LG supplying MacBook Pro Retina displays to Apple

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
At least one of the suppliers for Apple's new high-resolution MacBook Pro Retina display has been identified as LG Display.

The revelation, disclosed by iFixit on the company's Twitter account, should quash rumors that Apple could be using Sharp's IGZO technology for the new 15-inch Retina display. Apple has been known to use numerous suppliers for parts, so it's likely that other MacBook Pro units feature Retina displays from other known LCD manufacturers.

Particular interest has been paid to who supplies components to Apple since its largest supplier, Samsung, has become a fierce rival and legal opponent. Over the last year, Apple has shown signs that it would like to move away from relying on Samsung for components, but the company is believed to have been the only partner who could produce Retina displays for the third-generation iPad at launch earlier this year.

The wedge between the two companies has been driven by competition in the smartphone and tablet markets. Last April, Apple was first to sue, when it accused Samsung of copying the look and feel of the iPhone and iPad, and the two companies are now involved in a number of lawsuits that span around the world.

LG has been a major supplier of LCD displays to Apple over the years, and in 2009 the two companies reached a $500 million deal for the supply of flat-panel displays through the year 2013. But the relationship between the two companies may have strained late last year, when LG was said to have lost its status as the leading display maker for Apple's iPad 2, when a batch of LCD shipments were reportedly plagued with quality issues.

Retina 3


Going forward, Sharp is also expected to be a major partner with Apple for screen production. Last year, reports indicated Apple had invested in a Sharp plant in Japan, while this year Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn bought a 10 percent stake in Sharp to help boost its LCD business.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 17
    DaekwanDaekwan Posts: 175member


    Awesome.  Less chance of Samsung stealing it.

  • Reply 2 of 17
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    As I noted just a couple hours ago on these forums the OS lists 00000610 as the display manufacturer which has long been noted as being LG, and as being the best display vendor you can have for your Mac.

    Daekwan wrote: »
    Awesome.  Less chance of Samsung stealing it.
    Samsung still might be involved in the manufacturing of LG's tech that Apple appears to have funded. It takes a village....
  • Reply 3 of 17
    andreidandreid Posts: 96member
    Good. I highly applaud any shift from Samsung
  • Reply 4 of 17
    gtrgtr Posts: 3,231member
    This just in:

    Customer sues Apple after cutting himself on razor sharp text and graphics while using the new MacBook Pro with Retina display.

    We'll keep you updated.
  • Reply 5 of 17
    cwingravcwingrav Posts: 83member


    <chuckle>

  • Reply 6 of 17
    tooltalktooltalk Posts: 766member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post



    As I noted just a couple hours ago on these forums the OS lists 00000610 as the display manufacturer which has long been noted as being LG, and as being the best display vendor you can have for your Mac.

    Samsung still might be involved in the manufacturing of LG's tech that Apple appears to have funded. It takes a village....


     


    Apple is funding what? Where is your proof that Apple is directly *funding* LG's display research? or are you among idiots who believe that Apple is also responsible for suicides at Foxconn?


     


     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Daekwan View Post


    Awesome.  Less chance of Samsung stealing it.



     


    Samsung is stealing display technology from Apple or LG?  If it's Apple that you are talking about, it's impossible - Apple is a successful marketing company and is not in the business of innovating or engineering technology. 


     


    As for LG, LG is among the suspects in a recent industrial espionage case in South Korea. Personally, I dont' think Samsung has much to steal from LG.

  • Reply 7 of 17
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    tooltalk wrote: »
    Apple is funding what? Where is your proof that Apple is directly *funding* LG's display research? or are you among idiots who believe that Apple is also responsible for suicides at Foxconn?

    You mean besides the known the $500 million to LG in 2009 and another $3.9 billion assumed to be going to display manufacturers in 2011 as pre-payment investments or are looking for a personalize leader from LG's CEO to you that Apple has given them funds for displays over the years?

    Samsung is stealing display technology from Apple or LG? If it's Apple that you are talking about, it's impossible - Apple is a successful marketing company and is not in the business of innovating or engineering technology.

