPad mini's thin-film touchscreen technology called GF Ditto, also better known as GF2. NPD DisplaySearch is well-versed in all things concerning mobile screens and yesterday they corroborated the rumor.

Specifically, DisplaySearch notes Apple’s shift toward in-cell display tech for the iPhone 5 and GF2 for the upcoming iPads has resulted in major shifts in the touch-panel industry supply chain. Basically a double-sided ITO film, GF2 has allowed Apple to make the iPad mini much thinner and significantly lighter compared to the bulkier G/G touchscreen tech driving the iPad 3.

As the iPad 5 is widely expected to adopt the iPad mini's thin and light appearance, obviously a major part of that will be Apple's adoption of the advanced GF2 technology...