In-Cell Panel Technology Now Virtual Shoo-In For New iPhone, September Or October Release Most Probable
Posted by CharlesMoore on Wednesday May 30, 2012 Under iPhone 5 News, iPhone 5 Opinion, iPhone 5 Predictions, iPhone 5 RumorEvidence is mounting that whatever physical size the new iPhone’s display turns out to be, it’s going to feature in-cell touch technology, but the bad news is that panel supply issues may be contributing to its release delay.
Just to quickly recap for those who haven’t read our previous reports on the topic, in-cell technology engineers the screen’s touch sensitivity into the TFT (thin-film transistor) panel manufacturing process, thereby eliminating the need for an additional glass layer to add touch functionality. This yields two major advantages. The greater efficiency of integrating touch both reduces overall manufacturing costs and allows for a thinner and lighter panel.
According to AU Optronics Corp., in-cell multi-touch panel technology adds touch function features to TFT-LCD panels without adding an additional glass, making it possible to achieve glass thickness of as little as 2.2mm with a resolution of 480 x 272 – thinner than conventional touch panel applications. In-cell touch panels are also claimed to have superior anti-glare properties, which enhance image color saturation and readability even in bright sunlight, eliminate the inconvenience of frequently-required calibration of conventional touch panel applications, and feature real-time true multiple touch point detection which allows users to easily slide their fingers on the screen to better enjoy the touch panel experience.
Last week, Digitimes’ Siu Han and Steve Shen reported that according to the customary unnamed industry sources, Sony is likely to become one of Apple’s suppliers of in-cell touch panels for the next-generation iPhone, which Han and Shen expect to be launched in September or October, in addition to LG Display, Toshiba Mobile Display (TMD) and Sharp, which have been previously contracted as in-cell touch panel suppliers for the new iPhone,
They report that LG Display has achieved a yield rate to 70-80%, and TMD is expected to enter mass production as scheduled, but Sharp has encountered problems or delays in bringing its yield rate up to an acceptable level, creating an opportunity for Sony to join enter the supply chain, and to begin volume production of in-cell touch panels for the new iPhone at the end of May.
In a new report yesterday, Digitimes’ Siu Han and Adam Hwang now say new iPhone production will kick off only at the end of the second quarter (ie: the end of June or even be delayed until into the third quarter, which will not help keep wind beneath the wings of WWDC iPad 5 announcement hopefuls. They also note that if yield rates for in-cell panel production by LG Display, Japan Display and Sharp don’t sho improvement, supply of LTPS (low-temperature poly-silicon) high-resolution touch panels for other smartphone vendors is likely to be tight, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers.
Han and Hwang note that LG Display, Japan Display and Sharp have a combined quarterly production capacity of 95 million LTPS panels, so if the yield rate can be sustained at 75%, they can supply 71-72 million panels, and the iPhone is projected to account for as much as 70% of actual output of LTPS panels in 2012-2013, which is discouraging news for other smartphone vendors, the sources indicated.
Han and Hwang also observe that with global shipments of existing iPhones expected to drop from 35 million units in the first quarter of 2012 to 25 million units in the second quarter, combined shipments of existing and the new iPhone could exceed 40 million units in the third quarter and 45 million units in the fourth quarter according to their sources’ estimates.
Meanwhile, however, Cult of Mac’s Killian Bell declares that LG’s New 5-Inch smartphone display makes The iPhone’s current 3.5-inch retina display look like “an old CRT,” noting that the LG panel features a 1920 x 1080 resolution with 440 pixels per inch to provide “incredibly crisp” images with full, high-definition video resolution. By comparison, the iPhone 4S’s 3.5-inch Retina display has just 326 pixels per inch at a 960 x 640 resolution.
Bell reports that the LG 5-inch 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio smartphone display incorporates Advanced High Performance In-Plane Switching (AH-IPS) technology, which, according to LG, means better color fidelity, wider viewing angles, stable images, and a rapid response speed when touched. Obviously smartphone panel competition is heating up as we await the new iPhone’s arrival with what is speculated to be also a 16:9 aspect ratio in addition to in-cell technology.
How much longer? The WWDC will be removed from the speculative equation one way or the other in 12 days now, with the conference keynote announced for June 11. I remain highly doubtful that a new iPhone announcement will be part of it, but we’ll see.
