iPhone 17 Pro Max might deliver the big design change fans want

If it weren’t for Face ID, we’d have a single type of smartphone display design right now: hole-punch screens like those on the Galaxy S24 phones and other Android devices. But the iPhone’s brilliant biometrics authentication system, one of the things I like the most about the iPhone, forced Apple to move from the notch display to the Dynamic Island.

Come the iPhone 17 series, Apple might deliver an even better version of the Dynamic Island display (above) it introduced in 2022. The pill-shaped cutout might be reduced thanks to a Face ID camera tech upgrade called metalens.

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When Apple introduced the all-screen Face ID design, the notch took up a large part of the top section of the display. The 2017 iPhone X featured that massive TrueDepth camera system capable of quickly performing 3D scans of the user’s face for authentication purposes.

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The iPhone X notch houses Face ID cameras and sensors, the selfie camera, and the speaker. Image source: Apple Inc.

Apple has then reduced the size of the notch, with the iPhone 13 delivering a significantly reduced cutout. Then, the iPhone 14 Pros brought the Dynamic Island, the hole-pill shape we also get on today’s iPhone 16 models. The Dynamic Island consists of two display cutouts connected by a tiny section of OLED display that’s permanently turned off to create the island shape.

Apple added software features around the Dynamic Island, turning this design compromise into the talk of the town back when the iPhone 14 series was launched.

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Apple’s iPhone 13 notch next to the iPhone 12 notch. Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

What I’m getting at is that Apple is continuously updating the TrueDepth camera design, and the goal is obvious. Eventually, the holes in the screen will disappear. The Face ID components and selfie camera will be placed under the screen.

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The evolution of the Face ID camera might continue with the iPhone 17 Pro Max. That’s according to analyst Jeff Pu. The analyst said in a research note seen by MacRumors that the Dynamic Island will be “much narrowed” on the iPhone 17 Pro Max. This will be the only model of the four iPhone 17 variants to get the upgrade.

Apple routinely uses the iPhone Pro Max model to introduce new features, which will trickle down to all the other versions in coming years. If the metalens rumor is accurate, the same thing will happen with this new Dynamic Island design. It’s unclear why Apple will only do it with the iPhone 17 Pro Max. Maybe mass-producing metalens units is too expensive and difficult.

The technology is exciting nonetheless. Metalenses are lenses that are made using various materials that are etched in a thin, flat lens. These particles allow the lens to focus light without requiring any curvatures. Here’s a description of the tech from an MIT report from early 2021:

Now MIT engineers have fabricated a tunable “metalens” that can focus on objects at multiple depths without changes to its physical position or shape. The lens is made not of solid glass but of a transparent “phase-changing” material that, after heating, can rearrange its atomic structure and thereby change the way the material interacts with light.

If Pu’s information is accurate, Apple might be ready to bring the technology to the iPhone. The analyst made similar claims about the iPhone 17 Pro Max earlier this year.

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