Apple's 20th-anniversary iPhone isn't dead, but it just lost some glass
The most talked-about iPhone of 2027 is still happening, just not in the form the rumour mill had settled on. Bloomberg reports that Apple is going ahead with a glass-centric redesign for the iPhone's 20th anniversary next year, with the new look reserved for the Pro models. Glass runs across the front and back and curves into the sides, broken up by a metal band through the middle. The two devices are known internally as V73 and V74.
That puts Bloomberg at odds with Jefferies analyst Edison Lee, who told clients earlier this week that supply chain checks showed the all-glass iPhone had been canned over poor yields. Lee called it a major setback for Apple's push into pricier iPhones at a time when memory costs are climbing, and downgraded the stock on the back of it. Bloomberg's sources say the product roadmap hasn't changed at all. -
What actually got cancelled was the more ambitious versionApple's design studio had pushed for a far more aggressive concept that swapped out the metal for even more glass. That one died early. Engineers ran into trouble joining the glass panels together, and the design fell apart once the question turned to manufacturing it in the millions. So the anniversary phone survives as an evolution of the idea rather than the purist version.
Timing supports Bloomberg's account. Apple typically locks an iPhone design roughly a year before its September reveal, which means the 2027 phones are already deep in testing.
Before any of that, there's next month. Apple is expected to show a foldable iPhone , the biggest change to the product's shape yet, alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max with camera upgrades and a new dark red finish. The base iPhone 18, the 18e and a second-generation iPhone Air follow in spring. All of it lands on John Ternus, who becomes CEO on September 1.
That puts Bloomberg at odds with Jefferies analyst Edison Lee, who told clients earlier this week that supply chain checks showed the all-glass iPhone had been canned over poor yields. Lee called it a major setback for Apple's push into pricier iPhones at a time when memory costs are climbing, and downgraded the stock on the back of it. Bloomberg's sources say the product roadmap hasn't changed at all. -
What actually got cancelled was the more ambitious versionApple's design studio had pushed for a far more aggressive concept that swapped out the metal for even more glass. That one died early. Engineers ran into trouble joining the glass panels together, and the design fell apart once the question turned to manufacturing it in the millions. So the anniversary phone survives as an evolution of the idea rather than the purist version.
Timing supports Bloomberg's account. Apple typically locks an iPhone design roughly a year before its September reveal, which means the 2027 phones are already deep in testing.
Before any of that, there's next month. Apple is expected to show a foldable iPhone , the biggest change to the product's shape yet, alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max with camera upgrades and a new dark red finish. The base iPhone 18, the 18e and a second-generation iPhone Air follow in spring. All of it lands on John Ternus, who becomes CEO on September 1.
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