There have been rumors that Apple is working on iMacs, iPhones, and external monitors with slim-to-no bezels. Apple has filed for a patent for “Displays with Pinhole Openings” that shows the tech giant is still considering such products.
About the patent filing
In the patent filing Apple notes that there’s a trend towards borderless electronic devices with a full-face display. These devices may include sensors such as cameras, ambient light sensors, and proximity sensors to provide other device capabilities. Apple’s patent filing involves steps to making such display reality.
In fact, the 20th anniversary iPhone, due in 2027, is rumored to have a Liquid Glass display that makes bezels “disappear.” An X post from the leaker known as “Ice Universe” had this to say: Apple may define its next generation display as “Liquid Glass Display.”
It is not a traditional quad curved display, nor is it anything like the curved screen solutions we have seen on Android phones over the years. The curvature itself could be extremely subtle. What truly creates the visual impact may be a sophisticated combination of optical refraction, light guiding structures, and carefully engineered visual illusion.
The end result could be a display where the bezel nearly disappears from sight, while edge viewing remains natural and undisturbed. It flows like liquid, yet stays as pure and transparent as glass. This could be an entirely new display language.
Summary of the patent filing
Here’s Apple’s (very technical) abstract of the patent filing: “An electronic device may include a camera or other sensor that operates through a display. The display may include an array of pixels, and each pixel may include an emissive subpixel and a thin-film transistor (TFT) subpixel that drives the emissive subpixel of that pixel. To minimize interference with the light that passes through the display, the display may be modified to have one or more holes/windows.
“The hole(s) may be formed by removing the TFT subpixel of one or more pixels in the display, while retaining the emissive subpixel(s) of the one or more pixels. Anodes of the emissive subpixel(s) may be formed from transparent material to improve the transparency of the hole. In this way, light may pass through the hole, but the hole may maintain the uniformity of the display.”
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