Will the iPhone 14 Pro really have this new look?
Dash dot...or maybe dot dash?
Latest rumours suggest the iPhone 14 will have a quite remarkable new look with the removal of the current ‘notch’ at the top of the display. The replacement will apparently be a lop-sided dual cut-out, a dot and a dash according to display analyst Ross Young.
The new design has been mocked up by FrontPageTech concept artist Ian Zelbo (above) and posted on Twitter.
Part of the reason for the sizeable notch in current iPhones – even though it got smaller with the iPhone 13 series – is the TrueDepth camera, infrared camera and dot projector that powers the Face ID tech. These three things sit in the current notch alongside the front-facing camera and proximity/ambient light sensors as well as a microphone. The front speaker is now above the notch on the iPhone 13 on the top edge of the phone.
Young says in a report for Display Supply Chain Consultants that the new design will still be unique to Apple and it won’t be a single horizontal cut-out as has also been recently rumoured.
The new design would represent a downsizing of the current system – though not a huge space-saving – but it isn’t the first we’ve heard of this – there has been a bit of noise around a design like this before, notably last September on Twitter.
Other associated rumours also came last year from reasonably reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who first pegged the new design as being a Pro exclusive (so for iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max rather than the standard iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 mini if it appears). He had been talking about a notch-less iPhone as early as March 2021 though.
The new report was surfaced by 9to5Mac. The design would certainly distinguish the iPhone from Android rivals which are usually defaulting to a single cutout. However, the potential new iPhone 14 design certainly isn’t as distinctive from other handsets as the notch.
Dan Grabham
Editor-in-Chief 
