I hope for next year that Apple will work with SolidEnergy's new Gen 3 Lithium batteries that last twice as long. Between a 10nm chip process for the A11, possible next-gen Fusion energy improvements, and Gen 3 Lithium batteries, they could probably make the the next iPhone nearly half as thick and still offer several hours of extra battery life. I'd be all for that, especially as lighter devices are less likely to break when dropped. My problem is when they make devices thinner without increasing battery life. But if the iPhone 7 numbers are to be believed, they're already in a pretty good spot now.
The biggest issue that remains for thinner iPhone devices is that stupid camera bump. Will they still keep making phones thinner but with an ever-increasing bulge on the back? I hope they're able to figure something out with micro-lenses so they can shorten the focal length. If they must have a bulge, it would be great if they could at least center it. But then it might look too much like an Android device? I always thought it strange that as much as Apple talks about symmetry, all the camera stuff is off to one side.
As for the display tech, I hope they skip OLED altogether and go micro-LED, or MLED, or is it lowercase mLED? Whichever. That sounds a lot more promising, but it depends on if they can get them to scale to production in that time frame. Ming-Chi Kuo is pretty good at predicting things based on the supply chain, so it's pretty unlikely right now.
As for the curved edges of the display? I hope Samsung sues them over that because Apple would be ripping off their "iconic" design and I really don't like displays like that. I was playing around with a friend's Galaxy Note 7 the other day (risky, I know, but I didn't get burned or explode) and I just really still don't like my UI rolling off the side of the display. It's really annoying and distracting. I'm all for the curved edges like the current iPhone has, but please don't bleed the UI off the edge of the device. It's a huge pain. Don't get me wrong, I think the display on the Note 7 is gorgeous (the contrast is amazing), but the curved display just seems like a gimmick to me.
As for the reduced bezel—I must say I'm pretty stoked about that. I hope they make the new iPhones shorter and the display a little wider. I think 5" would be a great dimension for the mid-size iPhone, and 6" for the Plus. They wouldn't be physically bigger than the current devices—you'd lose a little height since the iPhone forehead and chin is so huge—and you'd gain a little extra real-estate for the display.
