The next iPad Air could feature an OLED display from Samsung, according to a fresh tip.
South Korean website The Elec (via MacRumors) reports that Apple’s mid-range tablet will switch to OLED in 2026, and that this will mean another team up with arch rival Samsung.
Anyone who follows the manufacturing side of such mobile devices will know that this isn’t at all unusual. Samsung already supplies some of the beautiful dual OLED displays for the iPad Pro M4.
Apple is said to be turning to Samsung again, rather than LG, for its more mainstream tablet because of the former company’s “large OLED production capacity” (via machine translation). Samsung Display’s A3 line boasts a production capacity of 135,000 panels per month, which is more than double the total capacity of its local rival.
Starting with the iPad Pro (2024), Apple is widely predicted to have commenced transitioning its whole tablet range to OLED, which provides richer and more vibrant colours and much deeper contrast than LCD technology. As well as the iPad Air, it’s expected that the iPad Mini will also adopt OLED, either at the same time or the following year.
Don’t expect the these new OLED models to sport the same double-stacked splendour as the iPad Pro M4 (2024), though. As the report notes, they will likely use a more regular single-stack OLED, which will be a fair bit dimmer, and will probably lack the Pro’s 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate.
The reason for this appears to be maintaining affordability and bolstering production numbers. LG is said to be better at producing those more advanced double-stacked OLED panels, and supplies most of the OLED panels for the current iPad Pro, but hasn’t yet cranked up the production yields sufficiently to be able to equip more popular models.
