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iPhone 16 May Feature More Power-Efficient Samsung OLED Display

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Next year's iPhone 16 could feature a more power-efficient display thanks to a new OLED material set that is reportedly being developed by Samsung specifically for Apple.

iPhone-16-Side-Feature.jpg

A material set includes a variety of components for OLED screens, such as capping layers (CPL), which adjust the optical characteristics of the screen. Each component is produced by a specialist manufacturer and supplied to Samsung, which then uses them to construct the final OLED panel.

A different composition of materials in the set can alter attributes of the OLED panel, such as lifespan, brightness, color accuracy, or manufacturing efficiency.

Back in April, The Elec reported that Samsung was using its "M12" material set for this year's iPhone 15 models, while also developing a new OLED material set, dubbed "M14," specifically for Apple's 2024 iPhones. The precise reason for the development was not known at the time, but a new report from the Korean-language outlet suggests it could be related to making the OLED panel more energy efficient.

Citing Korean Ubi Research analyst Daejeong Yoon, The Elec now reports that Samsung's OLED development roadmap has been focused on replacing blue fluorescent materials with a blue phosphorescence that could reduce the overall power consumption of an OLED panel.

According to Yoon, Samsung originally intended to use the more power-efficient material in OLED panels developed for a variety of foldable phones in 2024, but it is not easy to develop, and Samsung could instead reserve it for Apple's M14 material set.

"Following the iPhone 16 next year, M14 will be applied to the iPhone 17 in 2025, and the application period for the Apple iPhone OLED material set will increase to two years," Yoon was quoted as saying.

The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max are expected to have larger display sizes, according to multiple sources. The iPhone 16 Pro will have a display that's 6.27 inches in size (rounded to 6.3), while the iPhone 16 Pro Max is expected to have a display that's 6.85 inches in size (rounded to 6.9).

A previous report in September suggested iPhone 16 OLED panels could use micro-lens technology to maintain or increase the brightness of the displays while potentially reducing their power consumption.

Meanwhile an earlier report in May claimed that Apple intends to mass produce more advanced microLED displays in order to lessen its reliance on Samsung and increase its own control over supply, laying the groundwork to realize its ultimate goal of bringing the next-generation technology to iPhones.

Article Link: iPhone 16 May Feature More Power-Efficient Samsung OLED Display
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/11/14/iphone-16-more-efficient-oled-display/
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Since next year will be the first time I’ve upgraded since well..2019 and will be the Pro Max, the crazier they make this phone the better!
 
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Octavius8 said:
Same old story about better designs, more advanced manufacturing processes, new materials, etc. and we end up with the same battery life year after year.
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MikaelThib said:
« iPhone 16 delivers the same incredible all-day battery life! »
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One of the biggest complaints of modern iPhones since the 12 series, especially the pro models, is how heavy they are. Batteries are the biggest contributors to a phone's weight. So if Apple can reduce the phone's weight by shrinking the battery but deliver the same runtime by using more efficient components that would be a win in and of itself. (And yes I fully recognize there are users out there who would carry around a heavy phone with a beefier battery).
 
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Given that the only commercial supplier of phosphorescent blue materials hasn't started shipping bulk quantities yet (and isn't expected to do so until 2024) I would say it's extremely unlikely that Samsung Display would be able to achieve pilot fabrication, ironing out any issues with the new material stack, convert production lines to this new material and produce millions of high-performance displays and do so by next Summer seems very unlikely. The reference to a capping layer suggests this is some kind of outcoupling enhancement (i.e. getting more of the light generated out of the pixel and towards the users eye)
 
bradman83 said:
One of the biggest complaints of modern iPhones since the 12 series, especially the pro models, is how heavy they are. Batteries are the biggest contributors to a phone's weight. So if Apple can reduce the phone's weight by shrinking the battery but deliver the same runtime by using more efficient components that would be a win in and of itself. (And yes I fully recognize there are users out there who would carry around a heavy phone with a beefier battery).
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actually Lithium is the lightest metal, and the battery is not heavy despite it took nearly half an iPhone's volume
Edit: But good idea, BS Chinese phone brand Honor made a whatever better battery on their Magic5. Battery chemistry is worth studying.
 
