Yesterday a rumor claimed the vanilla iPhone 18 would have some downgrades, and now a report seemingly clarifies one of the areas where Apple will save some money: the screen.
The leading candidate for the handset’s display allegedly uses Samsung’s M12+ material, which is a very slight enhancement of the M12 that was used in the iPhone 14 Pro and the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
On the other hand, the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max will both use the M16 material, the successor to the M14 which made its debut in the iPhone 16 Pro and which was then used in the entire iPhone 17 family.
So, if this pans out, the iPhone 18 will have a downgraded display compared to its predecessor. What the newer generations accomplish is better luminous efficiency, aka how much power the panel consumes to produce a given level of light. So what this means is that the iPhone 18’s panel, if it is indeed the M12+, might nullify the efficiency advantage of the A20 chip it will use, which is going to be made using a 2nm process.
Whether this will be felt in day-to-day use remains to be seen, as is whether the iPhone 18 will have worse battery life than the iPhone 17 (though even that can be mitigated by just fitting a slightly larger cell). It’s very early days still, given that the iPhone 18 is rumored to be launching next spring, and we’re sure we’ll be hearing a lot more about it in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned.