I might not need to buy the iPhone 14 Pro to get rid of the notch

The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max may not be the only iPhone 14s to get a hole-punch camera

The notch is going to go on the Apple iPhone 14 Pro
(Image credit: Apple)

We're pretty certain that the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are going to lose the divisive notch, with a hole-punch design more like that of the Samsung Galaxy S21. But they might not be the only iPhone 14 models to say no to the notch. The normal iPhone 14 might get a hole punch display too.

According to MacRumors, the panels for the 6.1-inch iPhone 14 Pro and the 6.8-inch iPhone 14 Pro Max will be LPTO OLED displays from Samsung and LG. Samsung will provide all the panels for the iPhone 14 Pro, while some of the panels for the iPhone 14 Pro Max will be made by LG. All of those panels will be hole-punched rather than notched, which means more of the display will be visible and usable.

But there's also an interesting nugget in the story: "if yields are good, all iPhone models in 2022 could feature the same notchless design."

Buenas Notchless

That's pretty exciting: if Apple can get enough iPhone 14-sized notchless panels without encountering quality control issues, the entire iPhone 14 range will no longer have the notch (there are apparently no plans for an iPhone 14 version of the iPhone 13 mini). 

The only possible fly in the ointment here, panel production aside, is physical space. If there's no notch, the Face ID sensor needs to go somewhere else – and both the iPhone 14 Pro and the iPhone 14 Pro Max are bigger than the standard iPhone, so there's more room for components. The standard iPhone 14 may be more difficult to change. I like to imagine Apple's engineers are playing a very intricate kind of telephone Tetris with their iPhone 14 prototypes right now, and I hope they win.

Carrie Marshall

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series. When she’s not scribbling, she’s the singer in Glaswegian rock band HAVR (havrmusic.com).