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Apple made arguably the biggest change to iPhone design in years with the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, as these phones finally got rid of the notch and replaced it with the company’s innovative Dynamic Island. But the ultimate goal could be to completely hide the Face ID and camera components, and we may see the next step in that direction with the iPhone 16 Pro.
This is according to a report on The Electric (opens in new tab) (through Bag of fluff (opens in new tab)), stating that the Face ID components of the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max will be hidden under the display, just as many Android phones now have under-display fingerprint scanners.
This won’t completely eliminate the camera cutout, as the camera itself will reportedly still be visible, but it could allow Apple to reduce its size to a tiny hole; as we’ve seen on many Android phones (which have no Face ID components to contend with).
The Elec claims that this change will initially only come to the Pro models, and that this too is just a stopgap, with the ultimate aim of being able to hide the selfie camera under the screen too, so there’s no cutout or other interruption. is in the screen.
The site gives no indication of when Apple might achieve that. It’s something we’ve already seen on some Android phones, like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, but the implementation there isn’t perfect, the camera is still a bit visible and the photo quality suffers (the ZTE Axon 40 Ultra does it does a better job at concealment, but still falls short on quality). So Apple will probably wait for the technology to be perfected.
What these changes would mean for the functionality of Dynamic Island is unclear. Technically, Apple could still have an ‘island’ of black bubbles at the top of the screen, but since the current implementation was made by the need to hide and use the existing camera cutouts, it will do so on a future iPhone that has none seems superfluous.
Of course, we take these claims with a grain of salt anyway, but it’s probably Apple’s goal to reduce the cutouts — and eventually get rid of them — it’s just a matter of when. Other sources, such as reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, have previously pointed to 2024, adding fuel to the fire surrounding the idea of the iPhone 16 Pro being the first to feature Face ID under the screen.
Analysis: Upgrades to the vanilla models are likely to come as well
While it sounds like it will initially only be Pro models getting Face ID below the screen, Apple probably won’t forget about the standard and Plus models.
This report in The Elec states that the standard iPhone 15 and the iPhone 15 Plus will launch this year with a Dynamic Island, meaning all four models would have that design, before the Pro versions of the iPhone 16 launch a new one next year. take a step.
The exact same claim was also recently made by Mark Gurman, who has a good track record on Apple information, so that’s probably the case.
That would mean the standard iPhone models get a Dynamic Island just a year after the Pro models, so we could see the same thing happen with the move to below-display Face ID – in which case you’ll see the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Plus can expect to get that. However, we don’t expect any of these changes on the iPhone SE 4.