Once more, Apple is looking to bring in a new supplier for a vital component in its consumer electronic hardware. The iPhone 6S family currently has two suppliers for the A9 CPU, with Samsung and TSMC both able to supply core components to Apple, and last week saw the news that Intel was chasing the LTE Modem supply.
Now it appears that another Samsung division is chasing Apple for a supply deal.
The current Apple Watch portfolio has screen technology supplied by LG, and it was reported earlier this year that LG would be supplying the second-generation Apple Watch screens. Samsung is now looking to enter this market (reports Neil Hughes for Apple Insider). Given the slowdown in the mobile division, I don't find it a surprise that Samsung is looking for new business... and Apple does use rather a lot of displays.
The real win for Samsung would be in supplying the screen to the iPhone 7 screen.
Apple currently favours LCD screens for the iPhone family, previously pointing to bottlenecks in the supply of OLED panels as a risk factor. There's also a certain sense of 'we know this works' in staying with LCD and the iPhone 6S family has seen few major technological leaps over the previous range. Switching to an OLED display may be a tweak that would pass many by (a screen is a screen), but the improvements in the color reproduction, deeper blacks, and wider viewing angles would all be major points to contrast the iPhone 7 with the previous generation.
The iPhone 7 is already expected to have some major changes on the front of the phone and in the screen. The removal of the physical home button has been discussed, although it may not happen for the 2016 model, instead appearing on the presumptively titled iPhone 7S. The use of sapphire displays has long been discussed as well. Given Apple has introduced the new force-touch technology in the 6S, and the 'S' models generally seeing the hardware-led changes (as opposed to the design-led changed) perhaps Samsung should be targeting the iPhone 7S supply rather than the iPhone 7.
OLED displays have some significant advantages. Place an OLED and LCD next to each other and the vivid colors snap out of the OLED screen and the difference in quality is clear. OLED display lifetimes have improved since first launched and are now comparable to LCD display lifetimes. Perhaps more importantly OLED displays are more power-efficient in the majority of use-cases over LCD.
These are all factors that should be attractive to smartphone manufacturers. Apple currently uses Samsung for a number of key components in its hardware, and if the South Korean company can demonstrate competency at scale to Cupertino, I see no reason why OLED shouldn't be included in the next generation of iPhones.
