LG unlikely to enter iPhone OLED supply chain before 2019

AppleInsider

Following revelations that Samsung could be the sole supplier of OLED displays for a next-generation "iPhone 8" handset, a report late Wednesday reaffirms previous claims that Apple's effort to diversify its supply chain with panels from LG is unlikely to bear fruit before 2019.

Citing people with knowledge of the matter, Bloomberg reports LG is looking to reach full OLED production capacity in 2019, with small batches potentially available at the end of 2018. The Korean company is in final stage talks with Apple over component pricing and other details as it continues to deal with hurdles toward manufacturing ramp.

LG, one of the world's few OLED producers, currently supplies Apple with OLED displays for Apple Watch. In fact, it was the tech giant's sole supplier until Samsung entered the fray in late 2015.

More recently, however, LG has run into problems related to the manufacture of larger OLED panels suitable for smartphones like iPhone. In particular, the company only recently procured evaporation equipment, tools that are key to the production process.

The report likely refers to vapor deposition machines built by Canon Tokki, a small arm of Japanese imaging giant Canon. Called ELVESS OLED, these specialized systems use a patented camera tracking mechanism to lay down pixels with an extremely narrow margin of error.

A report last year estimated that almost all OLED panels in circulation are manufactured using ELVESS machines, including components built by major producers Samsung, LG and Sharp.

Despite doubling production in 2016, Canon Tokki builds less than ten units per year, leading to a backlog of orders. According to today's report, Samsung's display branch beat LG to ordering several machines, putting the latter at a distinct disadvantage. LG took receipt of its allotment this year, and is currently working to ramp up production to adequate levels.

To help accelerate the process, LG invested $7 billion in expanding production at its OLED factory in China.

Today's report jibes with rumors that Apple put some $2.7 billion toward LG's manufacturing efforts, a sum said to be in part earmarked as an advance payment for OLED supply due for delivery in 2019.

In the interim, well-connected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple will have to rely on Samsung for OLED panels bound for "iPhone 8," and potentially future smartphone models to be released next year.

jameskatt2

Currently, apparently LG's large OLED panels are very poor and are unacceptable for Apple's use. 
LG has a long way to go to match the quality of Samsung's OLED panels.

Scot1

 Not sure what the problem is with LG because they’ve been producing large OLED panels now for at least four years and I have had two of their OLED TVs which were outstanding 

Soli

Is anyone going to say that Apple can get all the excellent LED-based displays that it can because Apple can do anything? I'm hoping that—for once—people realize that even Apple, with all their wealth and connections are still resource limited like everyone else.

rotateleftbyte

So Samsung has Apple over a Barrel and will gouge them for top $$$ as long as possible.
LG can make large LED displays but has problems with the small high resolution ones used in phones despite Apple's investments.

Cue the inevitable

Apple is doomed.

well not quite but it seems that Kuo has decided that he's flogged the forthcoming iPhone for all that it is worth and is focussing on the 2018 device.  no doubt we will all get truly sick and tired of his 'pronouncements' but hey, they bring in Ad views which is what it is all about these days.
I think that Apple will get fed up with the display makers (either not delivering or price gouging) sooner rather than later and bring it all inhouse. My forecast (not worth anything btw and comes with no ad clicks or views) is that the likes of LG and Samsung have until after the 2019 device is released to milk Apple for all they can. After that? who knows.

Rayz2016

rotateleftbyte said:

So Samsung has Apple over a Barrel and will gouge them for top $$$ as long as possible.
LG can make large LED displays but has problems with the small high resolution ones used in phones despite Apple's investments.

Cue the inevitable

Apple is doomed.

well not quite but it seems that Kuo has decided that he's flogged the forthcoming iPhone for all that it is worth and is focussing on the 2018 device.  no doubt we will all get truly sick and tired of his 'pronouncements' but hey, they bring in Ad views which is what it is all about these days.
I think that Apple will get fed up with the display makers (either not delivering or price gouging) sooner rather than later and bring it all inhouse. My forecast (not worth anything btw and comes with no ad clicks or views) is that the likes of LG and Samsung have until after the 2019 device is released to milk Apple for all they can. After that? who knows.

Ol' "Well-Connected" has had a pretty bad year; he's flip-flopped all over the place on what is and what isn't in the new iPhone.

He's still on the fence about TouchID. All that stress! He should take a leaf out of his brother's book. That guy hasn't worked a day in his life and he still lives in a luxury penthouse and drives a new Ferrari every year, but if you ask ol' "Well-Hung" how he does it, he just smiles and says, "Oh, there are ways…"
He's probably stuffing envelopes or something. 

pembroke

Surely, as the screen is a critical component of the unit, Apple should be seriously investigating manufacturing screens themselves. This vulnerability to their rival is quite a risk. Apple do have a spare few billion lying around to invest. I wonder whether dealing with patents is holding them back?

wood1208

LG knows how to produce OLED screen. May be not very high quality high yield smaller screen but that can be fixed with investment. But. LG probably worried about investing billions and than demand tapers off because of advanced micro LED screen takes over.

lkrupp

Looks like the new iPhones are now officially pre-doomed. Can’t wait for the announcements next week so I can watch this cesspool explode with negativity


pembroke said:

Surely, as the screen is a critical component of the unit, Apple should be seriously investigating manufacturing screens themselves. This vulnerability to their rival is quite a risk. Apple do have a spare few billion lying around to invest. I wonder whether dealing with patents is holding them back?

