New Apple job listing suggests its interest in flexible displays

On the 1st pf this month, on Apple’s website appeared a job listing for a Senior Optical Engineer.  In the meantime, the job listing has disappeared from Apple’s website, but it was there. According to the job listing, the company is looking for a Senior Optical Engineer that would be at the head of research for display technologies such as flexible displays and high efficiency LCD panels. Apple’s interest in flexible display technology is not new. There have been a few patent filings regarding flexible displays and many rumors about wearable computers – yes, we are talking about the much rumored iWatch. The job listing that appeared on Apple’s website at the beginning of this month directly supports the aforementioned rumors, so indeed it seems that Apple might intend to use flexible displays into its future iOS devices, especially since a flexible display is a perfect match for a wearable device.

If you did not see the job listing while it was online, you can read the job description below:

Major responsibilities include:

• Investigate advanced display technologies. Analyze the trade-offs between design, process, optical performance, and implementation feasibility.
• Drive display & component suppliers on the advancement of materials, design & processes to meet display module and system design goals.
• Work with cross-functional team on the display architecture, prototyping and system integration. Solve critical issues.
• Support the display roadmap with technology.
• Conduct competitive study on display optical design and performance.

As you probably already know, Apple is not the only company interested in flexible display technology during the past few years. In fact, many companies, Samsung included, have already developed bendable displays. Samsung is one such company as they have been showing bendable displays at trade shows for a long time. Not long ago, in January this year, two other companies (Sharp and LG) have also been showing bendable displays at CES, the tech related trade show.

We have mentioned that Apple has a few patent filings regarding flexible displays – they are for both iPhones and wearable displays. But a patent filing is not always a sign of what is to come; the job listing that appeared on Apple’s website however, is a sign that Apple is at least planning to develop a device using the flexible display technology. And well, you probably already know about the iWatch rumors so putting two and two together it is easy to see that Apple is cooking something. However, we do not have anything certain for now so we will just have to wait for an official announcement, maybe as soon as this Summer. As we mentioned, the job listing was pulled form the website, so we are thinking that maybe they had found the man they were looking for.