Apple's next major iMac upgrade will be an OLED panel, according to ZDNet Korea, though it won't arrive until 2029 or 2030.
Apple has apparently asked Samsung Display, LG Display, and other suppliers to produce 24-inch OLED panel samples on their mass-production lines, targeting 600 nits of brightness and around 218 pixels-per-inch (PPI). The current iMac's 24-inch LCD offers 500 nits at the same pixel density, making brightness the headline improvement. A 24-inch OLED would also be the largest such display Apple has ever shipped, nearly doubling the 13-inch tandem OLED panel in the iPad Pro.
OLED displays offer deeper blacks, higher contrast, and more vibrant colors than LCD panels by lighting pixels individually rather than relying on a backlight. Apple has already brought the technology to the iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPad Pro, and plans to bring it to the iPad mini, iPad Air, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air over the next few years, making the iMac one of the last major Apple products still waiting for the upgrade. By the time it arrives in 2029 or 2030, rivals will have been shipping OLED monitors for years.
Samsung Display is expected to respond first, planning to produce 220 PPI samples on its large-format Quantum Dot OLED (QD-OLED) production lines and ship them to Apple in the second half of 2026. This would be a considerable step up from the 160 PPI QD-OLED panels it currently mass-produces for monitors. SEMES announced earlier this month that it had shipped inkjet printing equipment to Samsung capable of supporting the higher pixel density.
LG Display's samples are expected to follow, and may not be as bright due to using color filters rather than a quantum dot color conversion layer. Instead of using its existing 4-stack W-OLED panels, the company reportedly plans to compete using a still-in-development 5-stack design that adds a green layer for better brightness. LG Display is also developing "eLEAP" technology, referred to internally as "fLEAP," which eliminates the need for Fine Metal Masks, for a selection of future Apple device displays including the iMac and MacBook.
For now, the iMac is due an upgrade to the M5 chip. Apple last refreshed the machine with the M4 chip and a 12MP Center Stage camera in October 2024.
