Apple Expected to Switch to All-OLED iPhone Line-up by 2020

[BvizioN]

I can only go on my own experiences, however soon after I got an iPhone X I started to get frequent headaches centrered around my eyes. Sometimes these headaches would get so bad that I would take some pain killers and go to bed very early.

At the time I didn’t realise what the issue was I just assumed I was getting old and my eyes aren’t as good as they used to be, I went to the opticians and he advised me my eyes are mostly fine just very slightly short sighted however the headaches didn’t stop after I started wearing glasses.

Fast forward a couple of months and I start to consider getting an iPhone XR mainly for the screen size upgrade and battery upgrade, during my research into the XR I discover the thread on PWM on the iPhone X and I look into it, I then suddenly realise that the headaches occurred when I used my iPhone in the evening and that it is likely to blame.

Fast forward to upgrade day, I trade in my iPhone X and get an XR and as if by magic my headaches and eye strains have gone and I can use my iPhone in a dark room without getting throbbing eyes.

So take from that what you will, however I do believe PWM in the IPhone OLED to be problematic to SOME people (my wife didn’t experience the same symptoms with her X) And I do believe a lot of what I see on that thread as I’ve experienced the same issues myself.

Sorry to hear that.
I have not read the study about it, you mentioned earlier but I may do. I have used AMOLED long before iPhone X so for me there is no issues.
But would be interesting to see how people are gonna react to MICRO LED since these would be much brighter.

 

[Stuey3D]

Sorry to hear that.
I have not read the study about it, you mentioned earlier but I may do. I have used AMOLED long before iPhone X so for me there is no issues.
But would be interesting to see how people are gonna react to MICRO LED since these would be much brighter.

I don’t believe Micro LED will have the same issue as they can be dimmed by a voltage drop.

OLED needs maximum voltage or the pixels react to each other and make the screen look terrible. I saw an article I believe was linked above which shows an LG OLED without PWM but it looked awful.
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I don’t believe Micro LED will have the same issue as they can be dimmed by a voltage drop.

OLED needs maximum voltage or the pixels react to each other and make the screen look terrible. I saw an article I believe was linked above which shows an LG OLED without PWM but it looked awful.

This is taken from an article linked above, but this is what a PWM free OLED looks like at low brightness.

 

[Gix1k]

If that's the case, there's no reason for me to have anything other than the XR after 2020. IF they bezels match the higher end models.

 

[David1964]

Can’t wait for OLED Macs & iPads!

I can! They will be super expensive!

 

[GuruZac]

OLED screens, bigger battery and a slightly different or whole different design and Apple is on their way back.

The XR demonstrates that they have achieved insane battery life with a sub 3,000 mAH battery size. Yes it is in large part due to the lower res screen, but it's a larger display than the 8 Plus yet has even better battery life, for the same size battery.

 

[Shanghaichica]

Why would they do that when the Liquid Retina display exists.
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I can! They will be super expensive!

Super expensive with no justification.

 

[Act3]

Good time to put LCD in the trash where it belongs.

@I7guy seems it’s the end of the road for LCD as I predicted last year

Maybe end of road for LCD for the iPhone but they will still thrive for many more years in other devices.

 

[GuruZac]

Quite frankly, for my needs, the XR would be the perfect phone if Apple included 3D Touch and the dual camera set up. The screen is literally a non-issue and is so overhyped its bordering bizarre.

 

[Act3]

According to article “Less than stellar Xr sales”. Being that the Xr has sold more than the others since it’s been released according to apple , what’s that say about the sales of the other phones ?

 

[I7guy]

...No it isn't inevitable, or at least not to the extent of Apple OLEDs. Apple's flagship devices use OLED screens equivalent to those found in mid-tier phones for about $350.

Samsung displays, according to ifixit, have more pwm than Apple oled. And since Apple oled is now beating certain Samsung phones, the above statement is not very complimentary towards Samsung’s own displays on their own phones.

 

[code-m]

Looks like quite a few people won’t be upgrading from the XR until Micro LED becomes a thing as the PWM in OLED screens can mess with peoples eyes as evidenced by the 99 page thread on this forum on the subject.

Traded in my X for an XR and my regular evening eyestrain and headaches have now gone thankfully.

OLED is nice but certainly not worth the pain of owning it.

Apple acknowledges that PWM can cause migraines in a certain subset of the population, but are now effectively saying that we aren’t good enough to own iPhones in future.

Some maybe a placebo effect for or against AMOLED, some are legit cases and hard to monitor on a public forum. Consider many Android phone have been using AMOLED screens or varying quality one would believe with all the medical complaints that manufacturers would not produce these anymore or transition to something better.

Agreed on microLED, for me on any screen it’s the default brightness may it be AMOLED or LCD my eyes are sensitive to shining artificial light from a display. I have adapted and turn the brightness all the way down plus I control the white point and nightshift.

AMOLED is fine, maybe take a visual break from ones electronic devices and allow ones eyes to recuperate.
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According to article “Less than stellar Xr sales”. Being that the Xr has sold more than the others since it’s been released according to apple , what’s that say about the sales of the other phones ?

