In just two years, the world-dominating smartphone will celebrate its 20th anniversary — and it looks like Apple has big plans for it. Reports from Bloomberg and The Information suggest the company is aiming for a curved and completely bezel-less display with no notches or cutouts for cameras or sensors.
We’ve already seen plenty of “curved” and “edge-to-edge” displays from manufacturers like Samsung, but current approaches only curve along the left and right edges of the device. Apple, on the other hand, reportedly wants to go all-in with a glass display that curves around all the edges and corners of the phone.
To complete the all-display look, reports suggest the 2027 iPhone will also eradicate all notches and cutouts from the front of the device. This means all the sensors and cameras for Face ID and selfie-taking purposes will go underneath the display. This is something that everyone is trying to pull off right now — there are already Android phones with under-screen selfie cameras, and we’ve heard repeated rumors that under-screen Face ID tech will come to the iPhone 18 in 2026.
The biggest challenge to under-screen sensors is the reduced amount of light that reaches them under the display. This, plus potential distortion, affects the image quality and makes it hard to produce a camera that works as well as consumers expect.
Unsurprisingly, an all-glass display with curved edges also sounds pretty delicate. With so much of the design’s appeal focused on the edge-to-edge display, plenty of people will probably want to avoid phone cases too, making it even more of a problem. A phone that shatters after one drop is no good to anyone, so Apple would need to offer up a bullet-proof solution for this.
There are also usability questions — what happens when our fingers or palms rest on the edge of the display? Will the device ignore it all, or will it be able to differentiate between purposeful interactions and accidental nudges? I already hate touch gestures, personally — I’m frustrated every day by how often my scroll gestures get registered as horizontal swipes. It seems like adding even more complexity to this system could only make my experience worse — but we’ll see.
As cool as an all-display iPhone would be, it would also sacrifice some of the enjoyment we get from our color choices. I love having a pink iPhone, but with a curved display, I wouldn’t see any color from the front of the phone, and perhaps not even on the sides either.
That said, if we combine the lack of bezels with an Always-On display, that would give us the opportunity for complete color coordination without black bezels and sleeping screens throwing off the look.
Though the reports come from trusted tipsters, these are all rumors for now — but as we get closer to 2027, we’ll probably hear a lot more about these plans. When you’re as big and as closely watched a company as Apple, it’s impossible to keep secrets.
