Sources: Apple's next iPhones will have no physical home button, include one curved OLED model and two LCD models, and come with a USB-C power cord
Rival Samsung will be the initial supplier of OLED screens for Apple's 10th anniversary iPhones — TOKYO— Apple Inc. has decided to adopt …
Context & Ripple Effects
This report lands between two earlier scoops about the same fall lineup: Bloomberg had already flagged three iPhones coming this fall, including a high-end curved-OLED model that might slip. What the Wall Street Journal adds is the supply chain detail — Samsung, Apple's fiercest handset rival, becomes the initial OLED supplier for the 10th-anniversary device.
The no-home-button and USB-C details matter because they signal how far Apple will push the redesign on the premium model while keeping cheaper LCD siblings alongside it — a split that shapes the lineup for years, through the 2018 expectation that pricier OLEDs would leave LCD models as the sales majority and ultimately to the plan for OLED across every iPhone sold from 2025.
First-order effects
- Samsung secures the founding OLED supply slot for Apple's anniversary iPhone, converting its display manufacturing scale into revenue from its biggest smartphone competitor.
- Apple's removal of the physical home button forces a touch-and-gesture interaction redesign on the flagship model while the two LCD variants preserve a familiar, lower-cost option.
Second-order effects
- The cost gap between OLED and LCD pushes Apple into a durable two-tier lineup — later reporting shows it expecting LCD units to outsell OLED flagships — which pressures display makers to cut OLED prices to win share of the volume tier.
- Samsung's early monopoly position gives rival panel suppliers a clear target: the path to qualifying as secondary iPhone OLED vendors becomes the industry's most valuable supply qualification.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, OLED displaces LCD from iPhones entirely — which is exactly where the arc ends, with even budget SE models switching to OLED panels from BOE and LG by 2025 — ending LCD's run in Apple's flagship product line.
- Apple's supplier strategy structurally shifts from single-source dependence on Samsung toward a multi-vendor OLED base, diluting the leverage its chief rival gained at the start.
The trend: iPhone displays follow a decade-long migration from LCD to OLED, beginning with a single Samsung-supplied premium model and ending with an all-OLED, multi-supplier lineup.