Yesterday we told you that the rumors that point to the launch of an iPad Mini by Apple during the third quarter of the year would bring the apparently competing companies of Cupertino and Samsung even closer. A series of billion-dollar contracts unite both companies, beyond the disagreements that star in the front page of the main news media in the sector due to a series of conflicts over patents. And the contracts could be expanded in economic terms with the premiere of a new small tablet. The reason would be in the condition of Samsung as a supplier of Apple. Especially when it comes to the iPad screen.
And in fact, according to a report they have had access to from iSupply, the South Korean would have been the exclusive concessionaire of Apple's Retina display supply contract. We are talking about the panel that has surprised during the presentation of the device and that is considered the main argument in favor of the latest model with which the company reissues the reference tablet.
The display is equipped with a resolution of 2,048 x 1,536 pixels, and according to the report exposes only Samsung would have met the quality standards expressed candidates. Thus, according to these data, LG and Sharp would have remained as alternate suppliers, despite what was known at first.
However, other sources say that LG is at the heart of the new iPad screens. This is confirmed by Reuters, although they do not clearly indicate where the information comes from at the express wish of the person who reveals the data. That being the case, the two Korean giants would have won the game against the Japanese Sharp, which stipulated a few months ago as the supplier of screens for the iPad, making IGZO technology prevail as a substitute for the LCD panel that we had seen so far on the tablet.
The fact that LG is also in the game is given by the technical description of the new iPad, which indicates that the screen is based on an IPS panel, a technology that the Korean firm itself develops for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. However, it would be interesting to see how LG and Samsung would have shared the installation of the terminal screens, in the sense of whether the distribution of units with panels of both companies responds to geographical criteria or the devices would be mixed in all the markets.
It should be remembered that Samsung would not only have an important part in the development of the iPad in terms of the screen. In addition, the Korean multinational would be responsible for the technology that makes possible the architecture of the A5x processor of the terminal, as well as the flash memory of the device. Hence, there has been talk of the dependence that Apple would have on Samsung, which necessarily links both companies until 2014 and reports to the South Korean large annual profits, despite the war that both currently technology.
