Samsung is behind the new MacBook Pro TouchBar: is Apple planning to extend OLED tech to main displays?

While a teardown of the new 13 inch MacBook Pro has already been published by iFixit this week, we have yet to see what’s really under the hood of the Touch Bar-endowed version of the brand new Apple laptops.

Speaking of the Touch Bar, Apple has kept information on who manufactured it, rather vague so far. With that said, Korean news site ETNews is reporting that Samsung is the company behind the OLED Touch Bar embedded in the new MacBook Pro laptops.

Apple has been reportedly looking into OLED technology, with plans to potentially build MAcBooks with OLED Retina primary displays. OLED displays have several advantages, including a much higher energy efficiency, as only lit pixels are powered. OLED do not require back-illumination, which means that an ideal OLED Retina display would be even thinner.

Unfortunately there is a reason why the recipients of OLED display technology are mostly wearable devices and smartphones. OLED displays, at least for now, would limit the color range, especially on the brighter side of the spectrum, which would be a step back from the currently stellar resolution achieved by the latest MacBook Pro.

Another argument railing against OLED technology for laptops is that because OLED displays power only pixels that are lit, the energy optimization benefits apply only to devices where black is the predominant color, such as the Apple Watch. On laptops, the most common background color is white, or light grey, ergo MacBook users would see little benefits, and even a decrease in image quality.

While the news of Samsung building the new MacBook’s OLED Touch Bar could very well be genuine, since Samsung routinely makes many components and chips for Apple, there is very little chance that the Cupertino tech giant is planning to use OLED technology to build main displays, unless of course there are developments that Apple and Samsung may be keeping very close to the chest for the time being.

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