Might it be because Samsung holds most of the patents on OLED?

cloudmobile

Apple will start manufacturing OLED screens themselves at about the same time that they start manufacturing the chassis themselves, the SOCs themselves, the cameras themselves, the modems themselves, GPUs themselves and the memory units themselves ... which is never. Apple has never been and will be in the business of making components. That is not their area of expertise. They have no infrastructure in place for it either, and yes infrastructure includes PATENTS and other IP. It would take them many years to build them up, and even if they did, there is no guarantee that they would be any better than making components than Samsung, TSMC, LG, Sony etc. are. People with this attitude need to get off their high horses concerning Apple, pretending as if Apple is the only good technology company out there with good engineers who design good products. Even if you had that mindset back in, say, 2012, it is impossible to sustain now that Apple has essentially spent the last 5 years taking hardware and software ideas from Google and Samsung, incorporating them into their own products (while hilariously suing Samsung for infringement at the same time) leaving Apple advocates to (not particularly convincingly) claim "they did it first but we did it BETTER" or something like that. So the idea that Apple would get into components and immediately start making them as good as other companies who have fantastic engineers, product design teams, R&D departments etc. have been making FOR DECADES is ridiculous. And it isn't even Apple's wheelhouse. It never has been. Apple has ALWAYS excelled at taking the best - or most proven -existing pieces built by a variety of other companies, assembling them to build a superior end user product that focused on aesthetics/user experience/reliability/support as opposed to raw performance/the latest features/the most versatility or capability. Apple HAS NEVER excelled at - or for that matter even indulged in - the type of basic research in physics, chemistry, electrical, mechanical, process and industrial engineering that it takes to build so much as competitive memory chips, let alone OLED screens of the sort that Samsung is the only company in the world capable of building at scale. Even if Apple were to be able to build competitive OLED screens based on today's standards in 2-3 years, so what? Samsung started putting tons of money into OLED display YEARS ago, back when folks in Apple land were laughing at them, claiming that OLED was only suitable for large displays like TVs, and that LCD would ALWAYS be the best solution for small screens because of superior resolution, sharpness, speed, fluidity, less blacks, no oversaturation, and less power consumption. Samsung first previewed the type of curved OLED that is going to be used for the iPhone 8 way back in 2013 for the Galaxy Round, which was only sold in South Korea because they lacked the manufacturing capacity to make more. Even as recently as the Galaxy S6, two years ago, Samsung lacked the manufacturing capacity to keep up with demand. So what Samsung is putting in their phones now is components that they were developing 6-7 years ago. They have spent the last 3 years working on the next innovation, which are foldable devices. Yes, I know that Apple has filed their patent for a foldable smartphone. But Samsung has put in the R&D into the components - not just the screen but the internals - to actually make the product viable in a device that will be produced in large quantities and operate well enough to be supported. They were supposed to launch the first foldable device in 2016 but it got delayed because their early prototypes couldn't handle the durability testing. Other companies are now trying to beat Samsung to the punch but with different tech. LG tried to develop a foldable OLED screen before Samsung but gave up, and are instead rushing to market with a foldable device that uses hinges in 2018. They are in turn being beaten to the market by ZTE, who will have a foldable device as an AT&T exclusive later this year, but also uses hinges. Both will actually have separate sets of components that will virtually act as a single set when the device is folded out. None of them are working on a device that will have a single, foldable set of components like the one that Samsung has been working on since at least 2013. And that is actually how Samsung was able to beat all the Android competition AND remain competitive with Apple all these years. They weren't better in design. They certainly weren't better in software and services. But Samsung made the best components. Other than being stuck with using Qualcomm as their SOCs for reasons that we won't get into, that has given them the competitive edge that has forced the entire industry - including Google and yes Apple - to ultimately respond to and finally adopt themselves. If it wasn't for their ability to leverage their superiority at components into making devices that look and perform great, they would have been marginalized and commoditized along with the rest of the Android space years ago. And if you think that Apple can dive right into this area and compete with and beat Samsung at their own game, you are as delusional as the folks on this site were as recently as summer 2014 when they claimed that Apple would NEVER adopt the phablet form factor, the stylus, quad-core ARM architecture, multi-windowing or exceed 1 GB of RAM ... all of which were allegedly the product of bad design by Google and Samsung who were both going to be inevitably out of the smartphone business within 2 years (according to some infamous predictions by DED and others). Look folks. Let Samsung make their money. They put in the risk of many years of expensive R&D and infrastructure upgrades to make this possible so they have earned it. And they did it when a lot of other companies and analysts - Apple, Google, LG among them - claimed that they were nuts, that it was a gimmick that would never catch on, and they need to put their money and efforts elsewhere. They were right, everyone else was wrong, let them benefit from it, just as you guys are perfectly fine when Apple does the same. In a couple of years, the market will adjust and prices will come down. And actually, by then it won't matter because Samsung and the competition will have moved on to the next big thing anyway, and Apple will have to go ahead and pony up in order to put that tech in their devices too. Just like they have to pay a ton to put Intel and Nvidia tech into their PCs, and to Amazon and Google to host iCloud. That is not going to change and there is no reason why it should. Apple is not the only company in the world who creates good products that have value. Other companies do too, and when they do Apple should have to pay the going rate to benefit from it, just as everyone pays Apple whatever they decide to charge for their own products. So long as Apple is able to pass on the cost of the $125 OLED panels by charging their consumers $250 for it - and they will - it is fine.

