Ross Young, CEO of Display Supply Chain Consultants says Apple is developing a MacBook Air with a 13.4-inch OLED display. That display would be slightly smaller than the 13.6-inch LCD panel used on the current MacBook Air.
In a tweet to paid subscribers today (shared by MacRumors), Young said that Apple is unlikely to release a MacBook Pro with an OLED display until 2026. Young says that’s when Apple’s supply chain is expected to have sufficient notebook-optimized OLED display production capacity. Until then, he said suppliers will focus on manufacturing OLED displays for the iPad Pro.
Back in December, Young said Apple has plans for a MacBook Air and 11.1-inch/13-inch iPad Pro models boasting OLED displays as early as 2024.
Currently, Apple sells a 12.9-inch mini-LED iPad Pro and an 11-inch iPad Pro with a traditional LCD display. By using OLED displays in the new iPad Pro models, Apple could bring back feature parity for the two models. The new models could boast slimmed-down bezels, meaning the overall size of the devices may remain the same.
The last refresh for the 11 and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models came in October 2022, when the tablets received the M2 chip.
OLED displays would provide increased brightness and improved contrast ratio compared to the current LCD displays, and the displays would also be more power efficient, resulting in longer battery life.
As we reported earlier today, Samsung Display is said to be developing a 13.3-inch OLED panel for a future MacBook Air model. Apple reportedly plans to switch several of its product lines to the new display technology.
In the meantime, Young expects Apple to release a larger 15-inch MacBook Air sporting an LCD panel this year.
Young has had a fairly good track record when it comes to predictions like this. He has accurately leaked numerous display-related details about upcoming Apple products.