    As for LG, LG is among the suspects in a recent industrial espionage case in South Korea. Personally, I dont' think Samsung has much to steal from LG.
    That's right, the new MBP isn't pushing an envelope in engineering. There are no changes over the previous model. The display is the same ~110 PPI TN panel. It's all just marketing¡ :rolleyes
  • Reply 8 of 17
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by AndreiD View Post



    Good. I highly applaud any shift from Samsung


     This isn't a tit for tat thing. A company as big as Apple is going to look at what is available. If they decided to use an IPS panel within their display (which has the potential for nice color and good marketing if implemented well), LG is the only logical vendor for such a part. Just looking at this as a lessened dependency thing is like a child trying to determine who got the bigger half. It doesn't work that way here.


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by tooltalk View Post




     


     


     


    Samsung is stealing display technology from Apple or LG?  If it's Apple that you are talking about, it's impossible - Apple is a successful marketing company and is not in the business of innovating or engineering technology. 


     


    As for LG, LG is among the suspects in a recent industrial espionage case in South Korea. Personally, I dont' think Samsung has much to steal from LG.



     Samsung has developed a lot of very good panels, although their display implementations have been mostly successful on the budget end. I've seen nice displays in the $5-10k range with Samsung panels. At that level the panel is a minor component compared to the product as a whole. There seems to be a disconnect in understanding when it comes to panels vs implementation in a usable product. Companies like Apple choose how they will be implemented into a display within a given unit. It's fully possible that LG developed the panel and perhaps some manner of reference design, but Apple controls their final implementations using whatever is presented to them. It's amusing how people blamed Samsung for their ipad display problems. Samsung supplies a part. They indicate that they can supply this many per week, month, quarter, whatever within X tolerance. If they're not fitting the backlight, that in itself is another point where quality control is important. Apple's design has to take what can be produced in suitable quantity and implement that in a way that is considered acceptable within a defined tolerance. Many display manufacturers do not just use basic reference designs once you move away from low end markets with razor thin margins. Those markets were never Apple's territory anyway. There is way too much misplaced anger against component vendors at times when they're not the ones testing and selling you a complete device. If the raw parts meet the quality that was promised and agreed upon, they did their job. It's unlikely that many of them ever see a complete prototype or one off.

  • Reply 9 of 17
    Why doesn't Apple get rid of LG!? Have they not learnt their lesson from all the yellow screen problems they have. LG supply iPhone screens, they have yellow issues. LG supply iMac screens, they have yellow issues. Seeing a pattern here.
  • Reply 10 of 17
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by uk-macaddict View Post



    Why doesn't Apple get rid of LG!? Have they not learnt their lesson from all the yellow screen problems they have. LG supply iPhone screens, they have yellow issues. LG supply iMac screens, they have yellow issues. Seeing a pattern here.


    Again you don't seem to understand the difference here. You can make some tweaks to the profile data to provide for a cooler looking screen by lying to the OS about the hardware response or make adjustments at a hardware level that are locked after initial measurement. Yellow basically means lower white point temp relative to what you're used to. If I took a picture of something bluish, set the white balance to where that was white, then set a warmer display next to it in the picture, it would look yellow by contrast.  These were assembled. They were stamped okay. Some of you are blaming assembly problems on component vendors without proper information. Beyond that, if you want an IPS display, it tends to be LG.  Stop trying to figure out who made the part that may not even be responsible for your experience (you wouldn't understand this would you?). You can make a perfect panel and still have a yellow display. If I tweak the settings on this one, I can make it look yellow.

  • Reply 11 of 17

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by hmm View Post


    Again you don't seem to understand the difference here. You can make some tweaks to the profile data to provide for a cooler looking screen by lying to the OS about the hardware response or make adjustments at a hardware level that are locked after initial measurement. Yellow basically means lower white point temp relative to what you're used to. If I took a picture of something bluish, set the white balance to where that was white, then set a warmer display next to it in the picture, it would look yellow by contrast.  These were assembled. They were stamped okay. Some of you are blaming assembly problems on component vendors without proper information. Beyond that, if you want an IPS display, it tends to be LG.  Stop trying to figure out who made the part that may not even be responsible for your experience (you wouldn't understand this would you?). You can make a perfect panel and still have a yellow display. If I tweak the settings on this one, I can make it look yellow. Seriously some of you are just complete idiot armchair engineers.



