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iPhone 18 Pro may kill the Dynamic Island and join the punch-hole party instead

Leak suggests Apple's 2026 Pro iPhones may ditch the Dynamic Island in favor of under-display Face ID, while standard models play it safe.

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Apple iOS 26 running on the iPhone 16 Pro
Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends

It’s been about four months since the iPhone 17 launched, and rumors about the iPhone 18 series have already started to pour in. The most recent one comes from the Chinese tipster Digital Chat Station (via Weibo), shedding some light on the display specifications for the entire lineup.

Starting with the baseline iPhone 18, it could feature the same 6.27-inch (marketed as 6.3-inch) 120Hz OLED screen as the iPhone 17, with ProMotion and the Dynamic Island.

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The iPhone Air 2, which has returned to the rumor mill after being cancelled, will also retain the 6.55-inch 120Hz OLED screen we’ve seen on the original iPhone Air, with the same ProMotion technology and Dynamic Island.

Apple’s Pro iPhones may be headed for a radical front redesign

Both the non-Pro successors will allegedly sport the same panel technology and size as the current models. The Pro models, however, could ship with something that we haven’t seen on any iPhone model, so far.

The iPhone 18 Pro and the iPhone 18 Pro Max could come with a 6.27-inch and a 6.86-inch display, respectively. But instead of the Dynamic Island on the front, both phones might feature an under-display Face ID sensors.

In other words, the cutouts for the TrueDepth sensor and the 3D dot projector could be hidden under a transparent patch in the screen. Besides that, the front camera could be moved to the top-left corner of the screen, giving the Pro models a unique yet familiar appearance.

Unique, as they would be the first iPhones to come with under-display Face ID sensors and a punch-hole cutout in the front, and familiar, because we’ve been seeing punch-hole displays (albiet mostly in the center) on Android smartphones for years.

Does this mean that the iPhone 18 Pro models will do away with the Dynamic Island, which unlocks interactive notifications and informative status indicators for background activities? Apple could still retain the feature, but it would be purely software-based.

Hence, buyers should expect to see the iPhone 18 Pro models in a new look this September (along with the purported iPhone Fold). The iPhone Air 2, with a Dynamic Island, could also debut at the same event. Meanwhile, the regular iPhone 18, with a familiar screen, could debut in the spring of 2027, alongside the iPhone 18e.

Shikhar Mehrotra
For more than five years, Shikhar has consistently simplified developments in the field of consumer tech and presented them…
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