cloudmobile

lkrupp said:

Looks like the new iPhones are now officially pre-doomed. Can’t wait for the announcements next week so I can watch this cesspool explode with negativity


pembroke said:

Surely, as the screen is a critical component of the unit, Apple should be seriously investigating manufacturing screens themselves. This vulnerability to their rival is quite a risk. Apple do have a spare few billion lying around to invest. I wonder whether dealing with patents is holding them back?

Might it be because Samsung holds most of the patents on OLED?

Yep. Samsung owns the patents on the IP that they developed. If Apple wants to get into this area, they will need to either develop their own way of creating OLED - including the very process required to make it - or license the existing way of making OLED from Samsung. Which means either way Samsung gets paid, and a lot. Get this: the current way, Samsung still has to pay a ton to make and ship all these OLED panels to Apple. They have to spend money to make money, and use up resources and supply chain that could go to make other products. But if Apple licenses the tech from Samsung, they just sit back and collect checks without doing anything. While STILL using their R&D prowess to create BETTER screen tech than the tech that Apple would be paying licensing terms for. Apple would be paying Samsung for the privilege of manufacturing their own AMOLED screens that will always be several years behind Samsung's OLED screens. So tell me again why this is a good idea strategically, financially and technologically for Apple? Instead of just letting Samsung or whoever else go through the significant investment of making the best components, and then buying those components at the lowest rates that they are able to negotiate? Samsung has Apple over a barrel NOW, but they may not necessarily in 3-5 years when the whole tech market might change anyway. That is what people have to remember when they advocate Apple spending the next 5 years creating the capacity to build their own OLED screens, especially since during that time they will still have to pay Samsung to supply the products that they sell in the meantime anyway.

GeorgeBMac

Steve brought multiple talents to Apple that made it great.
Tim also brings multiple talents -- but his foundation is managing the supply.
...  I have faith in Tim on this one.  There are no quick fixes.  It will be an ongoing process.

tmay

cloudmobile said:

