Having spoken to supply chain sources in Asia, analysts for British bank Barclays are expecting next year’s iPhones to get larger screens made possible by a shift to a bezel-less design.
In a note sent to clients and quoted from by Business Insider today, the analysts, Blayne Curtis and Christopher Hemmelgarn, remark: “iPhone 8 design didn’t sound 100% locked down but we believe the move is to a bezel-less design with screen sizes getting larger and curved edges in the original envelope.”
This, the analysts added, would see the iPhone 8 moving to a 5-inch display and the iPhone 8 Plus getting a 5.8-inch screen. The respective screen sizes of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo had, in March, predicted a 5.8-inch iPhone for 2017.
However, the Barclays analysts said that only the Plus handsets will get OLED screens, most of which will be provided by Samsung and LG. A plastic OLED display “can bend at the edges to allow a curved bezel-less edge”, the note said, though it claimed that supply issues will prevent the smaller iPhone 8 getting OLEDs as well.
Also predicted, for arrival in March, are similarly bezel-less iPads. “We expect the 9.7-inch to move to a low-cost model, a refresh of the 12.9-inch Pro and a new 10.9-inch, which is likely the same physical size as the 9.7-inch but with a borderless screen,” the note said.
These new iOS products should help Apple to keep the threat of Google’s Android at bay. As we reveal in the lead article of the just-released issue #263 of AppleMagazine, the competition between these two mobile operating systems remains tight, but is also slowly undergoing a fascinating transformation.