XR was viewed to transition all the TouchID devices to FaceID without the significant price tag.

It will happen, just not as swiftly as Tim Cook & Co. would prefer. An iPhone 6S and even 7 have quite some good years ahead. Most of the industry overestimate what normal consumers want or need, only the few use their phones that includes all the bells and whistles and even that not on a daily basis (these are in the minority). Cannot depend on the tech enthusiastic to run a business as there are simply not enough, so to narrow the margin Apple raises prices.

 

[Stuey3D]

Some maybe a placebo effect for or against AMOLED, some are legit cases and hard to monitor on a public forum. Consider many Android phone have been using AMOLED screens or varying quality one would believe with all the medical complaints that manufacturers would not produce these anymore or transition to something better.

Agreed on microLED, for me on any screen it’s the default brightness may it be AMOLED or LCD my eyes are sensitive to shining artificial light from a display. I have adapted and turn the brightness all the way down plus I control the white point and nightshift.

AMOLED is fine, maybe take a visual break from ones electronic devices and allow ones eyes to recuperate.

Oh yeah I totally agree about the placebo effect, for me I thought initially PWM couldn’t be the cause of my headaches and I was adding 2+2 and getting 5 after reading the forums.

However after trading in my X for an XR for other reasons such as cost per month, screen size, battery life I actually realise that PWM did effect me.

I was getting some quite severe headaches beforehand, and I could feel my eyes throbbing begging to be rubbed when using my X.

Now with the XR I get none of that, the XR is hands down the most comfortable device in terms of physical size and screen that I’ve ever used.

 

[Khedron]

Micro LED is really not around the corner. There are a lot of issues with miniaturizing it for smaller TVs, let alone phones and it will also take some time before it’s financially viable and factories are ready for mass-production. We’re talking years and years.

Micro LED will be amazing, but it will take some time.

From the article: "Its modular nature (you can see the seams of each tile if you look very close) allows for displays of any size and at any aspect ratio."

Look very close? As in, look in the general direction of the MicroLED screen?

 

[Sasparilla]

Loving the much longer battery life that LCD brings to the Xr - so looks like an upgrade next year to the last generation for sure now.

 

[smulji]

You all will have to pardon my technological ignorance, but is it inevitable OLEDs will use PWM? 2020 is about when I would be replacing my phone unless they put a dual lens on the XR replacement next year.

There was a previous WSJ rumor a couple of weeks ago that the iPhone XR would be upgraded to a dual-lens camera THIS year.
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Yeah but I would wager Apple’s LCDs are better than many Android OLEDs in nearly every way except sheer pixel resolution. When I have compared my XR next to two friend’s XS Max, looking at the same images, it is difficult to find major discrepancies. The difference aren’t as obvious as the spec sheets say unless you are watching a dark movie, and even then, it isn’t like the XR screen looks bad. I really believe the XR is the most underrated iPhone ever launched.

I agree with this. When it comes to overall color accuracy and quality, the XR screen is one of the best there is even at the 327 ppi resolution

 

[jjohnstonjr]

The XR demonstrates that they have achieved insane battery life with a sub 3,000 mAH battery size. Yes it is in large part due to the lower res screen, but it's a larger display than the 8 Plus yet has even better battery life, for the same size battery.

By bigger battery life I was referencing something along the lines of the Note 9

 

[[AUT] Thomas]

OLED has a perfect contrast, I get that. That doesn't change the fact, that the iPad Pro, the Macbook AND the XR have an excellent screen. People here claiming the XR display isn't a great display "because there's OLED" have a flawed logic. OLED has been there for years. Following that logic they should have been claiming the iPhone display was bad before the iPhone 6. Because since then OLED was available on many phones, including Samsung, Blackberry,...

I still consider OLED a failed investment simply by the billions that went into research. They should have put that into µLED and it would have been market ready latest by now -without the flaws of OLED.
In fact, the technology is still not matured. On TVs it requires complex refresh algorithms that run during standby to avoid burn-in (probably the reason for lower battery runtime on the OLED phones too). On the other hand burn-out of certain colors isn't finally solved. That also result in using a PenTile matrix rather than an RGB matrix. Since I can't unsee the PenTile even in the XS(Max) I actually prefer the LCD of the XR.

There's certain use cases where OLED has good potential (transparent screens), but in general I'm waiting for µLED to solve all problems.

 

[kazmac]

Looks like quite a few people won’t be upgrading from the XR until Micro LED becomes a thing as the PWM in OLED screens can mess with peoples eyes as evidenced by the 99 page thread on this forum on the subject.

Traded in my X for an XR and my regular evening eyestrain and headaches have now gone thankfully.

OLED is nice but certainly not worth the pain of owning it.

Apple acknowledges that PWM can cause migraines in a certain subset of the population, but are now effectively saying that we aren’t good enough to own iPhones in future.

Well said. As it stands, I may very well jump ship before then. If not, I’ll take my business elsewhere. No big deal. I know what I’ll pay to use an iPhone comfortably, and it’s not what Apple wants me to pay.

