Apple Hires Senior OLED Expert from LG Display

[MacRumors]

Apple has hired a senior researcher in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display technology from LG, reports OLED-Info (via BrightWire), potentially signaling renewed interest in the technology.

Apple has hired a new executive into its Display group - Dr. Jueng Jil Lee, a former research fellow at LG Display, who apparently was involved with printing technology research. Dr. Lee's previous employee (before LGD) was Cambridge Display Technology, the P-OLED pioneer (now owned by Sumitomo).

OLED has a number of advantages over LCD screens, including brighter colors with deeper blacks, wider viewing angles, faster response times and greater power efficiency. The technology is also being used to develop flexible screens, something that Apple has shown interest in, although it is unknown if the company has any concrete plans to bring a product featuring such technology to market.

Apple has been rumored to be looking at OLED technology for many years, but cost issues and other limitations have so far kept the company tied to LCD technology for its products.

Article Link: Apple Hires Senior OLED Expert from LG Display

[ArtOfWarfare]

Having an entirely flexible iOS device could be interesting... if it's able to simply fold over itself, you could flex it to be any size... everyone could be happy... although I suppose that's probably still a long ways away...

[slffl]

Obviously for the iWatch. I hope they solve the neon greens and blue whites that are in the Samsung OLEDs. I can't stand the way those look!

[charlieegan3]

Is it bad that as soon as I hear the words: LG and Screen I think of image retention? rMBP...

[Jamo12]

I find it odd that they do this. They, arguably, have the best display on any phone. Time will tell I guess. Unless IGZO is an OLED tech? I haven't looked it up enough to know

[lunarworks]

OLED isn't suitable for the iPhone quite yet, but it will be eventually.

(Also, it's a shame that the buying public seems to prefer OLED's artificial-looking, blown out, oversaturated colours over LCD's natural colours.)

[Squilly]

LG has too many issues for me to want to trust them... not only in Apple products.

[bettaboy123]

LCDs are my preference. OLEDs usually look bad (on my Galaxy Nexus, the Note II, my RAZR Maxx, S3, and tons of other less popular devices. And white screens decrease power efficiency a ton! I switched Twitter clients and backgrounds and keyboards to help show more black and less greys, whites, and colors. iPhones 4+, my iPad 3, the Droid DNA, One X, and other LCDs look much better.

----------

Originally Posted by Jamo12

I find it odd that they do this. They, arguably, have the best display on any phone. Time will tell I guess. Unless IGZO is an OLED tech? I haven't looked it up enough to know

IGZO is LCD tech. The Droid DNA uses it, increasing its power efficiency, even with whites and colors to much lower than OLED. Even with a 1080p panel.

[Caseynd]

I hope they come up with some exciting new products!

[samcraig]

Originally Posted by lunarworks

OLED isn't suitable for the iPhone quite yet, but it will be eventually.

(Also, it's a shame that the buying public seems to prefer OLED's artificial-looking, blown out, oversaturated colours over LCD's natural colours.)

I find it a shame that most people are duped into thinking that HD is all about pixel/screen size and fail to consider bitrate. And that netflix, Apple, hulu, etc all market their products as HD (which technically they are) and the buying public thinks they are getting the same quality as blu-ray.

But what can you do?

[SockRolid]

Originally Posted by MacRumors

[...] Apple has been rumored to be looking at OLED technology for many years, but cost issues and other limitations have so far kept the company tied to LCD technology for its products. [...]

Apple received a patent on OLED panel production on Feb. 5, 2013.
That in itself isn't proof of anything. Patents are cheap. But once in a while,
Apple patents something that they actually do use in products.

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patentl...much-more.html

[dbernie41]

First thing thats comes to my mind is instantly TVs... no one else?

[Glassed Silver]

I missed the word "IPS" in the article somewhere. *phew*

Glassed Silver:mac

[nuckinfutz]

The OLED technology could be coming in a HDTV.

I was at CES and saw LG, Panasonic and Samsungs (Curved OLED) OLED displays and they looked absolutely fantastic.

[fertilized-egg]

Originally Posted by Jamo12

I find it odd that they do this. They, arguably, have the best display on any phone. Time will tell I guess. Unless IGZO is an OLED tech? I haven't looked it up enough to know

IGZO is the technology used to make transistors behind the panel so it could be used for OLED. But we already have LTPS being used for both OLED and LCD and LTPS is better than IGZO in many ways.

