Apple's supply chain has definitely seen plenty of issues recently when it comes to meeting demand. iPad minis, as well as the new iMacs aren't being manufactured fast enough due to low yield rates of displays. Both LG Display and AU Optronics are experiencing mass production issues, and they don't expect things to get better until Q1 2013.
The iPad mini may be in short supply, but Apple's hardware partners are already readying the Retina-spec display for the iPad mini 2, according to sources in China. AU Optronics, which is one of Apple's suppliers of 1024 x 768 panels for the current iPad mini, expects to begin mass producing 2048 x 1536 resolution 7.9-inch displays by the second half of 2013, DoNews reports, with eye-pleasing pixel density of 324 ppi.
AU Optronics has announced a new 4.46-inch mobile phone touch panel display that has what it claims to be the world's narrowest border. The display uses proprietary technology allowing for incredibly thin borders and uses low-temperature poly-silicon (LTPS) technology. The technology allows the display to have a border width of only 1 mm when placed on the module surface.
In December 2006, various LCD suppliers were found guilty of anti-competitive practices, and eventually paid $890 million in fines for being caught out. A similar payout happened in December 2011, with five companies, including Samsung and Sharp, having to pay $553 million due to their involvment in price fixing display panels for computer monitors, TVs, and laptops. Now, two executives from AU Optronics have been found guilty of price fixing displays over a five-year period.
Apple's "iPad mini" is on track for a 7.85-inch launch in Q3 2012, according to several reports, with the company believed to be using the smaller slate to further distance Samsung from its supply chain. LG Display and AU Optronics are set to provide Apple with the IPS LCD panels it requires, DigiTimes quotes from an EDN report, with Pegatron taking pole position in actually constructing the tablet.
Apple is testing smaller iPad models in a potential split of its tablet strategy that would see the existing 9.7-inch slate joined by a potentially 8-inch model, according to new leaks. The long-standing talk of a more bag-friendly Apple tablet has been reawakened by the WSJ, sources of which claim Apple is working with component suppliers to qualify possible displays, with both AUO and LG Display again cited as involved in the experiments.
Mass production of Toshiba's 55-inch glasses-free 4k2k 3D TV has already begun, according to supply chain tipsters, with the pixel-plentiful panels at the heart of the oversized sets already winging their way from display specialists AUO. The new TV is expected to launch sometime this quarter, Toshiba has said, and it's AU Optronics supplying the panel rather than a homegrown Toshiba LCD, according to Chinese language press as DigiTimes reports.
It seems that while the TVs are pretty much as big as they're going to get (you can get them in any size now, basically,) the brightness and sharpness increases yearly, monthly, and even daily - but all this won't matter unless the manufacturers can make them cost-competitive. What this means, of course, is that the device is cheap enough to manufacture that the price they can offer it at to distributors will then be cheap enough that they can sell these devices to you and I. We want stuff that's not TOO expensive, but we want it to be top of the line too - so when are the OLEDs coming?
HTC's rumored 10-inch Puccini tablet will apparently begin volume production in June 2011, according to the latest rumors, fitting in with suggestions that the originally expected launch date in the first half of this year has likely slipped to July or later. DigiTimes' sources claim the HTC Puccini will have a touchscreen that responds to both resistive and capacitive touch, along with a "touch pen" that can "work on specified software and areas."
Apple is reportedly looking to a new display provider, in an attempt to alleviate supply chain delays for the iPad 2 and reduce the lengthy wait times customers are experiencing. According to the Economic Daily News, Apple has roped in AU Optronics to supply the IPS 1024 x 768 displays for the iPad 2. Interestingly, the report claims that Apple has agreed to pay three to four times the current market price for each panel.
Logitech were pretty proud of their K750 wireless solar keyboard, but AU Optronics is planning to best them at the upcoming FPD International expo with a 14-inch solar-powered touch keyboard solution for notebooks. Basically a touchscreen display for a virtual keyboard, integrated into a solar panel, the new tech will go on show alongside AUO's new 10.1- and 15.6-inch glasses-free 3D panels.
AU Optronics has been fighting a patent battle in court against LG Display for years. The patent war started back in December of 2006 when LG Display filed a patent suit against AUO. In February of 2010, courts sided with AUO in the case.
