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OLED MacBook Pro Could Launch as Soon as 2026

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Apple is "highly likely" to introduce new MacBook Pros featuring OLED displays in 2026, market research firm Omdia claims.

New-MacBook-Pros-Launching-Tomorrow-With-These-4-New-Features-2.jpg

According to Omdia's Display long-term demand forecast tracker, demand for OLED displays in mobile devices is projected to grow by 37 percent from 2023 to 2031. This substantial growth reflects a significant shift as many tech companies, including Apple, are increasingly incorporating OLED panels into their high-end notebooks and tablets. Ricky Park, Senior Principal Analyst in Omdia's Display research practice, said:
Apple is highly likely to incorporate OLED into its MacBook Pro models as early as 2026. This move could spark a significant surge in OLED demand within the notebook market, potentially reaching over 60 million units by 2031.
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OLED panels can individually control each pixel, resulting in more precise color reproduction and deeper blacks compared to other common display technologies. They also provide superior contrast, faster response times, better viewing angles, and greater design flexibility.

Apple's move to offer OLED displays on the iPad Pro for the first time is projected to triple demand for OLED tablets in 2024 compared to the previous year. The company is expected to bring OLED display technology to most of its tablet lineup, including the iPad mini and iPad Air. This decision is expected to influence competitors' OLED adoption strategies and drive tablet OLED demand to exceed 30 million units by 2029.

A report from last week claimed that Samsung has started developing a new 8-inch OLED display panel for the iPad mini. The same report predicted that Apple would update the iPad mini and iPad Air with OLED technology in 2026. Last year, Samsung was rumored to be investing $3.14 billion into its facility in Asan, South Korea to produce OLED panels for upcoming 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with OLED displays.

Article Link: OLED MacBook Pro Could Launch as Soon as 2026
 
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https://www.macrumors.com/2024/05/28/oled-macbook-pro-could-launch-as-soon-as-2026/
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OLED panels are finding their way into competitors LOW END laptops (not just high end). It's not rocket science and it's bewildering why it takes Apple years to incorporate this technology in their products. If you want to claim that Apple uses "better OLED" (tandem), Dell just introduced their XPS 13 with Snapdragon with a tandem OLED. It takes Dell one cycle to do it, but it takes Apple years?
 
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rosuna said:
The question is why they are so late in the use of OLED technology.
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Here are some possibilities. Only people at Apple can provide answers.
  • Brightness of the screen is one factor. Larger OLED monitors cannot get anywhere close to as bright as Apple's current monitors. The OLED iPad Pros are 1000 nits / 1600 HDR peak, but it's not clear if that brightness can be hit and maintained yet with the larger screens in MBPs. I'm not aware of any laptop with 14+ inch screens with OLED brightness of 1000+ nits. Anyone know of any? If I had to guess, I'd guess this is the primary issue.
  • Risk of burn-in is another factor. That's greatly reduced now with newer OLED technology, but it's a consideration for devices like laptops/desktops rather than phones or watches.
  • OLED also don't last as long as mini-LED. I'm not sure if the lifespan is shorter enough to really be an issue, but it's another possible consideration.
  • Production costs are a factor, considering Apple's quality requirements.
  • It's probable Apple wanted to switch to micro-LED instead of OLED, but clearly that hasn't panned out yet with any sort of mass-production yields.
 
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I wouldn't call a year and a half away at least 'soon'. Kinda ridiculous actually. They have OLED on iPhones now a special new type on iPads. About time the laptops had them already.
But my main concern would be what price increase would these panels see? I was thinking of waiting for one of these but I think a Mac Studio and new iPad Pro would make more sense and I'd have them a lot sooner too.
 
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this sounds like the kind of analysis you put out after you e invested in order to make a killing on selling the stocks you sent higher. There’s 0 evidence here just conjecture to manipulate markets.
 
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I would much rather have an improved mini-LED or micro-LED (Holy-Grail) than a dual OLED. Reason being: The Organic in OLED, organic panels will always degrade more significantly with time in comparison, resulting in burn in and less brightness after years of use. I had my last MacBook for 8 years, and I seriously doubt an OLED panel that is used with desktop software (with many stationary icons) will perform as well after 8 years of use. The direction of TVs is going towards higher brightness mini-LEDs with advanced local dimming rather than OLED, and I think that's the right direction for now until micro-LED comes down in price.
 
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MayaUser said:
Apple , stop messing around with old tech and try to do anything to go into the future...microLed for 2026 is douable on these kind of devices
Or at least into your Pro Xdr display
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Right, they didn't manage to implement it even for the Watch, which has the lowest pixel count of all devices. MicroLED isn't coming anytime soon.
 
DEMinSoCAL said:
OLED panels are finding their way into competitors LOW END laptops (not just high end). It's not rocket science and it's bewildering why it takes Apple years to incorporate this technology in their products. If you want to claim that Apple uses "better OLED" (tandem), Dell just introduced their XPS 13 with Snapdragon with a tandem OLED. It takes Dell one cycle to do it, but it takes Apple years?
Click to expand...
That Dell has a max brightness of 400 nits. It’s not in the same league.
 
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DEMinSoCAL said:
OLED panels are finding their way into competitors LOW END laptops (not just high end). It's not rocket science and it's bewildering why it takes Apple years to incorporate this technology in their products. If you want to claim that Apple uses "better OLED" (tandem), Dell just introduced their XPS 13 with Snapdragon with a tandem OLED. It takes Dell one cycle to do it, but it takes Apple years?
Click to expand...

There's no "bewilder." Competitors usually have thinner profit margins, creating the cost space- even within lower pricing- to take advantage of newer things like OLED vs. protect "our big fat cut," first & foremost mentalities. Apple drags in later because all that volume of sales by the others eventually drives down the costs of things like OLED panels enough that Apple can finally include it too and get their margin. Modern Apple is profit target first and then go from there.

Why still clinging to 8GB RAM? Because going 16GB as base probably adds $10 or $15 to each unit cost AND undercuts very lucrative profit in selling that $10-$15 cost item at $200.

Why are we always calling for "instead of thinner, how about more battery?" Certainly Apple decision-makers have heard that broad want for over a decade now. More battery adds to cost-per-unit sold while thinner doesn't involve paying a bit more for something to go inside. Thus "same great battery life."

Why headphone jack jettison with plans to offer lossless & spatial audio only a few years later and Bluetooth not having the bandwidth for it? $20 buds don't have the margin of $100-$200 buds or $500 headphones. And wired can last for towards forever while wireless wears out every few years and needs a very lucrative re-purchase. The real trick in this: the DAC is still in every single device that used to have a headphone jack that could tap it... else you can't have audio our ears can hear coming out of the speakers. The jack was probably a 40-60¢ bit of materials at most.

Why kill iMac 27" when it is obviously quite a popular Mac (had a few myself)? My guess is that it had too much consumer value for it's "starting at under $2K" pricing. So kill it, strip the Mac out of it, leave the keyboard and mouse out of the box and ship the rest at the "starting at..." price that used to buy the very same monitor with those things inside. That fixed the profit margin problem.

Isolate anything that "does not make sense" through a consumer lens and then think about the money and you can probably logically see the rationale. As long as consumers will just roll over and pay... even post passionate support vs. other consumers who question such moves... Apple is thoroughly rewarded for making such decisions. Shareholders rejoice! 💰💰💰
 
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