Apple will start manufacturing OLED screens themselves at about the same time that they start manufacturing the chassis themselves, the SOCs themselves, the cameras themselves, the modems themselves, GPUs themselves and the memory units themselves ... which is never. Apple has never been and will be in the business of making components. That is not their area of expertise. They have no infrastructure in place for it either, and yes infrastructure includes PATENTS and other IP. It would take them many years to build them up, and even if they did, there is no guarantee that they would be any better than making components than Samsung, TSMC, LG, Sony etc. are. People with this attitude need to get off their high horses concerning Apple, pretending as if Apple is the only good technology company out there with good engineers who design good products. Even if you had that mindset back in, say, 2012, it is impossible to sustain now that Apple has essentially spent the last 5 years taking hardware and software ideas from Google and Samsung, incorporating them into their own products (while hilariously suing Samsung for infringement at the same time) leaving Apple advocates to (not particularly convincingly) claim "they did it first but we did it BETTER" or something like that. So the idea that Apple would get into components and immediately start making them as good as other companies who have fantastic engineers, product design teams, R&D departments etc. have been making FOR DECADES is ridiculous. And it isn't even Apple's wheelhouse. It never has been. Apple has ALWAYS excelled at taking the best - or most proven -existing pieces built by a variety of other companies, assembling them to build a superior end user product that focused on aesthetics/user experience/reliability/support as opposed to raw performance/the latest features/the most versatility or capability. Apple HAS NEVER excelled at - or for that matter even indulged in - the type of basic research in physics, chemistry, electrical, mechanical, process and industrial engineering that it takes to build so much as competitive memory chips, let alone OLED screens of the sort that Samsung is the only company in the world capable of building at scale. Even if Apple were to be able to build competitive OLED screens based on today's standards in 2-3 years, so what? Samsung started putting tons of money into OLED display YEARS ago, back when folks in Apple land were laughing at them, claiming that OLED was only suitable for large displays like TVs, and that LCD would ALWAYS be the best solution for small screens because of superior resolution, sharpness, speed, fluidity, less blacks, no oversaturation, and less power consumption. Samsung first previewed the type of curved OLED that is going to be used for the iPhone 8 way back in 2013 for the Galaxy Round, which was only sold in South Korea because they lacked the manufacturing capacity to make more. Even as recently as the Galaxy S6, two years ago, Samsung lacked the manufacturing capacity to keep up with demand. So what Samsung is putting in their phones now is components that they were developing 6-7 years ago. They have spent the last 3 years working on the next innovation, which are foldable devices. Yes, I know that Apple has filed their patent for a foldable smartphone. But Samsung has put in the R&D into the components - not just the screen but the internals - to actually make the product viable in a device that will be produced in large quantities and operate well enough to be supported. They were supposed to launch the first foldable device in 2016 but it got delayed because their early prototypes couldn't handle the durability testing. Other companies are now trying to beat Samsung to the punch but with different tech. LG tried to develop a foldable OLED screen before Samsung but gave up, and are instead rushing to market with a foldable device that uses hinges in 2018. They are in turn being beaten to the market by ZTE, who will have a foldable device as an AT&T exclusive later this year, but also uses hinges. Both will actually have separate sets of components that will virtually act as a single set when the device is folded out. None of them are working on a device that will have a single, foldable set of components like the one that Samsung has been working on since at least 2013. And that is actually how Samsung was able to beat all the Android competition AND remain competitive with Apple all these years. They weren't better in design. They certainly weren't better in software and services. But Samsung made the best components. Other than being stuck with using Qualcomm as their SOCs for reasons that we won't get into, that has given them the competitive edge that has forced the entire industry - including Google and yes Apple - to ultimately respond to and finally adopt themselves. If it wasn't for their ability to leverage their superiority at components into making devices that look and perform great, they would have been marginalized and commoditized along with the rest of the Android space years ago. And if you think that Apple can dive right into this area and compete with and beat Samsung at their own game, you are as delusional as the folks on this site were as recently as summer 2014 when they claimed that Apple would NEVER adopt the phablet form factor, the stylus, quad-core ARM architecture, multi-windowing or exceed 1 GB of RAM ... all of which were allegedly the product of bad design by Google and Samsung who were both going to be inevitably out of the smartphone business within 2 years (according to some infamous predictions by DED and others). Look folks. Let Samsung make their money. They put in the risk of many years of expensive R&D and infrastructure upgrades to make this possible so they have earned it. And they did it when a lot of other companies and analysts - Apple, Google, LG among them - claimed that they were nuts, that it was a gimmick that would never catch on, and they need to put their money and efforts elsewhere. They were right, everyone else was wrong, let them benefit from it, just as you guys are perfectly fine when Apple does the same. In a couple of years, the market will adjust and prices will come down. And actually, by then it won't matter because Samsung and the competition will have moved on to the next big thing anyway, and Apple will have to go ahead and pony up in order to put that tech in their devices too. Just like they have to pay a ton to put Intel and Nvidia tech into their PCs, and to Amazon and Google to host iCloud. That is not going to change and there is no reason why it should. Apple is not the only company in the world who creates good products that have value. Other companies do too, and when they do Apple should have to pay the going rate to benefit from it, just as everyone pays Apple whatever they decide to charge for their own products. So long as Apple is able to pass on the cost of the $125 OLED panels by charging their consumers $250 for it - and they will - it is fine.

Not trying to be a dick, but many, many, creative types figured out over the years how to make text readable. You should try it.

Avieshek

By 2019, Samsung would be on 8th Gen OLED production while LG is yet to move from 4th Gen.
LG is currently on 4th Gen Panels and Samsung on 6th Gen Display Panel. 

flaneur

tmay said:

cloudmobile said:

