Apple's Thunderbolt Display launched nearly five years ago and it may finally receive its long-overdue upgrade soon. Web checks reveal that Thunderbolt Display stock is dwindling across Apple Stores around the world, including in North America, Europe, Australia and elsewhere. Furthermore, tipsters say that stock is not being replenished, suggesting new models might be introduced at WWDC.
Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes is reporting that TPK Holding is gearing up to product nanowire-based flexible touchscreens. TPK is on Apple's supplier list so there's a high likelihood that future iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices could switch to these flexible screens based on nano silver ink. Originally developed by 3M, silver nanowire films are flexible and transparent to the eye, making them feasible for wearable devices particular.
Many in the rumor-mill agree that Apple is planning to build an iPhone around the brighter, more power efficient AMOLED screen tech. New clues of 2017 bringing a major change to the iPhone's display technology appeared with news this morning that the world's top maker of display-making equipment, Applied Materials, reported an almost fourfold leap in orders for OLED production machinery.
Peak iPhone? If the latest supply chain report is to be trusted, the Cupertino firm doesn't envision iPhone sales tapering off anytime soon, at least not this year. Barron's said Monday, citing a report in the Taiwanese publication Economic Daily Times, that Apple has now asked its contract manufacturers and Asian suppliers to prepare for a much higher-than-expected iPhone 7 production volume in 2016.
Instead of ordering about 65 million handsets, which would have been in line with what Wall Street had been predicting, Apple needs between 72-78 million units of the new iPhone produced this year.
Remember the rumor, backed by a report from reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, that only a 5.5-inch model of an 'iPhone 7' would have a dual-lens camera while its 4.7-inch brethren would get stuck with a boring single-camera module?
Now we know where that came from: Apple's camera supplier Sony has fallen behind schedule, prompting the iPhone maker to add another dual-camera supplier to the mix: LG's Innotek division. That's the current word on the street, according to a Barron's report citing Nomura Securities analysts.
Following a five-year hiatus, Apple's frenemy Samsung is set to supply NAND flash memory chips to Apple for its devices beginning with 2017, ETNews reported Wednesday. NAND flash memory is extensively used across Apple's many products, including the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch and Mac notebooks.
Apple dropped Samsung as a NAND flash supplier following the iPhone 5 introduction in 2012 because the South Korean conglomerate was stuck with ball grid array (BGA) packaging and refused to invest in land grid array (LGA) package contacts that allow the flash memory chips to sit flush with the printed circuit board and were required to comply with Apple's electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding requirements.
Apple has reportedly brokered a deal with its South Korean frenemy Samsung, worth an estimated $2.59 billion, to supply OLED panels for future iPhones, scheduled to ship in 2017. Citing sources familiar with Samsung's plans, The Korea Herald reported Friday that Samsung's mobile display making arm, Samsung Display, will manufacture about hundred million OLED panels annually, measuring 5.5 inches diagonally, starting next year.
According to Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes, which knows this stuff inside out, Apple's Asian suppliers are now starting to receive orders for the components that will be used in a second-generation Apple Watch.
Samsung, along with other overseas manufacturers like Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, have reportedly secured component orders for the Apple Watch 2, which one analyst believes could be up to forty percent thinner and debut at Apple's annual developers conference this summer.
Apple has reportedly started buying servers from a government-backed Chinese firm, called Inspur, to use in its data centers, Taiwanese publication DigiTimes reported this morning. Apple's never confirmed nor denied industry speculation that much of its iCloud data centers run on Amazon's Web Services and Microsoft's Azure platforms.
That being said, Apple's reportedly embarked on a project to migrate iCloud services to its own data centers in order to satisfy increasing demand for iOS devices, reduce expenses and further reduce any possibility of attacks on the iCloud platform.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is adamant that Apple is working on a premium edition of an 'iPhone 7 Plus' that will come outfitted with dual-lens cameras for telephoto functions and today DigiTimes is reporting that Apple is already testing dual lenses for the handset sourced from three different suppliers.
The hit-and-miss Taiwanese trade publication has it on good authority, citing sources from the upstream supply chain, that Apple supplier Largan Technology and two unnamed Japan and China-based vendors have shipped dual-lens camera samples to 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California, for testing.
Multiple sources have been adamant over the course of past few months that Apple and its Asian suppliers have been making preparations to produce tens of millions of OLED panels for use in future iPhones.
Tuesday, Taiwan-based DigiTimes said, citing a report by Korea-based ET News, that LG Display, the lone supplier of flexible OLED screens for the Apple Watch, has begun ramping up curved OLED production amid rumors of the Apple OLED switch.
Korean outlet ET News said Thursday that a contract between Samsung and Apple on supplying flexible OLED screens for future iPhones has practically been agreed upon, with the South Korean conglomerate committing to a whopping $7.4 billion in capital expenditure over the next couple of years to buy OLED manufacturing equipment needed to produce about 30,000 to 45,000 OLED sheets per month.
Although Apple is said to have secured agreements with other panel makers for OLED technology, the size of the investment suggests that Samsung is about to become Apple’s biggest flexible OLED provider.