Apple is expected to take at least a decade to completely equip all of its products, including iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with microLED displays, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter.

The effort is part of Apple’s strategy to reduce its reliance on other suppliers – mainly Samsung – and gain further control of components essential to its devices. The company is expected to take a “key role” in production, adds Gurman, and Apple has come up with its own solution for a critical step in production known as the transfer process. 

Gurman corroborates his earlier reporting and other sources that the Apple Watch Ultra will likely be the first Apple device equipped with a custom microLED display. The updated Ultra model could be announced as soon as 2024, although reliable display analyst Ross Young of DSCC expects the device to have already been pushed back to 2025 instead.

Apple’s ultimate goal is to equip all its devices with a microLED display, but that goal may be harder to reach given current technological limitations. Gurman warns that the transition won’t be completed anytime soon, taking at least “another 10 to 12 years” to eventually reach other devices, including the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Similar to the company’s OLED transition that commenced with the Apple Watch in 2015, the iPhone is said to be next line to receive a microLED display, followed by the iPad and eventually the Mac.

Apple will begin with a next-generation version of the Ultra watch (this makes sense because of the higher cost of the panels) and eventually bring the screens to the iPhone, then the iPad and the Mac. This might take another 10 to 12 years, but it will happen. Don’t forget that this is a pattern with Apple. OLED first arrived in the Apple Watch in 2015 before coming to the iPhone in 2017. It’s expected to reach the iPad in 2024 and probably the Mac in 2025

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman

Apple is yet to complete its OLED transition, with only the iPhone and the Apple Watch incorporating the technology. The company made use of miniLED technology with the 12.9-inch iPad Pro as a stopgap solution as it readies OLED-equipped iPads and MacBooks. The iPad Pro could receive an OLED display alongside other features early next year, whereas Gurman doesn’t expect the Mac – namely the MacBook Pro – to receive OLED displays till 2025 or later. 

Despite naming similarities, OLED and microLED are distinct technologies. MicroLED employs microscopic LEDs as individual pixels, offering advantages like superior contrast, higher brightness, better efficiency, and longer lifespan. MicroLED manufacturing is complex and costly, making it more difficult for Apple to mass produce the technology at scale for its devices. The organic nature of OLED makes it susceptible to degradation over time and is prone to burn-in, something which is not observed with microLED displays due to their use of inorganic materials.