We've heard several reports over the past few months that Apple is using a new, thinner display in its next iPhone. The tech is called in-cell, and will help slim down the handset.
Interestingly enough, LG Display's CEO Han Sang-beom announced today that his company has just started mass-producing a new line of thinner, smartphone display panels...
Apple's key components provider Samsung which supplies, among other items, Retina panels for the new iPad, agreed along with other defendants to settle a price fixing class-action lawsuit for a whopping $1.12 billion.
Samsung has agreed to pay $240 million, AU Optronics will pony up $170 million, Toshiba will pay only $21 million and LG Display will settle for $380 million in damages.
This settlement - the largest consumer class-action price-fixing settlement ever - is in addition to previous settlements from ten manufacturers and prison terms for some executives, The Wall Street Journal reported...
Apple debuted the Retina display in June 2010 on the iPhone 4. Fast-forward to today and it remains the gold standard for smartphones in terms of crispness and pixel density. Yes, most high-end Android handsets now top the iPhone's 960-by-480 pixel resolution by way of using bigger panels that however don't always introduce denser pixel.
A good example is Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphone which has a 4.65-inch display with the native HD resolution of 1,280-by-720 pixels and a pixel density of 316 pixels per inch (ppi), safely above the Retina requirement of at least 300ppi for a smartphone display so the pixels appear indistinguishable to the human eye with a 20/20 vision.
Enter LG's newly-announced five-inch mobile display. It rocks a whopping 1,920-by-1,080 pixel resolution and an astounding density of 440 pixels per inch. If Apple was looking for the perfect display for its rumored five-inch iOS device, this could be it...
Asian trade publication DigiTimes reported this morning that both Sharp and LG Display are set to increase their respective manufacturing output of Retina displays for the new iPad. The news follows a recent report by the same publication that Sharp shipped 2.71 million iPad Retina panels to Apple.
This might mean that production issues have finally been sorted out after both firms had reportedly failed to meet Apple's exact quality requirements. Something tells me Samsung won't like this. As you know, Apple is clever enough not to put all eggs in one basket, so to speak.
As a result of LG Display and Sharp jumping on the Retina bandwagon, Apple should be able to achieve a significant increase in iPad shipments for the next quarter and onwards...