Back in 2017, when Apple unveiled the iPhone X, it wasn’t greeted with the unbridled adoration we have for it now. After fantastical rumors of a borderless phone with a wraparound design and virtual Home button, people were naturally underwhelmed at first by the notch, the loss of Touch ID, and reliance on gesture navigation.
Now, nearly 10 years later, Apple is reportedly working on another milestone phone with a radical design that seems almost impossible to believe. Rumors of the so-called 20th-anniversary iPhone paint a picture of a handset with curved edges, imperceptible bezels, an invisible selfie camera, and an entirely new design. It’s due to arrive in 2027 following the launch of the iPhone Fold later this year.
Between now and then, rumors and excitement are sure to build to a fever pitch. We’ll see renders, concepts, and wild descriptions that paint the picture of a phone that blows our minds. But as with the iPhone X, we should probably temper those expectations a bit.
That’s why this rumor from Schrödinger on X might be the most truthful of all. He cites and posts a Telegram transcript with three Apple engineers supposedly working on the anniversary iPhone. Instead of reporting that it will have “piezoelectric ceramics” or a “waterfall” display, his report is actually pretty sober as anniversary iPhone rumors go.
The first engineer, who reportedly works in display systems, says the anniversary phone actually isn’t a quad-curved display. Instead, it’s made of “quad-curved glass with a flat display underneath.” The second engineer, from “Mechanical/ID” explains, “The OLED panel itself remains flat. The curvature is entirely in the cover glass.”
The 20th-anniversary iPhone probably won’t have a curved display like the Note Edge.
Foundry
The display engineer then explains that “Apple’s goal here is the illusion of an invisible bezel. Quad-curved glass lets the glass flow over the edge so components can sit beneath without hard visual breaks.” The second engineer adds: “It’s an optical and industrial design solution, not a display architecture change.”
That means the display tech won’t actually be all that innovative. Compared to, say, the Galaxy Note Edge from 2014, or even the iPhone X, the iPhone 20 will be more illusion than innovation.
Schrödinger also asks how the rumored under-display components would be affected, to which the display engineer replies, “The glass needs to be slightly taller in the vertical stack. That extra height improves light transmission and diffusion for the under-display camera.” While a third engineer from the human interface/touch department adds: “Without that additional glass depth, UDC performance suffers contrast loss, flare, and color distortion increase significantly.”
The human interface/touch department chimes in: “And it’s not just aesthetics. The glass curvature also helps with durability. Stress is distributed more evenly compared to sharp flat edges, which reduces edge chipping.”
Whether this conversation is real or completely fabricated, the ideas presented make a lot of sense. According to this explanation, the iPhone 20 won’t have a revolutionary wraparound bezel-less display; it’ll have a normal display with wraparound glass that gives the illusion of a bezel-free display. Quad-curved glass sounds much more believable than some of the rumors we’ve heard. It would be a very Apple move to make the anniversary iPhone appear to be more revolutionary than it actually is.
As one of the engineers sums it up: “That’s the core idea. It looks radical, but technically it’s a very conservative and very Apple solution.”