Yesterday in a staff report Appleinsider cited a new note to investors by RBC Capital Markets analyst Amit Daryanani expressing belief that Apple will first release its redesigned MacBook laptops “later this quarter,” (I think the WWDC is a very strong, but not shoo-in possibility for that announcement) and release a new iPhone in the “late summer/early fall time frame,” ergo: September or October, which squares with my own deductions.
In his note, Appleinsider says Daryanani highlighted the iPhone as the company’s “flagship product,” noting that iPhone sales accounted for 43 percent of Apple’s revenue in fiscal 2011, but cautioned that Apple appears to have adopted a two-year design cycle for the iPhone that could cause “increased seasonality” of sales performance as savvy consumers clue in delay purchases as anticipated release dates for refreshments or redesigns draw closer. For instance, Daryanani points out that Apple logged just 21 percent growth in iPhone shipments year over year in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to 91 percent growth in Q4 2010, and is quoted by Appleinsider observing that “In our view, a redesigned version of the iPhone every two years will likely result in higher unit sales relative to the iPhone “S” versions, as carrier contracts last roughly 2 years and consumers have historically been attracted to the new design concepts created by Apple.”
Appleinsider recalls that last year, RBC analyst Mike Abramsky narrowly misjudged the iPhone 4S release, telling investors last August that Apple was likely to release its new iPhone in the September quarter, rather than in October as other reports had suggested.
I find Mr. Daryanani’s reference to a two-year iPhone redesign cycle is particularly interesting, since I think it would make logical good sense, and it’s demonstrably worked out extremely well for Apple with the iPhone 4/4S. If he’s right, then we can anticipate an “S” refresh of the new iPhone in the fall of 2013, and the next full redesign (iPhone 6) in mid-late 2014.
However, a two-year cycle means they really need to get it right out of the blocks.
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May 30th, 2012 at 2:14 pm
Did anyone see that Tim Cook hinted that they weren’t doing anything with the screen size for the iPhone 5?
That would be a deal breaker; I would likely go Windows Phone 8 if that happened.
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May 30th, 2012 at 2:23 pm
I bet that the next iphone will go out in July. So many leaks lately, rumours of production. Apple will not need 4 or 5 month to release a new phone. Galaxy S III is almost out. They not gonna wait Samsung to sell millions of phones. Just my opinion.
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May 30th, 2012 at 3:19 pm
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May 30th, 2012 at 3:41 pm
1. Apple can’t redesign every two years the iPhone because there are not so many design possibilitys. So they can’t redesign it so heavy like they do it from 3GS to 4.
2. With the parts, which leak today ans yesterday, you can’t really say that it isn’t a redesign. I mean it’s , thinner , the FaceTime camera has a new , the back has some metal and the speakers are new. Yes, this isn’t a really new groundbreaking design but it isn’t the same.
3.@ Fred Claus.. it won’t have this feature. The batteries aren’t good enough
Hope you can mostly understand my comments, Englisch isn’t my native tongue.
Let still hope that there is an iPhone at the WWDC.
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May 30th, 2012 at 4:16 pm
@ Claus-I hear ya! But technically, you could always simply wait an additional cycle for a revamped design. Just saying (although i’m sure that isn’t an option; as it rarely is for us fanboys).
@ Michael-Another great, although fragmented writeup. I’ll simply add that if the cycling is to be expected (‘S’ refresh between 2yr renewals), investors, consumers and competition alike will begin to play to that cycling. In other words, Apple should expect for refresh sales to plummet much sooner than ‘when a redesign is imminent’ and Apple stock will also begin to fall when a refresh is introduced. Not to mention that the competitors in the market will dig in deep around the time of a refresh to really look to kill Apple’s numbers in the year of an ‘S’ version. Android, although crappy, can pump out 50+ phones on various carriers to match ‘S’ sales and yet their tech is slowly starting to get better too. If they keep coming out with phones like the SIII, Apple’s lead in the marketplace will surely begin to wain. It won’t be long before every entrance-level smartphone is as good as the SIII or 4S so by next year, when Apple plans to release a refresh, a lot of lost customers will adopt Android and realize it isn’t that bad of a choice anymore; more like a viable plan ‘B’. Lastly, i’m curious as to what plans Tim is intending to impliment for future iterations since we know that, even though he left 4yrs worth of designs in the pipe, Steve Jobs was intimately working on the i5 as his masterpiece so once this release (and the hype that surrounds it) is out of the way, we may see a very different Apple emerge. One we may not all recognize or ralley around. And after seeing how much their flagship device accounts for in sales, no macbook line, iPod line or iTV line will be able to topple the iPhone anytime soon so it will be iphone rehaul every year or bust. We shall see, just my $.02
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May 30th, 2012 at 4:23 pm
“Did anyone see that Tim Cook hinted that they weren’t doing anything with the screen size for the iPhone 5?”
