According to reports dating November 24 2015, the 2018 iPhone will pack a Samsung-made OLED display. Such things are easy to dismiss as over-speculative hokum, but this time we’re taking it seriously because it comes straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. An executive from Samsung Display (Samsung’s descriptively titled display production and development arm) has made a statement claiming future iPhone devices will use Samsung OLED display panels. The news comes via the Korea Times:
“Samsung Display has recently renewed talks with Apple to supply its small-sized OLED displays for the next iPhones to be released in a few years, which I believe is around 2018,” said the executive.
Personally, I think that’s OK. I’m not completely sure how I feel about Apple potentially shifting the design upgrade from every two years to every three — new colors aside, that makes it really hard to show off that you’ve got the latest and greatest phone — but now that we’re nearly a decade into the modern smartphone era, it might not be realistic to expect new designs every other year.
A poll ran in May suggested that readers favor glass over metal casings for future iPhones, though by a relatively low margin of 52% against 45%. Apple’s last glass-cased iPhone was the iPhone 4/4s, which had a glass back with stainless steel band around the edge. With the possibility of a curved screen next year, it may be that Apple will be able to abandon metal altogether.