Apple will start manufacturing OLED screens themselves at about the same time that they start manufacturing the chassis themselves, the SOCs themselves, the cameras themselves, the modems themselves, GPUs themselves and the memory units themselves ... which is never. Apple has never been and will be in the business of making components. That is not their area of expertise. They have no infrastructure in place for it either, and yes infrastructure includes PATENTS and other IP. It would take them many years to build them up, and even if they did, there is no guarantee that they would be any better than making components than Samsung, TSMC, LG, Sony etc. are. People with this attitude need to get off their high horses concerning Apple, pretending as if Apple is the only good technology company out there with good engineers who design good products. Even if you had that mindset back in, say, 2012, it is impossible to sustain now that Apple has essentially spent the last 5 years taking hardware and software ideas from Google and Samsung, incorporating them into their own products (while hilariously suing Samsung for infringement at the same time) leaving Apple advocates to (not particularly convincingly) claim "they did it first but we did it BETTER" or something like that. So the idea that Apple would get into components and immediately start making them as good as other companies who have fantastic engineers, product design teams, R&D departments etc. have been making FOR DECADES is ridiculous. And it isn't even Apple's wheelhouse. It never has been. Apple has ALWAYS excelled at taking the best - or most proven -existing pieces built by a variety of other companies, assembling them to build a superior end user product that focused on aesthetics/user experience/reliability/support as opposed to raw performance/the latest features/the most versatility or capability. Apple HAS NEVER excelled at - or for that matter even indulged in - the type of basic research in physics, chemistry, electrical, mechanical, process and industrial engineering that it takes to build so much as competitive memory chips, let alone OLED screens of the sort that Samsung is the only company in the world capable of building at scale. Even if Apple were to be able to build competitive OLED screens based on today's standards in 2-3 years, so what? Samsung started putting tons of money into OLED display YEARS ago, back when folks in Apple land were laughing at them, claiming that OLED was only suitable for large displays like TVs, and that LCD would ALWAYS be the best solution for small screens because of superior resolution, sharpness, speed, fluidity, less blacks, no oversaturation, and less power consumption. Samsung first previewed the type of curved OLED that is going to be used for the iPhone 8 way back in 2013 for the Galaxy Round, which was only sold in South Korea because they lacked the manufacturing capacity to make more. Even as recently as the Galaxy S6, two years ago, Samsung lacked the manufacturing capacity to keep up with demand. So what Samsung is putting in their phones now is components that they were developing 6-7 years ago. They have spent the last 3 years working on the next innovation, which are foldable devices. Yes, I know that Apple has filed their patent for a foldable smartphone. But Samsung has put in the R&D into the components - not just the screen but the internals - to actually make the product viable in a device that will be produced in large quantities and operate well enough to be supported. They were supposed to launch the first foldable device in 2016 but it got delayed because their early prototypes couldn't handle the durability testing. Other companies are now trying to beat Samsung to the punch but with different tech. LG tried to develop a foldable OLED screen before Samsung but gave up, and are instead rushing to market with a foldable device that uses hinges in 2018. They are in turn being beaten to the market by ZTE, who will have a foldable device as an AT&T exclusive later this year, but also uses hinges. Both will actually have separate sets of components that will virtually act as a single set when the device is folded out. None of them are working on a device that will have a single, foldable set of components like the one that Samsung has been working on since at least 2013. And that is actually how Samsung was able to beat all the Android competition AND remain competitive with Apple all these years. They weren't better in design. They certainly weren't better in software and services. But Samsung made the best components. Other than being stuck with using Qualcomm as their SOCs for reasons that we won't get into, that has given them the competitive edge that has forced the entire industry - including Google and yes Apple - to ultimately respond to and finally adopt themselves. If it wasn't for their ability to leverage their superiority at components into making devices that look and perform great, they would have been marginalized and commoditized along with the rest of the Android space years ago. And if you think that Apple can dive right into this area and compete with and beat Samsung at their own game, you are as delusional as the folks on this site were as recently as summer 2014 when they claimed that Apple would NEVER adopt the phablet form factor, the stylus, quad-core ARM architecture, multi-windowing or exceed 1 GB of RAM ... all of which were allegedly the product of bad design by Google and Samsung who were both going to be inevitably out of the smartphone business within 2 years (according to some infamous predictions by DED and others). Look folks. Let Samsung make their money. They put in the risk of many years of expensive R&D and infrastructure upgrades to make this possible so they have earned it. And they did it when a lot of other companies and analysts - Apple, Google, LG among them - claimed that they were nuts, that it was a gimmick that would never catch on, and they need to put their money and efforts elsewhere. They were right, everyone else was wrong, let them benefit from it, just as you guys are perfectly fine when Apple does the same. In a couple of years, the market will adjust and prices will come down. And actually, by then it won't matter because Samsung and the competition will have moved on to the next big thing anyway, and Apple will have to go ahead and pony up in order to put that tech in their devices too. Just like they have to pay a ton to put Intel and Nvidia tech into their PCs, and to Amazon and Google to host iCloud. That is not going to change and there is no reason why it should. Apple is not the only company in the world who creates good products that have value. Other companies do too, and when they do Apple should have to pay the going rate to benefit from it, just as everyone pays Apple whatever they decide to charge for their own products. So long as Apple is able to pass on the cost of the $125 OLED panels by charging their consumers $250 for it - and they will - it is fine.

Not trying to be a dick, but many, many, creative types figured out over the years how to make text readable. You should try it.

Let's give him a hint, lest he miss the point: use paragraphs.

