Apple Foldable

It was inevitable that as we get closer to the iPhone 12 release the focus of bloggers would shift to future plans and our note yesterday on rumors surrounding the iPhone 13 (due out a year from now) indicate that we are in for an outpouring of mock-ups, hints, and tipsters decoding Apple (AAPL) comments, patents, and accidentally released documents that will whet the appetites of Apple fans across the globe.  After yesterday’s highly definitive delineation as to iPhone 13 display suppliers, we expected little to immediately follow but the ‘blogvine’ in China was abuzz with the latest rumor that Apple has ‘asked’ Samsung to exclusively supply foldable displays to the company for one year.

Considering there have been four brands that have produced commercial foldable smartphones and one foldable laptop, and three foldable display suppliers, Apple’s choices would be particularly limited and given Apple’s propensity for high specification displays, BOE (200725.CH) would have a hard time competing with the extensive experience Samsung Display (pvt) has in the flexible OLED display realm.   LG Display (LPL), which a supplier of small panel flexible OLED displays, is best known for its large panel flexible and rollable expertise and has been working its way back into Apple’s good graces after some display supply issues in the past, but logic holds that if Apple were truly interested in foldable displays, the choice would be Samsung, despite its desire to reduce its dependence on same.
While the thought of such a choice makes logical sense, the real question is whether Apple has plans for a commercial product in 2021..  Apple tends to not be an early adopter, and foldable display technology is barely out of the cradle, so our inclination would be that Apple is looking to develop the technology over the next year, with a potential product more likely in 2022, especially remembering how long it took Apple to transition from LCD displays to OLED displays for the iPhone family.  What might be more credible would be a foldable iPad or even a MacBook, albeit a variant to more standard models.  In that way, Apple does not risk pushing users into a new technology that could be ripe with problems, but rather lets Apple fans decide if they want to try the technology themselves.
​
Of course, all of this is speculation, but Apple walks a fine line between lagging behind technology leaders and satisfying a large base of devoted Apple consumers, which does push them to make a few attempts at pushing the technology envelope, which keeps us from discounting the entire story, and while Apple certainly has their fingers in a number of technology pies, this would be one where they would be back to depending on a single supplier once again.