Apple to bring a truly bezel-less and notch-free iPhone display

Apple released the iPhone 10 in 2017, and it was the first smartphone in the company's portfolio with super-slim side bezels and a relatively thick notch at the top to hide the selfie camera and face IDs. It was also the first iPhone to remove the on-screen home button that doubled as a fingerprint scanner. This design stayed more or less the same until last year when Apple introduced the iPhone 14 Pro series. The company changed the design of the notch, and we got what Apple calls a "dynamic island". That will soon be a thing of the past, and we'll finally get an iPhone with no notch and no bezels for an edge-to-edge viewing experience.

According to Leakster Ice Universe via the South Korean publication The Elec, Apple is working with Samsung and LG to design a display without bezels or notches. The company will continue to use an OLED screen, which has been used since the iPhone 12 series. The report adds that Apple wants to continue using flat screens, unlike many Android rivals that use curved screens in their mid-budget offerings. It also means that a bezel-less iPhone would be like a big slab of glass in your hand that could lead to a few accidental touches.

The report highlights that Apple plans to place the essential camera and sensors under the display, similar to what Samsung did with the Galaxy Z Fold 4. Achieving a bezel-less display requires solving for Thin Film Encapsulation (TFE) and Under Panel Camera (UPC) technologies. TFE protects the OLED from moisture and oxygen. Although frameless smartphones are not new, major players have yet to adopt this technology in their business units. In 2021, Xiaomi introduced a concept smartphone with Quad Curved Waterfall Display technology, wrapping the edges with the screen, creating an immersive look.

Launch details about the notch-less and bezel-less iPhone still need to be clarified, though we can expect it to take another year for Apple to go with this particular design. Apple is expected to launch the new iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro series in September this year. According to various leaks, Apple will retain the exact screen sizes for all four iPhones in the series: 6.1 inches (iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro) and 6.7 inches (iPhone 15 Plus and iPhone 15 Pro Max). However, all new phones this year are expected to feature a dynamic island notch that resizes based on notification. Apple is also testing a bezel-less and notch-less display internally, and it may not make it to a commercial unit for many years.