Rayz2016

cloudmobile said:

Apple will start manufacturing OLED screens themselves at about the same time that they start manufacturing the chassis themselves, the SOCs themselves, the cameras themselves, the modems themselves, GPUs themselves and the memory units themselves ... which is never. Apple has never been and will be in the business of making components. That is not their area of expertise. They have no infrastructure in place for it either, and yes infrastructure includes PATENTS and other IP. It would take them many years to build them up, and even if they did, there is no guarantee that they would be any better than making components than Samsung, TSMC, LG, Sony etc. are. People with this attitude need to get off their high horses concerning Apple, pretending as if Apple is the only good technology company out there with good engineers who design good products. Even if you had that mindset back in, say, 2012, it is impossible to sustain now that Apple has essentially spent the last 5 years taking hardware and software ideas from Google and Samsung, incorporating them into their own products (while hilariously suing Samsung for infringement at the same time) leaving Apple advocates to (not particularly convincingly) claim "they did it first but we did it BETTER" or something like that. So the idea that Apple would get into components and immediately start making them as good as other companies who have fantastic engineers, product design teams, R&D departments etc. have been making FOR DECADES is ridiculous. And it isn't even Apple's wheelhouse. It never has been. Apple has ALWAYS excelled at taking the best - or most proven -existing pieces built by a variety of other companies, assembling them to build a superior end user product that focused on aesthetics/user experience/reliability/support as opposed to raw performance/the latest features/the most versatility or capability. Apple HAS NEVER excelled at - or for that matter even indulged in - the type of basic research in physics, chemistry, electrical, mechanical, process and industrial engineering that it takes to build so much as competitive memory chips, let alone OLED screens of the sort that Samsung is the only company in the world capable of building at scale. Even if Apple were to be able to build competitive OLED screens based on today's standards in 2-3 years, so what? Samsung started putting tons of money into OLED display YEARS ago, back when folks in Apple land were laughing at them, claiming that OLED was only suitable for large displays like TVs, and that LCD would ALWAYS be the best solution for small screens because of superior resolution, sharpness, speed, fluidity, less blacks, no oversaturation, and less power consumption. Samsung first previewed the type of curved OLED that is going to be used for the iPhone 8 way back in 2013 for the Galaxy Round, which was only sold in South Korea because they lacked the manufacturing capacity to make more. Even as recently as the Galaxy S6, two years ago, Samsung lacked the manufacturing capacity to keep up with demand. So what Samsung is putting in their phones now is components that they were developing 6-7 years ago. They have spent the last 3 years working on the next innovation, which are foldable devices. Yes, I know that Apple has filed their patent for a foldable smartphone. But Samsung has put in the R&D into the components - not just the screen but the internals - to actually make the product viable in a device that will be produced in large quantities and operate well enough to be supported. They were supposed to launch the first foldable device in 2016 but it got delayed because their early prototypes couldn't handle the durability testing. Other companies are now trying to beat Samsung to the punch but with different tech. LG tried to develop a foldable OLED screen before Samsung but gave up, and are instead rushing to market with a foldable device that uses hinges in 2018. They are in turn being beaten to the market by ZTE, who will have a foldable device as an AT&T exclusive later this year, but also uses hinges. Both will actually have separate sets of components that will virtually act as a single set when the device is folded out. None of them are working on a device that will have a single, foldable set of components like the one that Samsung has been working on since at least 2013. And that is actually how Samsung was able to beat all the Android competition AND remain competitive with Apple all these years. They weren't better in design. They certainly weren't better in software and services. But Samsung made the best components. Other than being stuck with using Qualcomm as their SOCs for reasons that we won't get into, that has given them the competitive edge that has forced the entire industry - including Google and yes Apple - to ultimately respond to and finally adopt themselves. If it wasn't for their ability to leverage their superiority at components into making devices that look and perform great, they would have been marginalized and commoditized along with the rest of the Android space years ago. And if you think that Apple can dive right into this area and compete with and beat Samsung at their own game, you are as delusional as the folks on this site were as recently as summer 2014 when they claimed that Apple would NEVER adopt the phablet form factor, the stylus, quad-core ARM architecture, multi-windowing or exceed 1 GB of RAM ... all of which were allegedly the product of bad design by Google and Samsung who were both going to be inevitably out of the smartphone business within 2 years (according to some infamous predictions by DED and others). Look folks. Let Samsung make their money. They put in the risk of many years of expensive R&D and infrastructure upgrades to make this possible so they have earned it. And they did it when a lot of other companies and analysts - Apple, Google, LG among them - claimed that they were nuts, that it was a gimmick that would never catch on, and they need to put their money and efforts elsewhere. They were right, everyone else was wrong, let them benefit from it, just as you guys are perfectly fine when Apple does the same. In a couple of years, the market will adjust and prices will come down. And actually, by then it won't matter because Samsung and the competition will have moved on to the next big thing anyway, and Apple will have to go ahead and pony up in order to put that tech in their devices too. Just like they have to pay a ton to put Intel and Nvidia tech into their PCs, and to Amazon and Google to host iCloud. That is not going to change and there is no reason why it should. Apple is not the only company in the world who creates good products that have value. Other companies do too, and when they do Apple should have to pay the going rate to benefit from it, just as everyone pays Apple whatever they decide to charge for their own products. So long as Apple is able to pass on the cost of the $125 OLED panels by charging their consumers $250 for it - and they will - it is fine.