     


    You're kind of coming across as if display problems are almost always going to be associated with the manufacturer who assembled the final product. Sure, a product manufacturer can definitely mess things up by assembling the product incorrectly, inconsistently, or poorly (using a poor backlight or poorly managing light distribution, failing to calibrate colors to a reasonable extent, failing to secure the screen properly to the rest of the assembly, etc.) but the screen manufacturer can also create problems through a low-quality product, a product that doesn't represent certain colors well, a product which through defects other than the likes of backlight assembly or light distribution fails to present consistent color, etc. Also, in regard to white balance, it isn't acceptable for the manufacturer to simply produce a product that falls to a given extreme. That can be corrected, but not completely. Also, a certain range of tolerance needs to be expected from one screen to the next.


     


    I'm ultimately inclined to blame the product manufacturer for most of the problems that come up here (even if they made the choice to use low quality displays) but not in every case. And even if people do get some of these details wrong in many posts (get used to it) there's no need to be so vicious when you reply.

  • Reply 12 of 17
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Xian Zhu Xuande View Post


     


    You're kind of coming across as if display problems are almost always going to be associated with the manufacturer who assembled the final product. Sure, a product manufacturer can definitely mess things up by assembling the product wrong (using a poor backlight or poorly managing light distribution, failing to calibrate colors to a reasonable extent, failing to secure the screen properly to the rest of the assembly, etc.) but the screen manufacturer can also create problems through a low-quality product, a product that doesn't represent certain colors well, a product which through defects other than the likes of backlight assembly or light distribution fails to present consistent color, etc. Also, in regard to white balance, it isn't acceptable for the manufacturer to simply produce a product that falls to a given extreme. That can be corrected, but not completely. Also, a certain range of tolerance needs to be expected from one screen to the next.


     


    I'm ultimately inclined to blame the product manufacturer for most of the problems that come up here (even if they made the choice to use low quality displays) but not in every case. And even if people do get some of these details wrong in many posts (get used to it) there's no need to be so vicious when you reply.



    Edit: removed some of the snippiness, as you were right, it wasn't entirely necessary.

    Perhaps now that I'm less annoyed I'll explain further. I get annoyed when people go on a witch hunt saying this vendor screwed Apple with the last batch! Nooo not them again! They don't really market what is used within the build. You buy it as an Apple product. We only know because tinker sites rip them apart and report. Otherwise this wouldn't even be consumer information. Regarding yellow screens, just setting the levels incorrectly can influence this. The color of the backlight when warmed up and fully stabilized. A company like Apple is going to look at what is available. They will test it within their product and see if it's appropriate or if changes need to be made to accommodate for such issues. I'm saying that before these go into high levels of production, Apple most likely knows what to expect from them. Regarding color balance,  this is not that difficult to correct unless it's an issue with the influence of the backlight color or that they're unwilling to yield slightly lower contrast levels to compensate. Overall LG panels are used in some excellent displays. They're commonly seen in Adobe RGB gamut displays from the other oems. These also had issues early on. The common issue was green neutral values. If they're measured with a device appropriate for an Adobe RGB gamut when they set the levels, this should not happen. Dell also had a uniformity issue several years ago that came up frequently. Since they were measuring the center only, many that should not have been within spec made it through the line.


     


    In this case, we're talking about Apple. Apple is secretive. It's fully possible that LG may never have seen a complete prototype. Apple could have handled the "shoehorning" aspect of it while relaying any necessary requests, but in the end others companies have produced displays for professional (prepress, broadcast, etc) use within finer tolerances uses LG panels as virtually no one else makes anything branded IPS at this point. Whether they work well with Apple's design goals is ultimately up to Apple as they are the ones who define what is acceptable  within their final implementation for  retail deployment.


     


    Is that less vicious:D? Really if you were going to take IPS and try to build them at higher density, you're lacking additional vendor options.

