“Next year’s iPhone may be called the iPhone 8, recent reports have suggested, and the handset is expected to feature a face that is almost entirely taken up by the display, according to sources familiar with Apple’s plans,” Chris Smith reports for BGR. “There’s plenty of ‘proof’ to support the idea that the home button is going away — well, it’s going to be relocated — but until today there was no evidence that the top bezel of the handset would also be removed.”
“The bottom bezel only houses the home button, which means that Apple can turn that unused real estate into screen space by burying the button under the display. And Apple patents already prove that such technology is in development,” Smith reports. “But the top bezel is more complex. It contains the ambient light sensor, a proximity sensor, the front speaker and the front-facing camera.”
“A new patent discovered by AppleInsider reveals that Apple is indeed looking to relocate the front-facing sensors to beneath the display,” Smith reports. “Apple’s description of the technology is quite telling, as it shows the company isn’t happy with bezels on the iPhone. It’s just that previous technology would not accommodate Apple’s design ideas… Interestingly, the patent also mentions OLED as the type of screen technology in question, which can be seen as more evidence that Apple’s next iPhone will have an OLED display rather than LCD.”
Read more, and see Apple’s patent application illustrations, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The “10th Anniversary iPhone” will be all-new. So new, that the fragmandroid peddlers will have even less of an answer than they do today with their slow fakes; no answer whatsoever.
forget iphone 8 regurgitated speculations….. they are designed to take attention away from iphone 7….
iphone 7 rocks… specially 5.5 jet black !
Oh darn, yes, well we might as well “suffer” and enjoy our world beating non-explosive iPhone 7 & 7 Plus’s in the interim! (Especially those of us who get immediate upgrades anyway.)
What if Apple chooses to call it iPhone 10 for the tenth anniversary? There’s enough precedent to jump straight to 10.
Do we really want to copy Microsoft?
Yes, let’s take advantage of Microsoft’s precedent.
iPhone 7.1 (in 2017)
iPhone 18 (in 2018)
iPhone ME (in 2019)
iPhone XP (in 2020)
iPhone 2000 (in 2021)
iPhone 8 and 8.1 and 8.2 (in 2022)
iPhone 10 (in 2022)
Nothing confusing about that.
Why not iPhone IX in 2019 ?
It’s not copying Microsoft. There are plenty of products that jump versions for the sake of condition. The reason Microsoft went to 10, was they couldn’t use 9, for technical reasons. (as I understand it) But if it’s the 10’th anniversary, 10 seems like a good version. Or they could simply call it 10th Anniversary iPhone Edition. (They had a 20’th Anniversary Mac, right?
It should be called iPhone X.
But then I think Samsung is also gonna call their next galaxy as galaxy X.
Would really like to see a 5.8″ or even 6″ screen option. That’ll make it the smartphone/mini tablet to rule them all.
Wasted screen real estate is on the back side of the iPhone, but it would have to change our way of thinking. Imagine a smart screen on the front and back that can know the different in a real touch and a physical hold touch(no more butt dialing), and a smaller screen on the back for specific things and specific apps, non-video stuff more like widgets or quick info apps like stocks, etc. The apple logo can also be a virtual face like the Apple watch. It would seem weird at first, but would be radical and revolutionary, and who could adjust quicker than iPhone users. Why should Apple first wait for someone else to invent it…please raise your bar and become known as an inventor again. Cook, this is your chance. Use your spaceship for something new.
If they go “full-screen”, you’d think they’d do away with curved corners and go to a 90 degree corner scheme.
The one button I wish would go away is the one on the left to silence the phone. Because it sticks out, it gets knocked when pocketing or pursing. Then we wonder why we miss calls. This has been a weakness on every model so far (unless the 7 fixes it). Get rid, or recess.