OLED iMac coming after M5 Max iMac Pro as specs leak conveys major brightness boost

After switching its iPhones and Pro-series iPads to OLED displays, Apple is now preparing to switch its larger devices to the more advanced screen technology, from more iPads all the way to the iMac all-in-one (AiO) computer.

While Apple advertises its latest AiO with the "Briiiiiiliant" tagline, the six "i" actually hint at the many colors that the iMac is available in, rather than the display's luminance.

Granted, at 500 nits, the 24-inch iMac's display is brighter than most other all-in-one computer screens out there, but when it is reborn in a variant with organic light-emitting diode technology, its specs will become even better.

OLED iMac display specs

Apple has reportedly submitted a request for proposal to Samsung and LG, in which it details the display specs of the upcoming OLED iMac AiO.

First off, the memo demands at least 218 ppi pixel density, indicating that Apple intends to keep the current 4480 x 2520 pixels resolution to ensure software scaling compatibility. Out of the other current specs, Apple will likely preserve the wide color P3 gamut coverage and its True Tone technology that adjusts to changes in ambient lighting.

When it comes to peak brightness levels, however, Apple is asking Samsung and LG to develop an OLED iMac panel with 600 nits of peak brightness, or 20% higher than the current crop. This, coupled with the extremely high contrast typical for the OLED display technology, will make using the iMac much easier on the eyes in brightly lit rooms.

It is not easy to develop such a bright OLED display at the larger diagonal that iMac screens come in. Samsung is likely to use the stacked QD-OLED technology with five BBGBG layers that it just introduced earlier in H2 2025. It is available in Samsung's 27-inch Odyssey G6 gaming monitor with 500 Hz refresh rate, for instance, which is currently discounted by a third on Amazon.

The extra green layer that forms each pixel has been added precisely as a brightness booster. LG is also developing various OLED display technologies to answer Apple's newfound thirst for larger OLED displays that is likely to first manifest in the 2026 MacBook Pro models.

Apple has already given its request for OLED display proposal to LG and Samsung with a 2026 deadline for developing it, so the first OLED iMac will be released in 2027 at the earliest. This means that the recent code string discovery that mentions an Apple iMac desktop computer with the powerful M5 Max processor is indeed referring to a resurrected iMac Pro set for 2026 release, rather than the first OLED iMac that will likely launch with an M6 series of processors.