A shorter iPhone with an 18:9 screen could arrive once the front camera shrinks to a single cutout or moves fully under the display, according to a Weibo leaker. The phone would keep its current width and lose the height the status bar takes up today, which the leaker says would make it easier to hold and use with one hand.
Instant Digital, the leaker behind the idea, shared the concept on Weibo and called it speculation that should not be taken seriously. The same leaker previously said Apple was waiting on Samsung for a bezel-free iPhone display.
A shorter iPhone keeps today’s width
The leaker says Apple would not keep making the screen wider. The body would get shorter by the height of the status bar instead, which would move the screen from today’s 19.5:9 ratio to close to 18:9.
He says the screen would still show the same amount of information. Controls at the top of an app would share a row with the status bar instead of sitting in their own layer below it. The leaker says only that it would come in a few years, with no model or screen size, so 18:9 is the only measurement in the idea.
The leaker ties the change to the year the front of the phone has only one cutout, or none at all because the camera sits under the display. The iPhone 18 Pro already moves Face ID’s infrared camera under the display, which a teardown showed is how Apple made the smaller Dynamic Island.
An earlier leak said Apple’s work on an under-display selfie camera was on schedule for 2027. The replies under the leaker’s post point later. Another Weibo user wrote that iPhones in 2027 and 2028 will still have a camera cutout and a 19.5:9 screen, and Instant Digital agreed before adding that some industry sources say the 2028 iPhone has no cutout.
In a separate Weibo post, Instant Digital said he has a growing hunch that iOS will change substantially after next year’s 20th anniversary iPhone. The hunch covers a new interaction logic that people are not used to, and not only a visual redesign. That phone is rumored to be the biggest redesign since the iPhone X.
The iPhone Duo has been on sale since October 23 and already uses a different iOS layout. The iOS 27 layout on the iPhone Duo puts controls, the Dock and app navigation along the side of the screen to free up vertical space. The sideways Reachability in iOS 27.3 beta 1 slides the app to the left or right of the outer display instead of down.
