For the first time, Apple is developing its own MicroLED screens for testing purposes, Bloomberg reports. Sources claim Apple has made a “significant investment” in the program designing and producing the new displays at a secret California manufacturing facility near the company’s headquarters.
MicroLED screens can be built slimmer than OLED displays while still delivering a brighter display that consumes less power thanks to different light-emitting compounds, but that makes them much more difficult to produce. Apple almost pulled the plug on the project a year ago and is still a few years away from putting its own screens in Apple products, but the move further emphasizes the company’s current trend toward trying to bring the design of more of its components in-house.
In the meantime, Digitimes is expecting Apple’s screen suppliers to field up to 270 million orders in 2018, which will far exceed Apple’s best annual iPhone sales of all time.
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