The 2019 iPhones may get significantly thinner thanks to a new OLED panel designed by Samsung.
Ever since the iPhone 6 reached peak thinness at just 6.9mm, they have slowly gotten thicker. It started with the iPhone 6S, which Apple made thicker due to the bendgate controversy, and culminated with the iPhone XR, which measures in at 8.3mm thick.
It seems that trend will change in 2019 thanks to Samsung. According to a report from ETNews, Apple is looking into adopting a new OLED panel designed by Samsung called Y-OCTA that integrates the touchscreen layer and the display panel into a single component. This will allow Apple to put in one less component within the iPhone that could reduce the thickness of its smartphone for the first time in years.
While that would be a nice addition aesthetically, it’s not like people are being turned off by the increased thickness of iPhones. At some point, the thinness of devices became unnecessary, leading to design compromises, like smaller batteries. Hence why the increased thickness of the iPhones hasn’t been much of an issue over the past few years.
We seem to have hit the sweet spot, but with technology advancing, it may push that thinness threshold even further. Hopefully, Apple finds a nice middle ground between a thinner iPhone and improving key features customers want.
