2019 Apple iPhones won't use a notch, report says

The iPhone X was a big experiment for Apple, and one that came with a few features that weren't received well. The biggest of those was the $1,000 price tag, but the unsightly notch at the top of the display ended up looking like a design oversight. There's even an app available to hide it! Thankfully, it may be gone by next year.

In reality, the notch was required due to the iPhone X using an all-screen design. Apple needed somewhere to hide the front-facing camera, infra-red camera, dot projector, flood illuminator, speaker, microphone, proximity and ambient light sensors. The notch was therefore a necessity until such components can be made to work from behind the display.

According to 9To5Mac, Apple may have already figured out how to do that, or at least include these components without requiring a notch while retaining the all-important Face ID. A report from Korea claims Apple's OLED phones arriving in 2019 will not include a notch. Instead, Apple is finding an alternative solution, but what that is has yet to be confirmed.

Ideas being thrown around include drilling sensor holes in the display, a design Samsung already filed a patent for, and the use of Black Matrix areas within the display. However, it could be Apple will opt for a much simpler solution: a combination of a slightly thicker screen bezel and a reduction in size of the current notch-bound components.

   As is always the case with Apple-related news, we won't have anything confirmed by Apple until launch day. However, in recent years the details flooding out in the run up to a new iPhone launch often turn out to be correct. So if we're still hearing about the notch being removed this time next year, it's probably gone and I think everyone will be happy about that.