This is why Apple is having trouble with the micro-LED Apple Watch Ultra

About a month ago, we learned from research firm TrendForce that the rumored micro-LED Apple Watch Ultra has been allegedly pushed back to Q1 2026. Now, a new supply-chain report by The Elec gives us a more detailed explanation of the cause of this delay.

What are micro-LED displays?

Unlike LCDs that use LED as backlighting to illuminate a liquid-crystal layer and create an image, Micro-LED panels have miniature LED lights making up each pixel. That means that the light that's being emitted by the screen is produced by the pixels themselves (similarly to OLED panels), which results in increased contrast levels, wider viewing angles, and more colorful images.

Why the micro-LED Apple Watch is delayed

We knew that the overall reason for this delay was cost, thanks to the previous report, but now we know what makes the manufacturing cost so high. It turns out that making such a small micro-LED display does not yield enough good units, as it is hard to get it right on the first try. This means the current process is too unreliable to sustain a steady flow of manufacturing.

LG has bought several micro-LED patents with the hope of tackling and resolving this issue. Faulty displays can be fixed, but if each one has to go through that process the end cost would be too high. Another company called Ultra Display Technology has figured out a way to make the process more reliable thanks to tech described in 14 US patents, and LG has purchased said patents to try and implement the same approach.

Needless to say, we have quite a bit of time to wait until we see an Apple Watch Ultra rocking a micro-LED display. Word on the street is that Apple will first bring the micro-LED display to its high-end wearable and then start including it in its other products like the iPhone, iPad, etc. With these size-relate difficulties, however, this rumored decision might change.