  • Reply 13 of 17
    antkm1antkm1 Posts: 1,441member
    Anyone remember back when all those rumors about Apple striking long-term deals with display manufacturers? Also remember people speculating this could be, and some said undeniably will be, the rumored Apple HDTV...guess they were wrong.
  • Reply 14 of 17
    I've tried calibrating the screen colour but it's not the whole screen that is yellow. It's yellow on half the screen or on a quarter of the screen. Hence it's not a calibration issue.

    Apple use LG because they are the cheapest. How do yo think they have such high margins on products.

    So whatever you say I stand by my original comment that LG make s**t quality displays and Apple are being cheap and refusing to buy top quality displays.
  • Reply 15 of 17
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by uk-macaddict View Post



    I've tried calibrating the screen colour but it's not the whole screen that is yellow. It's yellow on half the screen or on a quarter of the screen. Hence it's not a calibration issue.

    Apple use LG because they are the cheapest. How do yo think they have such high margins on products.

    So whatever you say I stand by my original comment that LG make s**t quality displays and Apple are being cheap and refusing to buy top quality displays.


    If you look at volume panels for computer displays at X level of quality, it comes down to basically LG and Samsung these days. Mitsubishi, NEC , Hitachi used to have some that were used by Eizo, Lacie, and NEC. This hasn't been true in years. I would like to point out the difference between calibration and profiling. Especially at the factory, they do have the ability to set hardware levels. If you're using a colorimeter, that's not calibrating. that's profiling. It means that you're feeding an altered description of the hardware to the framebuffer through the OS. The description basically adjusts the input values to get a theoretically correct image. It's not the same thing as doing the design and assembly the right way. If they tested and found them yellow, they have a much better ability to adjust the hardware levels there. If this doesn't yield an acceptable result, they should be changing this prior to production. Again this is Apple's fault for okaying something that isn't working at a reasonable tolerance when produced in mass quantities. Sorry I was so snippy about it earlier though. I was in a bad mood over non appleinsider things.


     


    Anyway I will say LG in some of the others vs LG in the Apple display is totally different. While some of the other panel brands were better in many ways, LG and Samsung edged them out of this market long ago. Also Apple is cheap on a lot of things :P. Really I'm amazed that anyone thinks they're different from any of the Wintel guys. Some of Apple's designs are truly terrible in terms of where they skimp on display hardware causing long term problems. They're the only displays where I've ever seen power inverters as a common point of failure. Their heat generation and lack of venting has caused many generations of purple edges. I've seen other brands containing similar panels that consistently lacked these problems. The 30" was probably the best lcd they made in spite of its problems. Other than that they haven't made one that I considered acceptable since the days of the 21" crt.  Whoever they contract for the panel, I always notice problems whether I look for them or not.

  • Reply 16 of 17
    Dear forum! Who uses the new MacBook Pro Retina, a big request to you - make screenshots Dock on Retina Display (separate icons of the dock separately, together will not work, unfortunately)!! ? very necessary!
    So that was something like this: ?
    [URL=http://forums.appleinsider.com/image/id/169787/width/600/height/31][IMG]http://forums.appleinsider.com/image/id/169787/width/600/height/31[/IMG][/URL]
    and
    [URL=http://forums.appleinsider.com/image/id/169789/width/600/height/45][IMG]http://forums.appleinsider.com/image/id/169789/width/600/height/45[/IMG][/URL]
    I would be very grateful!
  • Reply 17 of 17
    Dear forum! Who uses the new MacBook Pro Retina, a big request to you - make screenshots Dock on Retina Display (separate icons of the dock separately, together will not work, unfortunately)!! ? very necessary!
    So that was something like this: ?
    [URL=http://forums.appleinsider.com/image/id/169787/width/600/height/31][IMG]http://forums.appleinsider.com/image/id/169787/width/600/height/31[/IMG][/URL]
    and
    [URL=http://forums.appleinsider.com/image/id/169789/width/600/height/45][IMG]http://forums.appleinsider.com/image/id/169789/width/600/height/45[/IMG][/URL]
    I would be very grateful!
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