The iPhone got an OLED panel in 2017, while the iPad Pro followed in 2024. Even the MacBook Pro is expected to follow later this year or early next year. But what about the iMac?
According to TrendForce, the iMac could get an OLED upgrade. There’s no timeline yet, but the direction is clear. Apple wants to replace its current display technologies with OLED, raising the bar for color quality for both regular users and professionals.
So what’s actually changing here?
TrendForce’s latest AMOLED market report reveals that Apple plans to adopt OLED panels — covering 95% of the BT.2020 color gamut — across future MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and iMac lineups.
That’s a meaningful jump over DCI-P3, which is the current standard across its products. For those catching up, BT.2020 is a significantly wider color space that demands higher color purity, tighter spectral control (to reduce the margin of error in color reproduction), and better energy efficiency.
Naturally, such panels require more sophisticated engineering, making them slightly more difficult and more expensive to manufacture than regular AMOLED panels.
In practice, this means that future Apple displays could become noticeably more color-accurate and look vivid and bright. This will make them better suited to workflows such as video editing and color grading, while also complementing the vast library of HDR content available on YouTube and OTT platforms.
How far out is an OLED iMac actually?
That’s the catch. The market research firm reports that the iMac is part of Apple’s OLED roadmap, but provides no specific timeline.
Given that the MacBook Pro is pegged for 2026 or early 2027, Apple’s typical cadence could put the OLED iMac on shelves sometime in 2027 or 2028.
Beyond Mac-specific updates, the report mentions how the underlying OLED technology is also evolving. Manufacturers are coming up with advanced emissive architectures like hyperfluorescence, which improve color purity and energy efficiency even further.
