It’s the summer season of 2024. Nearly seven years have handed for the reason that iPhone X launched the primary smartphone with uniformly skinny bezels (apart from the notch). It was a design that everybody else copied. All smartphones have extremely skinny bezels nowadays, they usually all function basically the identical design: a hole-punch show takes up nearly all of a cellphone’s entrance panel. Even nonetheless, distributors are nonetheless competing to supply the smallest bezels.
The iPhone 16 Professional and 16 Professional Max will function even thinner bezels than final 12 months’s fashions. That’s after the present iPhone 15 Professional fashions have already got even smaller bezels than earlier iPhones. This can solely strain Android distributors to go after Apple and additional scale back the bezels of future units.
The response to the iPhone 16 Professional Max’s purported bezels from a diehard Galaxy fan who occurs to be a distinguished Samsung leaker is the very best proof of that. Some folks will need these bezels to shrink down till they finally disappear. However there may be one reason Apple’s push is essential this 12 months.
Ice Universe is the leaker in query. He often focuses on Samsung Galaxy telephones, however he has been identified to speak about numerous iPhone fashions as effectively.
The Samsung insider posted a brief tweet on Monday, saying he realized from a buddy that the iPhone 16 Professional telephones may have thinner bezels than the Galaxy S24 handsets. Which means the iPhone 16 Professional fashions will function the world’s narrowest bezels.
That’s actually not shocking. We’ve been speaking in regards to the skinny iPhone 16 Professional bezels for months. Most not too long ago, we realized that Samsung and LG can lastly mass-produce the OLED panels Apple wants for the iPhone 16 Professional fashions. The iPhone 16 Professional Max screens would get related approvals quickly. Beforehand, studies from Korea mentioned the brand new Border Discount Construction tech posed critical manufacturing issues.
Ice Universe adopted up with renders that present the purported iPhone 16 Professional Max bezels.
He additionally put up a render of the iPhone 16 Professional Max subsequent to the iPhone 15 Professional Max to spotlight the bezel improve. It’s clear that the bezels are smaller, however the picture may be deceptive as a result of the 2 units aren’t the identical measurement. That’s some extent I’ll return to beneath.
Lastly, the leaker posted a schematic that provides an precise measurement for the iPhone 16 Professional Max bezel. If it’s correct, the bezel measures simply 1.153 mm.
So why is Apple doing it? The reply is easy: the iPhone 16 Professional and iPhone 16 Professional Max are going to be barely bigger than earlier Professionals. We’re getting 6.3-inch and 6.9-inch screens as a substitute of the earlier 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch shows.
Apple wants further house contained in the cellphone to position a tetraprism digicam within the iPhone 16 Professional with out impacting battery life. That’s a choice that impacts each Professional fashions. If the iPhone 16 Professional turns into barely taller and wider than all Professional fashions that preceded it, the iPhone 16 Professional Max has to grow to be bigger.
However Apple doesn’t wish to make the brand new iPhone Professionals too giant in comparison with their predecessors. Shrinking the bezels permits Apple to extend the display screen measurement diagonally and make it look like an even bigger improve than it’s. A 6.3-inch show improve sounds higher than a 6.2-inch display screen. The identical logic applies to the iPhone 16 Professional Max, in fact.
That’s how we find yourself with this new battle within the bezel conflict. The iPhone 16 Professional and 16 Professional Max will certainly function smaller bezels than ever. Samsung will inevitably should shrink the bezels of the Galaxy S25 subsequent 12 months.
