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The colors, look, speed and shooting capabilities of the iPhone 8 were impressive, but the smartphone's ability to run augmented reality apps stole the show!
USA TODAY

The iPhone X is launched on November 3. (Photo: Apple)

SAN FRANCISCO – The Apple iPhone X sports a state-of-the-art screen brimming with vivid and bright images, the kind of technology eye-catching that encourages consumers to align to spend $ 1,000 or more on [1945] 9017]

But this line will be long and slow: Apple will not start shipping the redesigned phone before November 3 More than seven weeks after its deployment Tuesday

The reason is as clear as the new OLED screen from the iPhone X. OLED manufacturers can not build screens fast enough as they appear more and more on smartphones, HDTVs, watches, virtual reality headsets and d & # 's. 39, other gadgets. It's a problem that does not just overwhelm Apple, costing it billions of dollars in short-term sales, but that has also stumbled Samsung, HTC and Google. "This is an industry problem," says Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight, a research company headquartered in London. "There is a lack of manufacturing capacity for OLEDs and lower performance screens that meet (quality) standards."

Apple declined to comment on OLED delays

OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) represents the natural evolution of display technology as it offers a more color palette wider and richer, as well as better contrast and better viewing angles than LCDs.

An OLED crisis has already blurred the publications of other mainstream technology products over the past year.

Google's Pixel Phone, released last year, was facing supply restrictions around OLED, just like HTC's Vive VR glasses and the latest large-screen OLED TVs

Component manufacturers can not build screens as fast as device manufacturers.

OLED displays have been much appreciated in wearable devices such as smartphones and wearables such as smart watches, including every series of the Apple Watch, because of their super-slimness and their power consumption. More efficient energy also used in virtual reality glasses because they have faster refresh rates to avoid blurry images.

Consumers spend more time watching video On their smartphones, manufacturers like Samsung – who's engaged with OLED c since its Galaxy S smartphone launched in 2010 and also manufactures OLED screens in the $ 999 iPhone X – choose standard LCDs as they enhance the color gamut, contrast and visualization Tim Bajarin, Senior Analyst from Creative Strategies in San Jose, California. Most OLED displays go to big-screen TVs – including the $ 20,000 77-inch LG 4K TV.

launched this summer – which are more profitable for OLED vendors to produce.

LG's 77-inch OLED Television (Photo: LG Electronics USA)

While OLED makers also earn money by making smaller screens for the iPhone X, these margins are smaller, says Bajarin

More: a killer of Samsung, but it happens Late

For more information: Do You Really Need a New iPhone?

For more: First iPhone: intriguing, chic and expensive

A mini boom in the OLED factories is the following

Samsung and LG alone consider to invest enviro n $ 20 billion in OLED production in the next few years, and Apple w Jennifer Colegrove, senior analyst at Touch Display Research in Santa Clara, California

According to reports from KGI Securities and others, LG should become another supplier for Apple's iPhone X. The company has announced plans to invest more than $ 13 billion (15 trillion won) until 2020 in OLED production at its plant in Paju, South Korea.

Samsung, the largest technology provider and one of the biggest users It is in the preliminary stages of creating a new OLED manufacturing site in Asan, in South Korea.

Samsung Display has a capacity of about 500 million panels for smart phones this year. According to Ron Mertens, founder and publisher of OLED-Info, a publishing and web services company focused on the OLED market, the double […] by 2020.

Samsung OLED capability. (Photo: OLED-Info, for USA TODAY & # 39; HUI)

Since last year, smartphone manufacturers have become aware that & # 39; Apple moved to OLED poster, they rushed to adopt them and Chinese phone maker Oppo, for example, was forced to release a version of its R9 model with an LCD screen last year. because OLED screens were missing, says Mertens

In 2010, HTC had to switch from OLED to LCDs for its Desire and N1 smartphones for the same reason, he explains.

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For small OLED screens, "you have to wait in line and Samsung takes the most important orders at the price that he wants to fix," says Wayne Lam, an alyste at IHS Market, a technology research company.

Market Delay

Typically, Apple announces its new iPhones in September and ships them about 10 days later – iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, for example, were introduced on September 7 2016 and delivered on September 16th.

The iPhone X is not available until November 3, the largest gap since the release of the iPhone in early January 2007 but has not been released. not shipped until June 29 of this year. In contrast, the modestly functional iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, featuring enhanced Retina HD LCD displays, are available on September 22.

Consumers eager to shell out more than $ 1,000 for the iPhone X have to wait until October. 27 to order it, which means that Apple has to wait another few weeks to collect revenue from its high-end model.

OLED is not the only culprit. Apple is relying more and more on customer-built chips to bring new features such as facial recognition to the iPhone X.

"The volume of chips (from Apple) is also a problem, although "For consumers, investors and Apple executives, waiting is the hardest part – and perhaps a respite for its smartphone competitors, especially Samsung

The absence of the iPhone X in October prompted analysts at financial services firm Canaccord Genuity to reduce their iPhone sales estimates in the December quarter to 79 million against 84 million units. (The analyst Colegrove estimates that Apple will be able to provide about 5 million iPhone X this year.)