In 2027 the iPhone will celebrate its 20th birthday, and this has raised expectations of a momentous launch. In 2017, for comparison, we got the iPhone X, an almost all-screen handset and Apple’s first phone without a Home button. What’s in store next year? That depends on who you ask.
For some time pundits have predicted that the 20th-anniversary iPhone will be a major redesign. Rumors have pointed to a very large “quad-curved screen”, with glass making up the majority of the chassis, both front and back. But this vision was put in doubt earlier this week when Jefferies analyst Edison Lee claimed the project had been canceled as a result of “low yield” or a lack of projected return on investment.
This news was such a disappointment to investors that shares in the company promptly dropped by almost 3 percent.
But Mark Gurman, one of the foremost leakers pushing the quad-curved theory, has now published a new report insisting that Lee is mistaken. In the Bloomberg article, Gurman claims Apple “is still planning to offer a glass-centric overhaul of the iPhone for the device’s 20th anniversary,” citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter and specifically calling out the Jefferies report as incorrect.
Gurman does concede that changes have been made to the project as a result of scaling difficulties. Originally the design was going to be almost entirely glass, but Apple “encountered problems connecting the glass panels together… when [the company] had to figure out how to produce it at large volumes.” The current plan involves a metal band connecting the front and back glass panels.
But it’s still an ambitious and groundbreaking design, according to Gurman’s sources, with curves on all four sides. And we’re getting to the point where plans are starting to firm up. In the leaker’s words, the 2027 plans “are already in advanced testing and mostly locked in,” barring unexpected problems.
That sounds good. But if I have one tip for those following iPhone leaks, it’s that you should expect unexpected problems. The glass-centric iPhone isn’t completely locked in until we see it on stage in September 2027.
And of course, before then we’ve got the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra to look forward to next month, so there’s no need to get ahead of ourselves.
