We've been hearing for years now about Apple's never-quite-realized intentions to ship devices featuring Sharp IGZO displays. Now a new report says they're coming to the 2014 MacBook line.
IGZO displays are cool technology. This is very simplistic, every LCD panel is made up of a bunch of pixels, and behind those pixels, there's a mesh of wires connecting them together, and then a backlight. Usually, a backlight has to shine through that mesh to light up the pixels, which results in wasted light and battery power. But IGZO is a way to allow more light to shine through that mesh, resulting in lower power requirements and longer battery life.
Sounds great, right? Thinner devices with better battery life would result, because most of a device's battery life is sucked up by the screen.
According to new Korean reports, Sharp is looking to supply both MacBook and iPad sized IGZO panels to Apple, with LG Display joining the supply chain to help out, with the company upgrading its existing AMOLED and LCD lines to be compatible with IGZO manufacturing.
If this rumor pans out, it's great news. Imagine Haswell Retina MacBook Pros with IGZO displays. That's not just 12 hour battery life: if Haswell MacBook Pros can do to the 2014 models' battery life what it did to 2013's MacBook Airs, and if IGZO can cut the Retina Display power draw in half, that's potentially 24 hours battery life.
John Brownlee is Cult of Mac's Deputy Editor. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his girlfriend and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
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