[ghfbjdhhv]

It seems that having this kind of information out there would be of benefit to Apple in negotiations with screen manufacturers eg. it could make suppliers more willing to sign a long-term deal at lower rates than they might otherwise, due to the fear of being dumped in the future.

Another potential purpose for such a leak would be to boost the stock price.

[joezydeco]

It would also create a bidding war to be the approved company to scale this up to production levels.

Apple may be prototyping a dozen screens at a time, but they'll let someone else build the factory to produce millions a year.

[ckastner]

A better negotiation position would have been my first guess, too.

> The screens are far more difficult to produce than OLED displays, and the company almost killed the project a year or so ago [...] consumers will probably have to wait a few years before seeing the results.

So the best-case scenario is that Apple finishes developing this technology in a few years, and the worst-case scenario is that they kill this development, which almost happened already.

This could go either way both for Apple and for screen manufacturers. It only makes sense to explore an option without all this uncertainty, by seeking a new middle ground.