Apple’s iPhone Pro models launching in 2022 will have hole-display for the first time, TheElec has learned.
The 6.06-inch iPhone Pro and 6.7-inch iPhone Pro Max models will have hole-displays, sources said.
The two other models, the regular 6.06-inch iPhone and 6.7-inch iPhone Max models will continue to have the notch as they did for the versions on the iPhone 13 series.
Hole-displays have a small hole at the top for the selfie camera instead of a notch, which allows for a full screen.
The key for the technology to offer an immersive full-screen experience is for the display area surrounding the hole to maintain resolution and color with other areas of the display.
Apple will also be applying low-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) thin-film transistors (TFT) for the OLED panels on the Pro models launching next year, which will presumably be called iPhone 14.
Cupertino applied LTPO OLED on the Pro models of iPhone 13 for the first time this year.
The technology allows the screen to have a 120Hz variable refresh rate.
The LTPO OLED panels were solely supplied by Samsung Display.
For the OLED panels on iPhone 14 Pro models, LG Display is also gunning to supply the needed panels.
LG Display currently has a road map to develop its own hole-display and under-display camera technologies.
The latter only shows the hole when the selfie camera is on and returns to a screen when it is off.
LG Display will be supplying its own hole-display LTPO OLED panels if Apple approves.
Meanwhile, Philoptics, a laser equipment maker, had announced earlier this month that it has signed a display production equipment supply contract with Samsung Display.
The equipment are likely for the laser system that will be used in hole-display panels that Samsung Display plans to supply for the iPhone 14 series.
The South Korean display panel maker has been using laser etching equipment called hole-in-active-area, called HIAA by the firm, for hole-displays.
Philoptics is supplying the laser system, while Wonik IPS the chambers for the equipment.
Meanwhile, BOE will continue to only supply low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) TFT OLED panels to Apple next year.
The Chinese display panel maker will likely start supplying LTPO TFT OLED panels to the iPhone maker in 2023 at the earliest.
Samsung was the first to introduce hole-displays in smartphones in 2019 with the Galaxy S10 series.