I just got a message from the Samsung Fan Club:

Special one-day introductory course: 

"Paragraphs, and why they matter."

They might have a few places left, if you hurry…

Soli

Rayz2016 said:

I just got a message from the Samsung Fan Club:

Special one-day introductory course: 

"Paragraphs, and why they matter."

They might have a few places left, if you hurry…

I think some people just to write for themselves on this forum, instead of, ya know, using it as a forum in which to communicate with others.

• http://www.customessayhelp.com/blog/writing-skills/paragraph-writing-importance-and-structure-of-paragraph/

Rayz2016

Soli said:

Rayz2016 said:

I just got a message from the Samsung Fan Club:

Special one-day introductory course: 

"Paragraphs, and why they matter."

They might have a few places left, if you hurry…

I think some people just to write for themselves on this forum, instead of, ya know, using it as a forum in which to communicate with others.

• http://www.customessayhelp.com/blog/writing-skills/paragraph-writing-importance-and-structure-of-paragraph/

Seems to occur mostly with the Android/ Samsung fans.

I'm wondering if it's some sort of low-level Linuxy CR/LF setting they need to set up on their phones. There's probably some kind of command line statement they can run from a terminal app to correct it. 

GeorgeBMac

tmay said:

cloudmobile said:

Apple will start manufacturing OLED screens themselves at about the same time that they start manufacturing the chassis themselves, the SOCs themselves, the cameras themselves, the modems themselves, GPUs themselves and the memory units themselves ... which is never. Apple has never been and will be in the business of making components. That is not their area of expertise. They have no infrastructure in place for it either, and yes infrastructure includes PATENTS and other IP. It would take them many years to build them up, and even if they did, there is no guarantee that they would be any better than making components than Samsung, TSMC, LG, Sony etc. are. People with this attitude need to get off their high horses concerning Apple, pretending as if Apple is the only good technology company out there with good engineers who design good products. Even if you had that mindset back in, say, 2012, it is impossible to sustain now that Apple has essentially spent the last 5 years taking hardware and software ideas from Google and Samsung, incorporating them into their own products (while hilariously suing Samsung for infringement at the same time) leaving Apple advocates to (not particularly convincingly) claim "they did it first but we did it BETTER" or something like that. So the idea that Apple would get into components and immediately start making them as good as other companies who have fantastic engineers, product design teams, R&D departments etc. have been making FOR DECADES is ridiculous. And it isn't even Apple's wheelhouse. It never has been. Apple has ALWAYS excelled at taking the best - or most proven -existing pieces built by a variety of other companies, assembling them to build a superior end user product that focused on aesthetics/user experience/reliability/support as opposed to raw performance/the latest features/the most versatility or capability. Apple HAS NEVER excelled at - or for that matter even indulged in - the type of basic research in physics, chemistry, electrical, mechanical, process and industrial engineering that it takes to build so much as competitive memory chips, let alone OLED screens of the sort that Samsung is the only company in the world capable of building at scale. Even if Apple were to be able to build competitive OLED screens based on today's standards in 2-3 years, so what? Samsung started putting tons of money into OLED display YEARS ago, back when folks in Apple land were laughing at them, claiming that OLED was only suitable for large displays like TVs, and that LCD would ALWAYS be the best solution for small screens because of superior resolution, sharpness, speed, fluidity, less blacks, no oversaturation, and less power consumption. Samsung first previewed the type of curved OLED that is going to be used for the iPhone 8 way back in 2013 for the Galaxy Round, which was only sold in South Korea because they lacked the manufacturing capacity to make more. Even as recently as the Galaxy S6, two years ago, Samsung lacked the manufacturing capacity to keep up with demand. So what Samsung is putting in their phones now is components that they were developing 6-7 years ago. They have spent the last 3 years working on the next innovation, which are foldable devices. Yes, I know that Apple has filed their patent for a foldable smartphone. But Samsung has put in the R&D into the components - not just the screen but the internals - to actually make the product viable in a device that will be produced in large quantities and operate well enough to be supported. They were supposed to launch the first foldable device in 2016 but it got delayed because their early prototypes couldn't handle the durability testing. Other companies are now trying to beat Samsung to the punch but with different tech. LG tried to develop a foldable OLED screen before Samsung but gave up, and are instead rushing to market with a foldable device that uses hinges in 2018. They are in turn being beaten to the market by ZTE, who will have a foldable device as an AT&T exclusive later this year, but also uses hinges. Both will actually have separate sets of components that will virtually act as a single set when the device is folded out. None of them are working on a device that will have a single, foldable set of components like the one that Samsung has been working on since at least 2013. And that is actually how Samsung was able to beat all the Android competition AND remain competitive with Apple all these years. They weren't better in design. They certainly weren't better in software and services. But Samsung made the best components. Other than being stuck with using Qualcomm as their SOCs for reasons that we won't get into, that has given them the competitive edge that has forced the entire industry - including Google and yes Apple - to ultimately respond to and finally adopt themselves. If it wasn't for their ability to leverage their superiority at components into making devices that look and perform great, they would have been marginalized and commoditized along with the rest of the Android space years ago. And if you think that Apple can dive right into this area and compete with and beat Samsung at their own game, you are as delusional as the folks on this site were as recently as summer 2014 when they claimed that Apple would NEVER adopt the phablet form factor, the stylus, quad-core ARM architecture, multi-windowing or exceed 1 GB of RAM ... all of which were allegedly the product of bad design by Google and Samsung who were both going to be inevitably out of the smartphone business within 2 years (according to some infamous predictions by DED and others). Look folks. Let Samsung make their money. They put in the risk of many years of expensive R&D and infrastructure upgrades to make this possible so they have earned it. And they did it when a lot of other companies and analysts - Apple, Google, LG among them - claimed that they were nuts, that it was a gimmick that would never catch on, and they need to put their money and efforts elsewhere. They were right, everyone else was wrong, let them benefit from it, just as you guys are perfectly fine when Apple does the same. In a couple of years, the market will adjust and prices will come down. And actually, by then it won't matter because Samsung and the competition will have moved on to the next big thing anyway, and Apple will have to go ahead and pony up in order to put that tech in their devices too. Just like they have to pay a ton to put Intel and Nvidia tech into their PCs, and to Amazon and Google to host iCloud. That is not going to change and there is no reason why it should. Apple is not the only company in the world who creates good products that have value. Other companies do too, and when they do Apple should have to pay the going rate to benefit from it, just as everyone pays Apple whatever they decide to charge for their own products. So long as Apple is able to pass on the cost of the $125 OLED panels by charging their consumers $250 for it - and they will - it is fine.

