Apple is Testing iPhone Prototype With Symmetrical, Slightly Curved Glass on Front and Back

Bloomberg today corroborated many features allegedly coming to the Tenth Anniversary iPhone aka iPhone 8. Describing 2017 iPhones as “Apple’s most extensive iPhone lineup to date”, Bloomberg says Apple is testing a revamped iPhone with an all-screen front, curved glass and a stainless steel frame alongside upgrades to iPhone 7 models.

Bloomberg also says that an ambitious prototype was in testing with more dramatic curves on the top and bottom of the rear glass, similar to the original iPhone. Suppliers struggled to reliably produce the heavily curved glass so Apple is more likely to ship the design with more subdued curves.

The report mentions the following iPhone 8 features:

• Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen that shows colors more accurately
• The screen covers almost the entire front of the device
• The display is slightly larger than that on iPhone 7 Plus
• Overall device size is closer to iPhone 7
• At launch, iPhone 8 will exclusively use Samsung-made OLED panels
• Home button integrated into the display via software, like Galaxy S8
• In-screen fingerprint scanner, “which would be technically challenging”
• Curved glass
• Stainless steel materials
• Dual-camera system on the back aligned vertically for improved photography
• Dual-lens system for the front-facing camera
• Camera components from Sony, like on prior iPhones
• Cameras to support AR features and enhanced depth-of-field photography
• Apple engineers have experimented with integrating cameras into screens
• Phones to run iOS 11 with “a refreshed user-interface”
• Faster 10nm Apple-designed processors for all three iPhone models

 The report goes on to detail features found in some of the more than ten iPhone 8 prototypes that Apple is believed to have tested with manufacturing partners in Asia:

• Prototype #1: Flat OLED screen and the cover glass that curves into a steel frame. Design conceptually similar to iPhone 4 with symmetrical, slightly curved glass on the front/back and the curves similar in shape to those on the front of iPhone 7. â€œAn earlier prototype design had a thinner steel band, leaving more noticeable curved glass on the sides,“ reads the article.
• Prototype #2: The same slightly curved front and steel frame like Prototype #1 with a glass back having “more dramatic curves” on the top and bottom akin to the original iPhone design from 2007.
• Prototype #3: Basically a tweaked Prototype #2, only slightly larger, with a simpler design with an aluminum back rather than a glass one. This is Apple’s fallback device because suppliers have so far “struggled to reliably produce heavily curved glass in mass quantities.”

So what do you think ?