There's been more pushback against the recent analyst report that claimed Apple's all-glass 20th-anniversary iPhone next year has been canceled. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has already responded by saying the "glass-centric" redesign is still on track for 2027, and now a prominent Chinese leaker says the commemorative device indeed remains in active development.
Weibo-based leaker Digital Chat Station identifies the device as having two sizes in equivalent Pro/Pro Max variants, citing the internal codenames V73/V74 previously referenced by Gurman. Based on supply chain information, the leaker says the two new displays have increased in physical size while retaining the same aspect ratio. Their rationale for this is that Apple's borderless four-curved-edge design uses a flat 2D display combined with a glass cover, and takes advantage of the glass's optical refraction and shape to create the visual effect of a display lacking borders.
The description lines up with Gurman's claim that glass is used on the front and back of the phones, with the material curving into the sides, leaving only a small metal band in the middle.
Digital Chat Station's latest post also chimes with an earlier claim of theirs that Apple is testing a slightly larger 6.96-inch display for the device's Pro Max variant, suggesting the OLED panel itself is slightly bigger, but the extra area curves the display further into the device's edges while the chassis remains essentially the same size as the current iPhone 17 Pro Max.
Jefferies analyst Edison Lee caused a stir on Monday when he claimed Apple's rumored all-glass iPhone expected to mark the device's 20th anniversary has been canceled. Gurman soon refuted the claim based on his own information, though he did say that Apple had also considered a "more aspirational version" that "used even more glass" – but this was scrapped early on. It's quite possible that this more ambitious version was the device Lee was referring to in his report.
Either way, today's post from Digital Chat Station adds further weight to the possibility that Lee is off the mark, and that the radically redesigned 20th-anniversary iPhone is still in the works and should arrive in the fall of 2027.
