iPhone 15: Changes will help latest phone move towards ‘Apple’s dream’, report claims

(AFP via Getty Images)

The upcoming iPhone 15 will include a host of changes aimed at letting Apple achieve its long-awaited dream handset, according to a new report.

The updated handset will bring a host of new changes, including titanium frames that will make the device stronger and lighter, as well as new display technology that will let Apple shrink down the bezels around the display. That will mean that the black border around the device’s screen will be a third smaller, according to a new report from Bloomberg.

Apple has long been working to turn the iPhone into one slab of glass, without bezels or sides, so that the technology can disappear. In recent years, it has got considerably closer to that dream: with the iPhone X in 2017, it removed the “chin and forehead” at the bottom and top of the display, and since then it has further shrunk those bezels and the notch that is still required for cameras and other sensors.

Even still, however, the iPhone has a bezel that wraps around the display, where the screen attaches to the side of the phone. Apple has never been able to entirely remove that border.

The new device will not achieve that dream. But Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggested that the new device would bring it closer to it, by shrinking those sides down considerable.

It will also bring an action button in the place of a mute switch, and the introduction of USB-C in the place of the existing Lightning port. Both of those features have appeared on other Apple devices already, in the Apple Watch Ultra and iPad respectively.

Many of those changes have already been rumoured. But Mr Gurman has a strong track record of reporting Apple’s moves before they are publicly announced, suggesting that all those changes are likely to be true.

The non-Pro version of the iPhone will also get an improvement, in the form of the “Dynamic Island” that replaced the notch in this year’s iPhone 14 Pro. That allows for more of the display to be seen, and looks to use the black cutout for the sensors as a feature rather than a frustration.

All of those changes will bring an increased price, Mr Gurman reported, with prices expected to rise internationally and potentially even in the US. Recent reports have suggested the same, with some analysts indicating that some versions of the new iPhone could cost $200 more than its predecessor.

The new versions of the Apple Watch will also get their first meaningful chip upgrade since 2020, bringing a “sizeable performance bump”, Mr Gurman reported.