In the current issue of the “Power On” newsletter, Mark Gurman from Bloomberg gives another outlook on the innovations expected for the “iPhone 13” in late summer and the expected market launch of the new MacBook Pro in prospect.
The coming iPhone generation is to be presented again this year, as usual with the exception of last year, in September and available earlier than the iPhone 12. Last year, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic led to delays.
Always-on display in the iPhone 13
Gurman assumes that Apple will offer an always-on display for the first time with the iPhone 13, which, analogous to the Apple Watch with always-on function, should be able to display certain status displays even when the device is “switched off”. Information on time, date, weather and notifications could be displayed permanently and be visible to the user without having to activate the display. Similar features have been offered on numerous Android smartphones for years, but Apple has so far limited itself to smartwatches. With the iPhone, the screen can be briefly activated by double tapping or lifting the smartphone.
The always-on display is made possible by the use of LTPO (Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Oxide) for the backplane of the OLED display. The mixture of low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) and indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) for the thin-film transistors (TFT) is intended to increase energy efficiency and enable dynamic refresh rates. The current newsletter again states that Apple plans to offer screens with up to 120 Hz this year.
In addition, with the A15, another stronger processor should move into the smartphone, but it could only use optimized cores of the A14. According to rumors so far, Apple is also planning to use larger batteries after they were smaller than the iPhone 11 last year, improvements for video recordings and a slightly smaller notch for Face ID and the front camera. Apart from that, the design of the last generation is to be expected by and large.
Mini-LED delays the new MacBook Pro
Gurman is also delivering a small update for the new MacBook Pro generation. It was already known that Apple is expected to bring back many of the earlier connections such as HDMI, MagSafe and the SD card reader, abolish the Touch Bar and introduce screens with mini-LED backlights. The mini-LED technology is said to be the reason that production will not start until the third quarter and the new notebooks can only be announced between September and November. Originally, the new generation should have been presented earlier. Agreements with other suppliers are intended to remove future bottlenecks in mini-LED technology for MacBook Pro and iPad Pro.