Apple plans to launch a different phone called the iPhone 20 next year, as it approaches 20 years since the launch of the first-generation iPhone. It is expected to feature an almost entirely glass design and the largest display the company has used in its phones to date, according to a technology report published by the US site CNET.
Apple revives the iPhone 10 strategy
The plan recalls what Apple did in 2017, when it marked 10 years since the launch of the iPhone by introducing the iPhone 10. That phone brought a shift in the design language at the time, featuring the display notch for the first time, while the company abandoned the button on the front. Apple skipped the number 9, releasing the iPhone 8 before moving directly to the iPhone 10 within the same generation.
The report says the company plans to take a similar approach by skipping the number 19, while the design introduced with the iPhone 10 later became the basis for the designs used in subsequent generations of the company's phones. Since that shift, Apple has not made a major change to the iPhone's design, although it later adopted a smaller notch called the Dynamic Island.
Larger iPhone 20 displays with curved edges
Although the numerical difference between the display sizes is limited, curved edges could make users feel that the screen is larger than its actual measurement. This is consistent with an earlier Bloomberg report describing the expected display design as having a curve extending around all four corners.
Glass design extending to the back of the phone
Under this concept, the phone's edges would extend to the rear, which contains metal components and wireless charging units. This would make the device appear to be a single piece of glass with a metal strip running through its centre, delivering the glass design repeatedly mentioned in reports and rumours over recent years.
The report also said the new display could feature a smaller notch than the one used on the iPhone 18 Pro, along with a front-facing camera hidden beneath the front panel, similar to the technology the company introduced this year. The approach is intended to reduce the visible elements on the front and move towards a design in which the display covers most of the phone's front.
But implementing the design faces technical obstacles that already emerged when Apple attempted to hide sensors inside the display in current generations. On the iPhone Duo, the company removed the facial-recognition sensor entirely and relied on an internal camera hidden beneath the display, but people who tried the phone were unimpressed by the camera's quality, according to the report.
CNET expects Apple to raise prices for the next generation of iPhones, citing the new display design and the additional features expected. The report links these expectations to the company's decision not to raise its phone prices significantly this year, which could pave the way for higher pricing when the new generation launches.
Apple previously followed a similar policy in 2017 when it announced the iPhone 10, raising the device's price to about 1,000 dollars as a special edition. This year, the company launched its first foldable phone, called the iPhone Duo, at a price of 1,999 dollars, and also raised the prices of the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max by about 100 dollars per device compared with previous generations.
