According to rumors, the iPad Air will receive OLED, but the wait will be long

Rest to open iPad Air with Touch ID

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If the market observer's forecasts are correct, the iPad Air will receive OLED displays — but not for a while.

This week's conference laid out what Omdia believes is Apple's roadmap for screens on most of its devices. Particular attention at the conference was paid to the Apple iPhone and iPad lines.

As for the iPad, researcher Kong Min-soo notes that the iPad Pro will switch to OLED in 2024, but this has been expected for some time. Less expected was the prediction that the iPad Air would take another four years to catch up with the technology.

“We expect the iPad Air to switch to OLED in 2028, and the iPad Air to use the single-layer and dual-layer tandem OLED displays of the iPad Pro,” the researcher said.

The two-tier tandem OLED display in the iPad Pro is also not surprising; rumors about it have been circulating for a long time. The single stack is a new part, and for now it's little more than a guess as to what aspect of OLED Apple will implement.

Dual-layer OLED, as the name suggests, is multilayer, with two layers of backlight working in tandem. It has the advantage of lower power consumption and heat dissipation compared to a single stack OLED display.

A regular-sized iPad Air and a larger model are expected to be released quickly, perhaps as early as this month. According to rumors, 10.9-inch and 12.9-inch models will appear in the near future.

The Elec reported on the Omdia conference in detail late Thursday evening. The publication has a good track record for Apple's supply chain, but a shaky track record for forecasting Apple's schedules. Omdia is a decent market watcher, but they too have trouble predicting Apple's moves.

Renderings emerged in January showing what the 12.9-inch iPad Air might look like, with purported CAD drawings suggesting it might not feature many design changes other than physical size and a new camera protrusion.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo recently said that Apple will release two iPad Air models in the first quarter of 2024. The updated models are not expected to feature mini-LEDs, but will still receive some benefits. from using an Oxide backplane of the same specification.

The device is rumored to feature a FaceTime camera on the long axis of the device, similar to the placement on the 10th generation iPad.