According to Bloomberg, Apple is preparing to unveil iPad Pros with an OLED screen in the course of 2024. A major first for a tablet from the brand, confined to LCD since its launch in 2010.
With the iPhone X in 2017, Apple made the switch to OLED. This screen technology, which its high-end competitors had already adopted, brings many advantages. Almost infinite contrast ratio, more vibrant colors… It’s hard to go back to LCD when you’ve tasted OLED, which is by far the most pleasant display technology on a smartphone.
And, the rest of the Apple products in all this? Between 2017 and 2023, Apple launched a lot of OLED iPhones, but never tried anything in its other categories (Mac and iPad). Only the Vision Pro headset, announced in June 2023, uses a high-end version of OLED, but its positioning makes it a relatively incomparable product. A question then arises: why has Apple not yet put OLED everywhere? According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who published an Apple newsletter on August 27, like every Sunday, 2024 will be the year Apple brings OLED to its “big” screens.
iPad Pro OLED in 2024
In his newsletter, Mark Gurman analyzes the current range of iPads. His observation is as follows: there are too many tablets at Apple. The iPad Pro has almost no differences with the iPad Air, which complicates its sales.
According to him, in the spring or summer of 2024, Apple should change that. The iPad Pro would start a revolution, with two new diagonals (11 and 13 inches), a new keyboard with a larger trackpad and, above all, OLED panels. Enough to make the playback of a film on iPad as qualitative as on a high-end television, with really black black bands.
Today and since 2010, the entire iPad range uses LCD panels. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro stands out with a mini-LED screen, a technology derived from the LCD that uses different light points instead of a single panel for the backlight. The mini-LED improves the contrast at certain points, but does not come close to the OLED, which allows each pixel to have its own lighting. The transition to OLED would be decisive for Apple’s tablets.
OLED panels of this size, a logistical problem
Between the first OLED iPhone and the first OLED iPad, there could therefore be seven years. What explains such a delay? The reason is probably logistical. For several years, manufacturers of OLED screens (Samsung, LG…) have focused on large and small screens. There were OLED TVs (above 55 inches) and OLED watches/smartphones (1-7 inches), but nothing in between. With its iPads between 8 and 12.9 inches, Apple was therefore at an impasse. No one could provide him with OLED panels adapted to the size of his tablets.
Since 2021, there is starting to be change. After cutting 55-inch OLED panels to achieve smaller televisions, manufacturers began to manufacture panels suitable for computers and tablets. Samsung, Lenovo and Asus were the first to release OLED tablets, which launched a market. In 2022, Numerama notably tested Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra which, with its 14.6-inch OLED screen, was really impressive. Never had a screen of this size seduced us so much.
So let’s ask the question differently: why wait until 2024 to launch an OLED iPad, if the technology has been around since 2021? For once, this three-year period corresponds to the standards of Apple, which is rarely the first to adopt a technology. First, because he controls his schedule, second because his orders are the largest, which can cause problems for manufacturers. If Apple is launching iPad Pro OLEDs in 2024, it is because a supplier is now able to manufacture sufficient quantities of panels for it.
According to other rumors, the MacBook Pro would also be entitled to OLED in the coming months. Apple could thus reserve the LCD at its entry level, by making OLED its new safe bet on the high end. In the meantime, the iPhone 15s expected in September 2023 should well perpetuate the OLED.
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