Roger Fingas
Apple has reportedly added China's BOE Technology as a further supplier of IGZO panels for the displays on MacBooks, supporting expanding sales.
BOE entered Apple's notebook chain "recently," according to DigiTimes. Though relatively unknown to the public, the company has a market cap in excess of $115 billion. LCDs are the focus of its business, even if it also has toes in fields such as backlighting and photovoltaics.
Apple has used indium gallium zinc oxide, or IGZO, panels in its products for some time, including iPads. Its main IGZO supplier has been Sharp, now owned by Foxconn — presumably rising iPad and MacBook shipments have demanded more help. While June-quarter iPad numbers were up just 1 percent year-over-year to 11.6 million, and Mac numbers were down to 3.7 million, the company only recently launched new MacBook Pros, and shipments should improve dramatically after expected fall announcements of lower-cost MacBooks and updated iPad Pros.
The former may include an overhauled 13-inch model similiar to the current Air, but with thinner bezels and a Retina display. The new iPads should also have thinner bezels, if not fully edge-to-edge like the iPhone X. They will also likely switch from Touch ID to Face ID, dropping home buttons in the process.
Apple doesn't yet appear ready to switch either iPads or MacBooks over to OLED. The technology is still often prohibitively expensive for anything bigger than an iPhone or Apple Watch, and indeed much of the iPhone X's $999-plus pricetag can be linked to its 5.8-inch OLED panel.
The company is slated to hold its usual fall press event on Sept. 12. It will likely concentrate on three new iPhone models and a fourth-generation Watch.
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2 Comments
We need non touchbar Macbook Pros. So, highschool,college,casual,small business users can afford for there needs which help expand bottom feed of millions of MAC users and not choose to buy Windows against their like/will/desire.
News that focus on parts of the product that are at this rate, becoming increasingly insignificant compared to other parts (like processor, flash or other things one might look for when buying a product for professional use) that did not get the same dedication the last years they enjoyed like 5 years ago and more, really infuriate me.
Can we please just ignore the current MacBook Pro line. Sales declining everywhere, thermal design point misses (while getting thinner), weak internal graphics because of latter and flash that apple charges twice the amount samsung would (even then samsung's flash drives are faster) really make the lineup unworthy to speak of. OK, given the graphics we can just buy external graphics solution, but that's not called 'portable'.
I would really love to buy a MacBook Pro, but
1. not everyone has unlimited financial resources
2. even when having unlimited resources to spend, there may be (in most cases) better solutions
People depend less and less on MacOS in professional use-cases. Maybe Apple is catering to non-pro people pretending to be pr0 by buying a MacBook Pro (given the ads they produced recently). You know, the person must be serious when they use a MacBook Pro. I don't feel like that, more like a shill because honestly, there is no justification for buying one any longer...