 

[mithion]

Although OLED screens looks really good when brand new, I wonder how they look after 2-3 years. Phones display a lot of static content which is bad for OLED burn in. MicroLED can't come fast enough. Unfortunately, we're still years away from seeing that tech in consumer products, let alone a phone screen.

Despite all reviewers claiming OLED is fine, I've seen too many pictures of people having burn in issues. In fact I was considering an OLED TV as my next tv because of the all the rave reviews for picture quality, but since LG doesn't cover burn in in their warranty and with their sets costing so much, I'm gonna "nope" that immediately. A high end LCD with local dimming and quantum dots has only a tiny drop in picture quality and those come worry free. So my next set will be a good old LCD and in a decade when microLED is thing, I'll jump on to that. OLED is too much of a gamble.

 

[ryanwarsaw]

If they really aren't going to do this until 2020 they should really just drop prices now and not update the phone line up in 2019. Unless they are launching a notchless phone with Touch ID under screen or Face ID. Barring that they will be laughed at if the phone is almost identical to this years and the same price.

The notch is a bigger deal than some people think. Some people are okay with it but there are a lot of people like me that just didn't pull the trigger. No notch and I may sell a kidney.

 

[jackietreeh0rn]

Does that mean the iPhone will start at $999?

 

[subjonas]

Apple may lump lcd people in with small-phone people and low-cost/low-feature-phone people, and bring back another SE. It will be the perfect device for people who belong to all three of those groups. But just a pretty good device for those who belong to only two, and a better-than-nothing device for those who belong to only one.

 

[ryanwarsaw]

You’re obviously conflating different things. Is the consumer ‘complaining’ about the LCD display on the XR or are they not interested in upgrading because of market saturation? Those are two things that I think that you’re misconstruing. The problem with those were are not upgrading, is they either took it advantage of the battery replacement program and/or iOS 12 greatly helped performance in older phones.

I never once have come across any consumer or person that I know that complained about the XR display outside MacRumors. Again, I don’t think the average consumer even can differentiate the differences between LCD and OLED. So I think your point is moot.

It could be saturation to a degree. For example I really liked the XR but people were saying the screen would be a downgrade from my 8+. Okay it could be argued that maybe I can't tell the difference. Okay fine but it is at that point a fact it isn't an upgrade. People that buy something like the 8+ are pretty heavy into the size and shape of the screen and I don't think other things matter as much as the screen.

XS with its weird ratio, XR with its low resolution. There is simply no place to go for some of us. There is also the price.

 

[Khedron]

OLED has a perfect contrast, I get that. That doesn't change the fact, that the iPad Pro, the Macbook AND the XR have an excellent screen. People here claiming the XR display isn't a great display "because there's OLED" have a flawed logic. OLED has been there for years. Following that logic they should have been claiming the iPhone display was bad before the iPhone 6. Because since then OLED was available on many phones, including Samsung, Blackberry,...

I still consider OLED a failed investment simply by the billions that went into research. They should have put that into µLED and it would have been market ready latest by now -without the flaws of OLED.
In fact, the technology is still not matured. On TVs it requires complex refresh algorithms that run during standby to avoid burn-in (probably the reason for lower battery runtime on the OLED phones too). On the other hand burn-out of certain colors isn't finally solved. That also result in using a PenTile matrix rather than an RGB matrix. Since I can't unsee the PenTile even in the XS(Max) I actually prefer the LCD of the XR.

There's certain use cases where OLED has good potential (transparent screens), but in general I'm waiting for µLED to solve all problems.

The problem is much simpler. The XR can't even compete with the previous year's 8 Plus LCD screen.
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Although OLED screens looks really good when brand new, I wonder how they look after 2-3 years. Phones display a lot of static content which is bad for OLED burn in. MicroLED can't come fast enough. Unfortunately, we're still years away from seeing that tech in consumer products, let alone a phone screen.

Despite all reviewers claiming OLED is fine, I've seen too many pictures of people having burn in issues. In fact I was considering an OLED TV as my next tv because of the all the rave reviews for picture quality, but since LG doesn't cover burn in in their warranty and with their sets costing so much, I'm gonna "nope" that immediately. A high end LCD with local dimming and quantum dots has only a tiny drop in picture quality and those come worry free. So my next set will be a good old LCD and in a decade when microLED is thing, I'll jump on to that. OLED is too much of a gamble.

Whereas LCDs don't have any problems?

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ay-issues-due-to-fragile-flex-cables.2166322/

 

[macduke]

This doesn't leave much incentive for people to buy anything above the iPhone XR, unless the new three camera system is really going to be that much better. I doubt most people will care.

With sales declining, Apple should do the following:

• Kill iPhone XR
• Bring back iPhone SE (XE?) with 5.1" display and iPhone X design language at $699
• iPhone XS 5.8" line at $799
• iPhone XS Max 6.5" line at $899

Boom. Simple. Three sizes in order by price. Something for everyone without being complicated. Displays are all spaced out by 0.7". Elegant and more affordable. If those prices aren't going to work, at most do $699/849/999.