Apple will reportedly go OLED with the 2023 iPad Pro, ditching mini-LED

iPad Pro: The ultimate guide (Image credit: Joseph Keller / iMore)

What you need to know

Apple reportedly wants to move both the 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro to OLED displays in 2023.
This after it debuted the mini-OLED 12.9-inch iPad Pro this year.

Apple will ditch mini-LED and move to OLED for its iPad Pro displays in 2023, according to a new report. What's more, whereas mini-LED was reserved for the larger iPad Pro this year, both sizes will reportedly get OLED displays the year after next.

This comes via a report by The Elec which also believes that Apple will debut OLED in another iPad product next year, potentially as a dry run before bringing the technology to the iPad Pro lineup.

Cupertino will launch its first ever OLED iPad in 2022. The tablet will sport a 10.86-inch OLED screen. Samsung Display will be the sole supplier of the OLED panels.The following year, in 2023, Apple is planning to launch an 11-inch OLED iPad and a 12.9-inch OLED iPad.

Apple's switch to mini-LED was a long time coming after seemingly never-ending rumors, but its move to OLED was always in the cards. The two technologies are similar in their benefits and drawbacks. OLED would benefit from stronger performance in low-light environments, however. Some buyers of the new mini-LED iPad Pro have recently pointed to that being a problem with the current model.

In terms of the 2023 iPad Pro models, the report believes that Apple will change up the type of OLED display used, choosing a flexible OLED instead of a rigid one.

For the iPads launching in 2023, Cupterino could use flexible OLED over rigid OLED. It could also change the TFT from LTPS to low-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO). The RGB emission layer could also be the "tandem" structure where two layers of them are stacked together.

We are of course still a long way from 2022, let alone 2023. Apple has time to change plans that might already be in place, so keep that in mind when making buying decisions. The current iPad Pro is an excellent tablet, especially with the mini-LED screen in the 12.9-inch model. You can bag one of your own by checking out our list of the best iPad Pro deals, too.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.

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