Apple could be waiting on Samsung to solve one of the biggest remaining challenges in smartphone design: making an iPhone display that effectively wraps around all four sides of the phone.
According to Chinese leaker Instant Digital, Samsung is developing a next-generation OLED panel that Apple is interested in using for a future iPhone. Internally, Samsung reportedly calls it a “full-surround, full-screen display”, and the idea is considerably more ambitious than the curved screens we’ve seen on phones before.
Rather than using a waterfall-style curved display, the main panel would remain flat while the OLED bends sharply downwards at almost 90 degrees along all four edges and corners. Those folded sections would effectively form the sides of the phone, replacing much of the conventional metal or plastic frame.
The payoff would be an iPhone with almost no visible bezel when viewed from the front. Display wiring and other components that normally sit behind the bezels could also be moved around the edges, while the technology could potentially allow Apple to remove traditional physical buttons altogether.
There’s still a fair bit standing in the way, though. The reported design has to overcome optical distortion and colour shifts around the corners, while Samsung also needs to maintain the OLED panel’s protective encapsulation when it is bent so sharply. Antennas could be another headache, since covering all four sides in display leaves fewer obvious places to put them.
That’s why Apple is reportedly waiting for Samsung to finalise the technology rather than simply adopting it for an upcoming iPhone.
It’s also worth separating this idea from another rumoured Apple display upgrade. The company’s 20th-anniversary iPhone, expected in 2027, has been tipped to feature a less extreme four-sided quad-curved display. According to Instant Digital, that could serve as an intermediate step towards the more ambitious full-surround design.
For now, this remains an unconfirmed leak, and there’s no indication of when Apple could actually use Samsung’s technology. But if the reported approach works, it could take the familiar iPhone design a lot closer to a genuinely bezel-free screen.
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