Apple Reportedly Asks Suppliers for 'Bezelless' OLED iPhone Displays

[phenste]

They should try notch-less and dynamic island-less first.

why is there a sect of this website stuck on this idea? christ—I don’t remember anyone complaining in the Home Button era about bezels, and now that competitors are coming out with hole-punch cameras that have god-awful facial authentication (some have fingerprint authentication, which is statistically less secure…yes, I read the Face ID whitepaper when it was released), everyone wants Apple to skip over years of hard R&D and make a “fullscreen” phone.

in general, still don’t get the complaints about Dynamic Island. being able to see multiple instances of time-sensitive info (or just something convenient, like what music is playing) at a glance, from anywhere on my phone, is insanely useful.

anyway, back to the article at hand: this is a cool idea. Apple is pretty good with mitigating phantom touches; I’d be interested to see what a bezel-less phone would look like (and how case-makers would deal with that…iPhone Bumpers 2.0? lmao).

 

[Sir_Macs_A_Lot]

But where will I put my clumsy thumbs?

 

[Mr. Dee]

I was hoping to hold out until 2025, but Apple dropped support for iOS 17 on the iPhone X. That would have given me one extra year of security updates. Since I will be upgrading to the 16 Pro Max, I likely will do an interim upgrade for the 20th anniversary or when they support Micro LED or a foldable.

 

[DailySlow]

Hey, hand raised here. 👋🏽 I despise the rounded edges. Useless without a case that has more “squarish“ feel. I concede though in an office environment, urban, they can fit right in.

 

[MrRom92]

14 pro already has chonky bezels - which I have no problem with, by the way - and they still can’t manage decent palm rejection at the edges. How is a display with no bezels going to do anything to improve the current experience?

 

[shinyleaf]

A bezelless display is how you implement a folding phone properly.

Not folding a delicate flexible display.
Not trying to make glass flexible and bend with the display and survive thousands of bends.

Join 2 bezelless displays together with folding hinge. If you have excellent manufacturing tolerances like Apple does, you’ll have a perfect folding phone with none of issues the current Android folding phones have.

 

[DailySlow]

A bezelless display is how you implement a folding phone properly.

Not folding a delicate flexible display.
Not trying to make glass flexible and bend with the display and survive thousands of bends.

Join 2 bezelless displays together with folding hinge. If you have excellent manufacturing tolerances like Apple does, you’ll have a perfect folding phone with none of issues the current Android folding phones have.

🤔 Not a great idea. Magnet(s) needed to lock flat. VERY STRONG & LIGHTWEIGHT hinge$ - #Titanum? Folding face - to - face will REQUIRE bezels in case the least iota of grit (or a penny) is inadvertently on the screen(s) when you fold and run, destroying one or both screens. That’s a “when”, not an “if”. And camera operation? On the other hand more space for battery.

 

[ItsMeMicke]

Zero bezels and a iOS feature which lets you choose bezel width would be nice.

 

[Ethosik]

What’s this hatred towards bezels? I miss my iPhone 6. I keep going to the screen to customize my Lock Screen when I pick up my iPhone 13. And if I look at it the right way it unlocks when I don’t want it to.

 

[marklcfc]

Sort the PWM out

 

[bobcomer]

Apple is pretty good with mitigating phantom touches;

I liked almost everything in your post except this. I'd change the "pretty good" to "downright horrible". I'm always having trouble with phantom touches around the edges. Nobody does it well, my samsung flip phone is just as bad as my iPhone 14 Pro at that.

 

[phenste]

I liked almost everything in your post except this. I'd change the "pretty good" to "downright horrible". I'm always having trouble with phantom touches around the edges. Nobody does it well, my samsung flip phone is just as bad as my iPhone 14 Pro at that.

ymmv I suppose 🤷‍♂️

 

[johntherazz]

‘…a hole shaped cutout’? That doesn’t exactly narrow it down a lot, does it?!

 

[Jean Claude]

How do you hold it in your hand without touching/covering it, or a case that goes to the edge without a little bit of bezel/margin?

Dead pixels ... light active but non-responsive to physical touch. Easy. Should have happened years ago, and to the majority of their product lines (especially iPads). For a company usually obsessed with pushing boundaries around aesthetics - Apple's bezel sizes have always been beyond bloated and dated....

