This year’s iPhone could do away with the “notch”, swapping it for a small hole for the camera and putting Face ID under the screen, according to a new report.
The design would be the first major change to the front of the iPhone in years, as well as requiring technology not yet seen in any iPhone.
In recent iPhones, all of the hardware required for facial recognition and the front-facing camera are nestled in a notch at the top of the display. The screen wraps around the side of that notch, but the black components are visible at the top.
The new report suggests that the more premium versions of this year’s iPhone 14 would instead take some of those components and put them under the display. The camera would be left in a small “hole punch” cutout in the display itself, the leaks claim.
Those rumours come from Twitter leaker DylanDKT, who has successfully detailed Apple products before their release in the past. They also correspond with other leaks, including from reliable analyst Ming-chi Kuo and Apple journalist Mark Gurman.
“I am able to corroborate information regarding a hole punch camera for the pro models of the iPhone 14,” he wrote on Twitter. “Face ID hardware will be placed under the display. As a reassurance to any concerns, the functionality of these sensors have not been negatively affected by this change.”
The report suggests that the other cheaper models of the iPhone – equivalent to this year’s iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Mini – will keep the existing notch design.
Apple first introduced the notch with the iPhone X, at the same time as getting rid of the button at the bottom of the screen. It has stayed largely the same in the time since, though it was shrunk slightly in the latest generation of iPhones.
