A future iPhone could keep its current width while becoming shorter, with iOS preserving room for content by moving some controls into the status bar, in a theory shared by the Weibo leaker known as "Instant Digital."
Instant Digital imagines Apple shortening a non-folding iPhone once its display has only a single camera cutout or the front-facing camera moves entirely beneath the screen. Taking roughly a status bar's worth of height off the display would bring its aspect ratio from around 19.5:9 to closer to 18:9, apparently making the phone easier to hold and use with one hand.
Controls that currently sit below the status bar could share a row with the time and system indicators. Instant Digital's idea is that combining the two rows would let the shorter display show the same amount of information. The leaker described the layout and proportions as personal speculation.
Apple has already changed how iOS uses the space at the top of the screen with the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo. The iPhone 18 Pro's smaller Dynamic Island supports up to three simultaneous Live Activities, up from two on earlier models. On the iPhone Duo, iOS fits a compact status bar into the corner and positions the Dynamic Island vertically along the side of the outer display.
The timing of a cutout-free display on the iPhone remains uncertain. The leaker "Digital Chat Station" has said Apple is testing under-display camera technology and has described an intermediate design with a visible hole for the front-facing camera, similar to the iPhone Duo.
In a follow-up post on Weibo, another user said they expect iPhones to retain a camera cutout and a 19.5:9 aspect ratio in both 2027 and 2028. Instant Digital replied that some sources say the cutout could disappear in 2028. Display analyst Ross Young has separately said he expects the 2028 iPhone Pro models to retain a centered camera cutout.
In a separate post, Instant Digital said they had a growing hunch that iOS would change substantially after the 20th-anniversary iPhone launches in 2027. They expect changes to how users interact with the software as well as how it looks.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that the anniversary iPhone will have curved glass and thinner bezels in the biggest overhaul to the Pro line since the iPhone X. Digital Chat Station has also said Apple was testing a roughly 7-inch display for the largest anniversary model with the same aspect ratio as the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
The iPhone X offers a precedent for a hardware redesign changing how people use iOS. When Apple removed the Home button in 2017, iOS 11 introduced swipe-up navigation on the iPhone X.
