Apple is almost ready to go for broke with OLED, according to a new report. The Wall Street Journal claims Apple is gearing up to ditch LCDs in favor of modern OLEDs, but not entirely. We'll have to wait until next year.
Citing "insiders familiar with the company's production plans," the WSJ reports that "Apple is likely to ditch LCDs altogether in the iPhone 2020 lineup in favor of organic LED displays that allow for a more extended phone design."
Apple first integrated OLED in 2017 with the iPhone X, so two of the latest three iPhones - the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max - are equipped with an OLED display. The cheaper iPhone XR, meanwhile, still comes with an LCD screen.
It's clear that if you put the two phones side by side, the OLED panel looks noticeably better. This can be seen from the comparison between the XS and XR. The colors on the LEDs are brighter and the contrast is better. HDR content also looks great thanks to OLED's ability to display perfect blacks. However, the Retina LCD is by no means terrible, although the resolution of 1792 x 828 is rather low.
It's too early to tell what Apple will unveil in 2020, but early (very early) leaks have suggested that Apple's 2019 iPhone lineup won't be particularly different from the company's 2018 lineup. All of this suggests that Apple is saving big changes for 2020.
We've already seen several posts claiming Apple will launch a 5G smartphone in 2020, and the XR's allegedly disappointing sales suggest that Apple needs to be surprised with something bigger to get shoppers excited about the iPhone's innovations again.