The main advantage of IGZO for LTPS is that it's cheaper and easier for large panels but it's actually not as good as the currently used technology for the phones despite some hype that make it sound as if IGZO is the best one. For iPad IGZO is a big news but for iPhones, not so much.

I think eventually we'll have OLED for phones but at this point I much prefer the LCD since OLED hasn't matured fully yet in too many aspects.

[nagromme]

Makes sense that they keep on top of the tech. Looks nice in total darkness (not so good in sunlight), if you don't want accurate color--which I'd think software could help with.

But I hope the longevity and yellowing (over time) issues have been solved before Apple considers selling OLED.

And please, never ever do Pentile!

[Mic'sBook]

IMO, in terms of colour accuracy, IPS is better than OLED/AMOLED/and few others related to OLED.

Worse still, it seems that OLED-related displays tend to have display burn-in issue. Take Samsung Galaxy SII and SIII as examples, on the web you can find many users complaining they have this problem.

But I don't know whether OLED technology is a must for designing flexible displays.

[NoNothing]

Having seen IGZO, I have 0 interest in OLED.

[ConCat]

An OLED display contains fish semen. You be the judge.

Good luck on getting a straight answer on what the "O" in "OLED" means though. Most sources simply define it as "genetic material".

Oh yes, here's an old article I can cite. Cheers: Salmon Sperm Used to Intensify LEDs Grossify Everyone

[coder12]

Originally Posted by ArtOfWarfare

Having an entirely flexible iOS device could be interesting... if it's able to simply fold over itself, you could flex it to be any size... everyone could be happy... although I suppose that's probably still a long ways away...

Do they have a way of manufacturing flexible processors yet? That would be cool!

[levitynyc]

The best screen I own including a 63" plasma, an iPad 3 and an iPhone 5, is the OLED on my Playstation Vita

[BC2009]

OLED has a number of advantages over LCD screens, including brighter colors with deeper blacks, wider viewing angles, faster response times and greater power efficiency.

Brighter Colors? I don't think so. This is its weakness versus IPS LCD.

Deeper Blacks? Yes

Wider Viewing Angles? Seriously? Greater than 178 degrees? Is it 178.5?

Faster Response Times? Yes

Greater Power Efficiency? Yes

[Irishman]

Originally Posted by lunarworks

OLED isn't suitable for the iPhone quite yet, but it will be eventually.

(Also, it's a shame that the buying public seems to prefer OLED's artificial-looking, blown out, oversaturated colours over LCD's natural colours.)

It's not the display technology that makes color more or less accurate.

It's the manner in which they are controlled in software.

To be accurate. There's no reason that an OLED screen can't look as accurate as an LCD or plasma for that matter, if we're talking something larger like an HDTV.

[Jensend]

Originally Posted by BC2009

Brighter Colors? I don't think so. This is its weakness versus IPS LCD.

Wider Viewing Angles? Seriously? Greater than 178 degrees? Is it 178.5?

OLED usually can cover a wider gamut to colors. The problem is that images are designed for a different, smaller profile.

Viewing angle specifications are more worthless at describing how a monitor outputs light than a GHZ rating is for describing how a processor performs. I think the 178 degree is a measure of when the contrast ratio or brightness gets to 10% of their original values, or something like that. An OLED display has much less brightness falloff as the viewing angle changes.

[BC2009]

Originally Posted by Jensend

OLED usually can cover a wider gamut to colors. The problem is that images are designed for a different, smaller profile.

Viewing angle specifications are more worthless at describing how a monitor outputs light than a GHZ rating is for describing how a processor performs. I think the 178 degree is a measure of when the contrast ratio or brightness gets to 10% of their original values, or something like that. An OLED display has much less brightness falloff as the viewing angle changes.

Interesting stuff.

I just read in another comment that Samsung keeps the brightness down on their OLED smartphones to conserve battery life. Can OLED get brighter with geometrically or exponentially higher power consumption? In practice, every OLED screen I see on a smartphone has terrible brightness and white levels. The contrast ratios are only so high because the black levels are so darn good.