News site MacRumors reports that LG has partnered with Apple to help the latter produce commercial units of the highly-anticipated iWatch. Pointing to a cached version of a Digital Daily report, which was later pulled out for reasons unknown, it read that LG has been commissioned by Apple to supply the latter with flexible, plastic OLED displays measuring at 1.52 inches for their wearable device.
This is news that could have been welcomed enthusiastically by Apple fans, as earlier reports said the tech company is having issues mass-producing the wearable device. The Belfast Telegraph, quoting sources, said on January 17 that Apple is still struggling to resolve issues on battery life and display, apart from coming up with an ideal manufacturing process to produce the iWatch for commercial consumption.
Moreover, 9to5Mac reports that Apple hired a couple of medical technology experts, namely Sano Intelligence's Nancy Dougherty and Vital Connect's Ravi Narasimhan, to help the company give their wearable product an edge over early market leaders Sony, Pebble and Samsung. The report could also mean that Apple is intent on focusing the product to health and fitness.
AppAdvice said LG is slated to begin production of the flexible display panels for Apple sometime in the third quarter of this year. The report also added that the South Korean company will be producing 2 million units for the device.
Since Steve Jobs' unexpected death, Apple fans have been worried about the future of the company, which initially had a good run thanks to innovations led by Jobs. Current Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook might have a rough time in the early months as head honcho of the technology firm, but he seemed to have appeased analysts, and even skeptics about the future of Apple.
"I didn't say in April you would see them this year or in [the] first half of next year. I said you would see exciting new products from us in the fall of this year and across next year. You've seen that. If you look at the skills Apple has, from hardware to software to services and an incredible app ecosystem, this set of things are very very unique," he told an analyst during an earnings call last quarter.