iPhone could get a brightness boost via iPad Pro’s tandem OLED display technology

Future iPhones could boost fullscreen brightness and bring better pictures thanks to the tandem OLED display technology that debuted on the M4-powered iPad Pro.

The Elec reports that Apple has tasked its engineers with the development of tandem OLED displays for future iPhones. The report claims that the company intends to adapt this technology to iPhones in two years, meaning you shouldn’t expect it to make its debut on future iPhone models before 2028 at the earliest.

Apple hasn’t yet decided on whether to partner with Samsung Display or LG Display on the initiative, although LG is ahead of Samsung in this technology and has even proposed to Apple to adopt tandem OLED for iPhones several years back.

Tandem OLED coming to future iPhones, with a twist

But that’s Apple’s playbook. The company doesn’t want to be beholden to any single supplier and will probably want to source these panels from multiple OLED producers such as LG, Samsung and China’s BOE in order to squeeze the best prices out of them while reducing its exposure to a single supplier.

The only Apple device to use tandem OLED so far is the M4-powered iPad Pro, released in May 2024. Instead of a single OLED panel, tandem OLED uses two OLED panels to boost fullscreen brightness by combining the light from both panels. On the M4 iPad Pro, tandem OLED allows for 1000 nits of fullscreen brightness for SDR and HDR content, and 1600 nits peak brightness for HDR content.

The magic is achieved through sub-millisecond control over the color and luminance of each pixel. Apple says tandem OLED enables brighter specular highlights in photos and video, with more detail in shadows and low light.

Today’s report claims that Apple is looking to develop a simplified tandem OLED solution where only the blue sub-pixel would benefit from two stacked OLED layers with gaps left open for the green and red pixels. On the iPad Pro, tandem OLED has the red, green and blue sub-pixels on the second layer. These sub-pixels create each individual pixel.

Simplified tandem OLED would enable Apple to use this technology in future iPhones in a power-efficient manner while saving on production costs. A report from 2024 said that Apple was testing tandem OLED technology for a future Vision Pro, which would boost screen brightness on the headset and increase power efficiency.

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