XboxEvolved said:
Since next year will be the first time I’ve upgraded since well..2019 and will be the Pro Max, the crazier they make this phone the better!
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It won't be crazy. Goto the iPhone 15 Pro Max page on apple.com and you're mostly looking at your future device.
 
Isn’t OLED on its way out in a few years?

Just seems strange that there’s still intense R&D happening both in OLED and MicroLED, shouldn’t it just be the MicroLED at this point, really makes you wonder why OLED is still being worked on..
 
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Octavius8 said:
Same old story about better designs, more advanced manufacturing processes, new materials, etc. and we end up with the same battery life year after year.
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I don't think this is true at all. Battery life has gone up significantly over the years. The jump from 12 Pro to 13 Pro was 5 hours rated use after the switch to LTPO displays (among other improvements, but this was a big factor). Just because not every year sees incremental battery improvements similar to chip performance doesn't mean the average battery life isn't consistently improving over time:

6s: 11 hrs
XS: 14 hrs
11 Pro: 18 hrs
15 Pro: 23 hrs

209% improvement in 8 years doesn't seem that bad to me. Real world or screen-on tests are lower of course, but mostly proportional to the ratings. I remember when my iPhone 5S used to die after like 1 hour of gaming.
 
washburn said:
Just seems strange that there’s still intense R&D happening both in OLED and MicroLED, shouldn’t it just be the MicroLED at this point, really makes you wonder why OLED is still being worked on..
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Because MicroLED is proving to be extremely difficult and expensive to manufacture at scale. It's a nascent technology and despite a lot of hand-wavy articles on MacRumors, et al, about oh, Apple is going to use it for this, that, and the other thing (most of which is complete nonsense) is still far away from being ready for consumer-class applications. Will it get there eventually? Absolutely! But it may take a lot longer than people realize.

OLED, and its derivatives, on the other hand, are mature, are used in a vertical distribution of products, are consumer-preferred, and can be manufactured at scale, economically, by a number of suppliers. There's significant interest in the marketplace to continue iterating it as a technology which drives down costs for everyone. And Apple, perhaps more so than any large technology company, loves hammering down costs while charging premium prices.

Invest intelligently in what comes next, but invest more in what you need now.

bradman83 said:
One of the biggest complaints of modern iPhones since the 12 series, especially the pro models, is how heavy they are.
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You mean among the perpetually, obsessively unhappy on MacRumors. No one else cares.
 
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washburn said:
Isn’t OLED on its way out in a few years?

Just seems strange that there’s still intense R&D happening both in OLED and MicroLED, shouldn’t it just be the MicroLED at this point, really makes you wonder why OLED is still being worked on..
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OLED is far more easily manufactured (currently), still improving, and by no means on its way out in a few years. MicroLED is better in theory, just like how solid state batteries for EVs are better in theory. Both are still many years out for mass adoption in affordable devices, and who knows what else might change between now and then.
 
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Thankfully the kind of innovation I care about. I don't want a faster or more sophisticated app or brighter nitts. We have been pursuing that for way too long. Time to pursue battery life.
 
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For some reason, more power-efficient display + more power-efficient battery + more power-efficient chips always result in more heating and throttling !?
 
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Sometimes I don't like the photos taken with the new iPhone 15 because they are somehow too bright due to HDR. The photos lose their appearance as photos to be photos
 
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kerplunknet said:
I just hope the new iPhone displays do not use PWM or have TLM (temporal light modulation). Many of us cannot use the OLED iPhones because the screens cause severe eye-strain and make us feel sick. I seriously hope they fix that instead of worrying about saving a few more mAh of battery.

Here is concrete evidence of this issue: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/eye-strain-while-using-iphone-x-and-up.2085427/post-32709834
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the future iPad and Mac will all use OLED 🥲🥲🥲
 
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