Pauly C – Boy, do I sincerely hope that you’re wrong about that. :/ The iPhone (other smartphones too) is looked upon and/or used as more of a multimedia device than just phone. It is far from 2007, the 3.5 screen no longer accommodates the phone’s present features adequately imo
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May 30th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
@ Dofe-there are actually 100′s of ways the iPhone could be redesigned. Its all about waht Apple will allow as a redesign because as we know, they want to remain true to their original dimensions, aspect ratios etc. The problem is no innovative company can continue to reinvent the same wheel. Eventually, it will always be a wheel in a different form. Challenging oneself is the only true way to progress and change. If Apple wants to continue to adhere to the exact same design but with a couple tweaks here & there, they’re not submitting redesigns or overhauls, they’re simply submitting a refresh and calling it an overhaul because they added a different bell or whistle. So yes, there are many ways Apple can redesign their product lines, it simply comes down to how far they’re willing to push the envelope IMO.
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May 30th, 2012 at 5:02 pm
“Did anyone see that Tim Cook hinted that they weren’t doing anything with the screen size of the iPhone 5?”
Franky, I didn’t. May I know which line of Tim Cook’s at the All Things Digital made you feel that way? Actually I’m thinking the complete opposite. What Tim Cook has said in the conference is yet another piece of evidence, if I can call it, that the next generation iPhone will come with a bigger screen. When he said that Steve Jobs told him not to ask what Steve would have done, Tim Cook noted that “Jobs was well known for doing a 180-degree turn if needed, without ever letting on that he had advocated the opposite.”
If this coverage about the All Things Digital interview I found on the internet is correct, it probably means the next iPhone will have a bigger screen, since Steve Jobs was known to have insisted that 3.5 inch screen was the way to go.
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May 30th, 2012 at 6:39 pm
Ill be so pissed if the new iPhone is bigger in its dimensions what so ever. Idgaf if the screen is bigger or not. Keep the damn dimensions the same. I hate carrying big bulky s**t in my pockets, i already have keys and a thick wallet, I don’t need a big ass phone too. The current screen size is perfect for me, I can game extensively without any eye strain, I can read emails, type emails, surf the web for hours, text for hours, and theres no strain what so ever on my eyes or my hands, and on top of that… IT FITS IN MY POCKET. If they want to put a bigger screen on there go right ahead, but bigger dimensions are a no-go for me. Extend the screen to the edges idc, just don’t make it big and bulky like all those Android phones. Its already too annoying to have a case on the phone because of how thick and bulky it gets. And I mean a REAL case, not a plastic cover POS that doesn’t protect it at all lol. A real, rubber, thick, juicy, protective case that actually does its job and allows you to chunk the phone out of an air plane and pick it back up in downtown China okay. That kinda case. Ill use one again if the iPhone is made thinner, that way with the case attached it won’t be so thick overall like I’ve got a rock in my pocket.
k I’m done ranting.
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May 30th, 2012 at 6:43 pm
GetSwole! You’re back, brother!
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May 31st, 2012 at 1:13 am
The in-cell technology would be awesome in my opinion. And while we’re still on the topic of the release date … I’m 60% for a June/July release and 40% at a Fall release … I’m still not completely convinced but I’m going with my gut on this one. Who knows. We will in about a week and a half!
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May 31st, 2012 at 11:17 am
@Lakeville – http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/apples-tim-cook-rules-out-iphone-5-with-4-inch-screen/78626
The quote from Tim Cook in the D10 conference: “One thing is that we’re not fragmented. Look at the percentage of users who upgraded to iOS 5. We have one App Store. We have one phone with one screen size, one resolution. So it’s pretty simple if you’re a developer.”
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May 31st, 2012 at 11:32 am
Correct me if I’m wrong, but even if the aspect ratio changes — is it not possible for Apple to develop a solution for converting existing apps? I mean, is that solution a complete impossibility? I cannot imagine that Apple is stuck forever on one screen size for its smartphones.
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May 31st, 2012 at 5:40 pm
Hi Mike,
The ability to accommodate a variety of display resolutions and physical sizes is already built into OS X. I have no idea what impediment there would be in crossing that over to the iOS, but I would guess that it’s possible.
Charles
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