Apple is reportedly asking its OLED suppliers Samsung Display and LG Display to develop bezel-less OLED panels. The move is twofold: Initially, Apple wants to reduce the bezels on this year’s iPhone 15 Pro models, then, probably in a few years, Apple is looking to adopt the full display. That means no camera cutouts and as thin a bezel as possible.
That possible word is the key. There are some critical hurdles facing Apple’s frameless plans right now. One is the under-panel camera (UPC): currently the outer film layer isn’t as thin as it needs to be to accommodate an under-display camera. Then there’s thin-film encapsulation (TFE), which protects the OLED from moisture and oxygen. It is made by stacking an inorganic film and an organic film: the inorganic film blocks moisture and oxygen, while the organic film blocks gaps in the inorganic film.
The third problem is that Apple wants to keep the iPhone’s display flat, which makes it difficult to bend the screen circuitry into the bottom display bezel. Apple reportedly doesn’t want a curved display because of the magnifying glass effect it has at the edges and because it sees curved screens as easier to break.
These are all challenges facing Apple’s display suppliers, meaning a truly bezel-less iPhone is still a long way off.
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