As we reported earlier this year, Apple's plans to put OLED displays into the MacBook Pro are well advanced. And now we have a timescale. A new report says that Apple is currently planning to launch the OLED versions of its best laptops in 2026.
The report comes from market research company Omdia, as reported by MacRumors. Omdia specialises in tracking the market for display panels and that means it's got the inside track on who's making what for whom. And it expects Apple's adoption of OLED displays to create "a significant surge in OLED demand" – an even bigger surge than the one created by the new OLED iPad Pros.
What are Apple's OLED plans?
Apple is expected to bring OLED to pretty much every mobile device it makes. It's been in the iPhone for several years now, it's started to appear in the more expensive iPads, and Apple's next move is to bring it to its pro laptop range. The benefits of OLED include better contrast, better energy efficiency, wider viewing angles, smoother response times and, a favourite for Apple, ever-thinner displays.
We really rate the OLED panels in the new iPads. In our iPad Pro M4 review we said the OLED display was "truly stunning": the OLED display "is incredible and means everything from movies and games to photos and web pages looks simply stunning." As with the iPad Pro, the MacBook Pro with OLED display is likely to offer an optional nano-texture glass; this massively reduces screen reflections and glare, and it's a bit of a throwback to the mid-2000s when some Mac laptops were available with a choice of matte or glossy displays. That was a $50/$50 upgrade, but the one in the iPad Pro is $100/£100. We'd expect a similar price for the 2026 MacBook.
The MacBook Pro isn't the only mobile Mac tipped for a 2026 OLED upgrade. Reports from the display industry indicate that Samsung is developing a new 8-inch OLED panel that's destined for the iPad mini and expected to launch in 2026; some rumours also suggest that the OLED panels currently in the iPad Pro will trickle down to the iPad Air, also in 2026.