 

[spcopsmac21]

They should try notch-less and dynamic island-less first.

Dynamic island is more my a penal colony for your lost pixles..... It should be called the apple penal island

 

[symphony]

No notch, no dynamic island, no physical buttons, and everything will be perfect so you won't be able to tell if the phone is upside-down or not. Just dreamy.

Did you forget the display is always on?

 

[symphony]

Apple refers to the bezels as borders. Funny they go out of their way to use different terminology in marketing but use the same words internally, if true

 

[darngooddesign]

But I am sure the island and notches are here to stay as Apple implemented them on the MacBooks without any real reason to other than to ensure everyone knows it’s an Apple product.

They are on the MacBooks so the top bezel can be as thin as the side bezels.

We will just put a notch here as our design language. You mean to implement FaceID? No we just act like it needs to be there for a 1080p camera and it ensures everyone knows this is an ugly MacBook rather than a worthless PC.

This is why the MBP notch is the size it is; the FaceID components are twice as thick as the entire lid, they wont fit. It's a non issue since there are several ways to hide the notch.

 

[jz0309]

Ok, so now I need to be holding off til the 17… lol

 

[Naraxus]

And some of you still think they’re doing foldables.

lol.

I'm almost 100% certain they are.

Whether any of those ever make it to market is an entirely different matter.

 

[bobcomer]

ymmv I suppose 🤷‍♂️

Yep!! There's a lot of factors to how one holds the phone and thus the phantom touches. Size of hand, grip, dexterity, reach, you name it.

I don't doubt at all that you don't have a problem with it, but one or two sizes doesn't fit all...

 

[mcled53]

Don't you need one or two millimeters of bezel so that the rounded edge of a case is not covering pixels?

Right. And... we do need a case otherwise, the screen gets scratched when placed face down on a table. I wish apple would address that aspect in their designs... If a person does need a case then why spend effort on a slick body?

 

[DailySlow]

Apple has asked its suppliers to develop "bezelless" OLED display panels for future iPhone models, The Elec reports.

iPhone 15 Pro Max dummy model with thinner bezels compared to an iPhone 14 Pro Max, via Unbox Therapy.​

Apple apparently asked Samsung and LG Display to develop the new OLED display panels, intending to implement them while maintaining the iPhone's current design, in contrast to the curved displays that some smartphone brands with ultra-slim bezels offer. Apple is reportedly reluctant to implement a display that curves over the side of the iPhone due to concerns about optical distortion and durability.

Apple purportedly wants the bezelless displays to facilitate improved thin film encapsulation (TFE) and under-panel camera (UPC) technology, as well as increase space for components like antennas while reducing interference. Retaining a design with a flat display reportedly enables these improvements, where they would otherwise currently be impossible with a curved display.

Overall, this suggests that Apple is currently planning to offer the bezelless OLED display as soon as the iPhone 17 Pro in 2025, since this device is rumored to be the first to feature under-display Face ID technology, sitting alongside a hole-shaped cutout for the front-facing camera. Likewise, Apple is likely targeting a release date sometime before its own custom microLED display technology makes its way to the iPhone. Apple's first device with a custom microLED display is expected to be the 2025 Apple Watch Ultra, with various reports suggesting that the iPhone will be soon to follow in subsequent years.

Apple plans to reduce the iPhone's bezel over time until there is no bezel at all upon utilizing the next-generation OLED panels from Samsung and LG. This year's iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max models are expected to have the thinnest bezels of any smartphone to date at just 1.55mm.

Article Link: Apple Reportedly Asks Suppliers for 'Bezelless' OLED iPhone Displays

"Clueless' is a better term for this push than "bezelless".

 

[tbusby]

Apple will take the credit for it when they announced it; they always do this. This company is NOT 'innovative'

Stating that removing the bezels is not innovative is fine but to say that Apple is not innovative is a bit of a stretch.

 

[jz0309]

And here I thought by that timeframe, 2025, we would have the infamous microLED that Apple has been working on reportedly for over a decade, but no… that would actually mean another 3-4 years of oled on iPhone….
So keep that in perspective for the next microLED rumor…