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Apple Drops Plans to Develop MicroLED Displays for Apple Watch
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Just a bit sad to read about all these failed projects lately.. they really lack some vision and plan where to go.. if Vision Pro is that trajectory.. ok cool- but it just seems like the hardware is gonna need another 5 years at least to mature into a product for the masses, more like 10.
Well your explanation does show personal emotion. too many it’s considered toys.
Why?
I’m a bit of a display enthusiast, so I’d like the technology to develop for other uses*, but for a watch, it doesn’t seem like it would be a significant difference.
*I had hoped 8K TVs would catch on for a similar reason—not because I think that 8K video would be important l but because I want higher monitor resolutions.
I think the mindset was at the right place, microled being a relatively underdeveloped thing they wanted to be ahead of the game.
Are you joking? What other company CEO wastes BILLIONS of company funds on pet projects and still holds this much power? Disgustingly, these billions could have helped so many retail and lower paid Apple staff.
All of them. Literally all of them.
Also it’s a 2.7 *trillion* dollar company, which is that valuable in large part because of Cook, they have the money to burn on betting big on research projects that dont pan out and he has the political capital to make these decisions - and the amount spent on these seems like a lot but it’s a fraction of a fraction of Apple’s valuation and income
ETA I’d also bet they learned plenty that will be useful in other work from those canceled projects
And, as I said before, in the big corp world plenty of major projects get canceled in the R&D phase, most dont make it to production, no matter what company you’re in
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Don’t forget repatriation of untaxed revenue by paying invoices from the Irish accounts, then book these payments as deductions on US earnings.
Oh man I’ve been waiting for years for my watch to look exactly the same, but have a slightly different tech story.
Not like they ever was in the first place. 6502 was not invented by them. CRT was not either. “Reinvent phone” is just a marketing stunt at launch, even though iPhone does drastically shift the landscape of smartphone market forever. Apple did innovate many times, but cutting edge was never their strong suit.
Maybe… it’s anyone’s guess.
Or Samsung would step in with their experimental microled.
They're dropping plans for the next release line. Finding suppliers capable of producing high yield panels to their specs and price targets when no one has done this yet for MicroLED [an area they hold the most patents in world wide] is taking longer than they would like. People like Samsung, LG, Japan Display Inc.., are few and far between with the equipment and experience to make such panels.
Japan Displays Inc: https://www.j-display.com/en/product_tech/microled.html
Samsung Nov 2023 News brief: https://news.samsung.com/global/int...tory-of-samsungs-incredible-micro-led-display
They're still ramping up investment.
LG: https://displaydaily.com/snu-and-lg...hod-for-mass-production-of-microled-displays/
Unless Apple wants to shell out $50 billion to create a competitor manufacturing panels for all shapes and sizes they have to wait longer.
The beauty of the forum is that nothing much gets deleted.
Just like Apple could make their own 5G modem in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022...... simple because they build the most complex and higher performance CPU, you dont think they can build a modem, and they can move mountains and do it in ultra unrealistic time frame?
Now Should I go and dig out all the things were said about how Apple will make their own MicroLED themselves and not working with Samsung. How they could do it all by themselves?
Just like Apple could make their own 5G modem in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022...... simple because they build the most complex and higher performance CPU, you dont think they can build a modem, and they can move mountains and do it in ultra unrealistic time frame?
Now Should I go and dig out all the things were said about how Apple will make their own MicroLED themselves and not working with Samsung. How they could do it all by themselves?
Oof. Apple really taking the L's lately.
I won't pretend I cared about the car (I didn't), but it's disappointing the extent to which their desire to manufacture certain parts in-house is not working out. It's almost like they made the M chips and then hit a wall.
I won't pretend I cared about the car (I didn't), but it's disappointing the extent to which their desire to manufacture certain parts in-house is not working out. It's almost like they made the M chips and then hit a wall.
This was actually Jobs' second mistake. The first was when he recruited a cola salesman to run the company.
Apple fanboys will rejoice if Apple actually pulled that off however, regardless of the ROI or any return at all.
They had decades of experience producing their own processor. Not only that, the essence of processor is just connecting and arranging transistors, resistors, capacitors and so on in a minuscule scale and make it work with current software program. Yes, it’s way too much of simplification or even a wrong one, but my point is Apple has never ventured into display technology themselves in the past few decades, discounting potential odd projects here and there.
Some of these are hedges against older lower performance technologies.
Others are an attempt to steal a march on competitors and build up the IP and know how and supply base.
Others are hedges against current supply base.
All are an attempt to vertically integrate expensive parts of the bom to control and refine ahead of competition.
Smart CEOs of successful companies always have 2 or 3 new programs and many sub projects being investigated at all times.
Many of them don’t pan out but to have a breakout or a new hit or continuous or big change you have to be willing to risk failure.
What a weird comment. Do you expect even single project at Apple to succeed? That's not how these things work. You want companies to continue to push the envelope, even if no products come of it.
Super interesting that you hate my comment when I agreed with you. Leave me alone.
