Someone from LG Display, who wished to remain anonymous, said in the hearing field about the fifth generation iPad Pro, the production of 12.9-inch mini-LED displays for which is already starting at this company. iPad Pro will be released “before the end of this year,” exactly like the first production Mac with Apple Silicon inside, and just as contrary to the forecasts of one well-known analyst. This Mac, with a stern expression on the face of a man who takes risks, but knows what he is doing, Tim Cook personally promised. In the anniversary year for the iPad, the iPad Pro with a mini-LED display would be very appropriate, like the iPhone X on the tenth anniversary of the iPhone. Other sources are still silent, this is just a rumor – but what if?
IPad Pro now has a good display, but there is no limit to perfection
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mini-LED on Apple devices
Apple has not had a single product with a mini-LED display, Mac or iPad, but these displays already have a story. It began with Apple’s acquisition of LuxView in 2014, with 21 patents and “the world’s best display experts,” according to venture capitalist John Dora. The very one who, in 2008, speaking at the presentation of the iPhone SDK and the App Store, called the iPhone “something more than personal computers”. After that, until June 2019, nothing was heard about this direction, it seemed to disappear into the bowels of Apple, leaving no trace.
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Illustration for one of 21 LuxView patents
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But last June, at WWDC, during Apple Pro Display XDR presentations someone recognized two engineers who had once worked at LuxView. In late 2019 and early 2020, while COVID-19 had not yet invaded the U.S., the mini-LED revolution seemed inevitable. The fact that Apple will announce three Macs and three iPads with mini-LED displays in the fall, no one in our Telegram chat had any doubts. As in the fact that Apple will be the first in this field.
Потом был COVID, дебют mini-LED в ноутбуке от компании MSI, карантин, стагнация – и в конце апреля Мин Чи-ко изменил своё предсказание: все это произойдет, но позже - не раньше, чем в 2021 году, во втором или третьем квартале. А может быть вообще в 2022 году. Как, кстати, и первые ARM-Mac’и.
iPad with mini-LED display
In September last year, in an interview, Min Chi-ko talked about preparing Apple to mass introduction of mini-LED displays – Taiwanese company Epistar, in factories in Wuxi in mainland China, will produce LED chips for mini-LED panels (there should be approximately 10,000 of them in a laptop or tablet screen). Another Taiwanese company, TSMT, was supposed to deal with display assembly and general management of the entire chain. In September 2019, it was not known who would get the contract for the assembly of mini-LED panels, Apple worked with several companies – including LG Display.
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iPad may be the first mobile device with a mini-LED screen
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In March-April, the plants at Wuxi returned to work after loosening quarantine restrictions, but problems with the virus, even more serious than in China, began in the United States, and the project was suspended until better times. The situation with COVID-19, at least, did not get better – but, according to information from an anonymous source, the assembly of panels is about to begin, if it has not already begun. So, Epistar factories in mainland China are already mass-producing chips for these panels, and we can already talk about possible release dates iPad Pro with mini-LED display.
Apparently, Apple actually planned to introduce six devices with mini-LED displays to the public at the beginning of the festive quarter of this year, with innovations that would make a lasting impression on the public. For example, Qualcomm’s ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, 3D Sonic Max, placed under the screen in all iPad with mini-LED displays (it may be in the new iPad Pro), and something else. The choice of exactly the iPad Pro for this role is both understandable and doubtful. It is understandable because the iPad Pro occupies a special place in the Apple product line, and it is obviously expensive. But due to all the jubilee innovations, its price cannot but grow to inconceivable values - and interest in buying expensive equipment is small nowadays, and by the end of the year this factor will definitely not go anywhere. If not for a pandemic, this could make sense, but not in our reality, alas.
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