Not trying to be a dick, but many, many, creative types figured out over the years how to make text readable. You should try it.

Rayz2016 said:

I just got a message from the Samsung Fan Club:

Special one-day introductory course: 

"Paragraphs, and why they matter."

They might have a few places left, if you hurry…

That may be true.   But I have had several instances on ai where it removed all of my carriage returns and therefor paragraphs.  And, there was nothing I was able to do to get it to accept those CRs -- even editing the post.   It's only happened a few times, but it has happened. 
...  That's MAYBE what happened to his post.

Be gentle...

badmonk

rotateleftbyte said:

So Samsung has Apple over a Barrel and will gouge them for top $$$ as long as possible.
LG can make large LED displays but has problems with the small high resolution ones used in phones despite Apple's investments.

Cue the inevitable

Apple is doomed.

well not quite but it seems that Kuo has decided that he's flogged the forthcoming iPhone for all that it is worth and is focussing on the 2018 device.  no doubt we will all get truly sick and tired of his 'pronouncements' but hey, they bring in Ad views which is what it is all about these days.
I think that Apple will get fed up with the display makers (either not delivering or price gouging) sooner rather than later and bring it all inhouse. My forecast (not worth anything btw and comes with no ad clicks or views) is that the likes of LG and Samsung have until after the 2019 device is released to milk Apple for all they can. After that? who knows.

I don't think Apple is doomed over this issue.  Samsung likes trumpeting their profits in this relationship with Apple but I do think it means doom for the other Android manufactures.  The writing is on the wall, if Samsung and Apple suck up all of the available OLED production for the next two years, it will be their death bell.  They will not be able to match Apple's purchasing power with Samsung.

avon b7

badmonk said:

rotateleftbyte said:

So Samsung has Apple over a Barrel and will gouge them for top $$$ as long as possible.
LG can make large LED displays but has problems with the small high resolution ones used in phones despite Apple's investments.

Cue the inevitable

Apple is doomed.

well not quite but it seems that Kuo has decided that he's flogged the forthcoming iPhone for all that it is worth and is focussing on the 2018 device.  no doubt we will all get truly sick and tired of his 'pronouncements' but hey, they bring in Ad views which is what it is all about these days.
I think that Apple will get fed up with the display makers (either not delivering or price gouging) sooner rather than later and bring it all inhouse. My forecast (not worth anything btw and comes with no ad clicks or views) is that the likes of LG and Samsung have until after the 2019 device is released to milk Apple for all they can. After that? who knows.

I don't think Apple is doomed over this issue.  Samsung likes trumpeting their profits in this relationship with Apple but I do think it means doom for the other Android manufactures.  The writing is on the wall, if Samsung and Apple suck up all of the available OLED production for the next two years, it will be their death bell.  They will not be able to match Apple's purchasing power with Samsung.

I think Android manufacturers will be fine without OLED if it comes the situation you suggest.

Most people buy on a budget and accept what they get for the limit they set themselves. That often means OLED isn't an option anyway. I don't see that changing in the next two years.

Some manufacturers release OLED models then switch back to IPS screens. It doesn't seem to be a deciding factor for them

I think your average user would possibly be more tempted by dual cameras than OLED if both options weren't possible on price. I think that's easier to market.