iPhone 18 Pro preview: Return to single-hole screen, completely reborn

A blogger revealed that the iPhone 18 Pro series will soon launch two new screens: one is a 6.27-inch 1.5K LTPO screen, and the other is a 6.86-inch 1.5K LTPO screen.

Both screens adopt a single-hole screen design and are equipped with under-screen Face ID technology, which means that the iPhone 18 Pro series will become the first single-hole screen mobile phone in Apple’s history, marking an important breakthrough for Apple in screen design.

Since the iPhone 14 Pro series introduced the pill-screen design, Apple has officially entered the pill-screen era. This design is also called the “exclamation mark screen” by some netizens.

Although this design was eye-catching at one time, over time many users criticized its appearance, believing that the pill screen was not beautiful enough. Therefore, Apple decided to make a change and return to a simpler single-hole screen design.

In order to deal with the visual disturbance caused by the pill screen, Apple launched the “Smart Island” design, which covers the originally conspicuous pill shape with a black background and cleverly integrates UI elements into it.

However, this design is still a compromise for the pill screen, and the most ideal solution is still to hide the Face ID component under the screen. After years of technological accumulation, Apple has finally achieved this goal and is expected to realize under-screen face recognition in the iPhone 18 Pro series.

The key challenge of under-screen Face ID technology is the transmittance of infrared light. Although infrared light can penetrate the display, its transmittance is very low, resulting in slower face recognition speed and reduced reliability.

To overcome this problem, Apple’s patented design deletes some screen sub-pixels to increase the transmittance of infrared light, allowing it to pass through the screen smoothly for facial recognition.

If this technology can be successfully commercialized, the iPhone 18 Pro series will become the most changed mobile phone in Apple’s history, and the pill-shaped screen will completely disappear from the stage of history.