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Samsung had to print the iPhone 14 Pro Dynamic Island cutout as Apple insisted

By Daniel Petrov

Updated: Mar 10, 2023, 3:33 AM

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Samsung had to print the iPhone 14 Pro Dynamic Island cutout as Apple insisted

Apple wowed its collective fanbase with the introduction of the iPhone 14 Pro series Dynamic Island, an effort to make the giant OLED display cutout actually serve a useful purpose. Apart from the aesthetics side of it, of course, as the Dynamic Island cutout on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max is less of an eyesore compared to the notch that Apple has been using to house the Face ID components for years on end now.

The Dynamic Island feature is still a software and user interface solution, though, while the hardware behind it comes courtesy of Samsung which managed to deliver an OLED panel of its latest and brightest generation to Apple with the requested quality and consistency that the giant holes in the panel required.

It's precisely because of Apple's insistence, reports Korean media The Elec, that Samsung was forced to widen its inkjet printing method in order to seal the iPhone 14 Pro line's display cutout edges, so that oxygen or moisture can't get in to shorten the panel's lifespan dramatically.

Instead of only using the OLED inkjet printing deposition method during the lamination process, like on the iPhone 13 series, or the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus, Apple asked Samsung to deploy it for the touch layer as well for added durability.

Samsung said that it can make do with only laser cutting and sealing, but Apple wanted it to use inkjet printing to seal the Dynamic Island edges and create a "dam" separating them from the rest of the OLED panel, while evening out the inevitable height advantage of the edges resulting from piercing the cutout in the uninterrupted panel.

Long story short, Apple demanded that Samsung do something it hadn't done since it used the inkjet printing method for the entirety of the sealing process on the Galaxy S21 Ultra last year, and that one only has one small round opening for the front-facing camera.

LG, which at the beginning had issues with Apple's level of screen production quality requirements, leaving Samsung as the sole iPhone 14 Pro Max display supplier, is now said to have caught up, and is reportedly utilizing the same OLED inkjet printing methodology to fuse the iPhone 14 Pro panel cutouts better with the rest of the Dynamic Island area.

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Daniel, a devoted tech writer at PhoneArena since 2010, has been engrossed in mobile technology since the Windows Mobile era. His expertise spans mobile hardware, software, and carrier networks, and he's keenly interested in the future of digital health, car connectivity, and 5G. Beyond his professional pursuits, Daniel finds balance in travel, reading, and exploring new tech innovations, while contemplating the ethical and privacy implications of our digital future.