Apple applies for patent on that ‘single slab of glass’ iPhone

iOS 26 is giving us a glass-like UI, but Apple’s long-term vision for the iPhone hardware is what former design chief Jony Ive referred to as a “single slab of glass.”

A new Apple patent application appears to refer to work on this, describing a “six-sided glass enclosure” …

An all-glass iPhone

Ive may be long gone from his role at Apple, but the company is believed to be still working toward his vision of a device which would look like a single slab of glass.

The company’s first major step toward that was the launch of the iPhone X back in 2017, but progress since then has been incremental. Bezels have gradually decreased in width, but are still very much in evidence.

Eliminating them altogether would require a curved display which bends around the sides of the device. The Apple Watch kind of fakes this look, by hiding the bezels beneath curved glass, but the company’s goal for the iPhone is for the display to be active all the way into those curved edges.

Samsung achieved this with the sides of its earlier Galaxy Edge series, but the trade-off was very substantial forehead and chin areas, and the company changed its goal to simply making the thinnest possible bezels.

However, Apple is believed to want to go beyond this, essentially making the entire iPhone appear to be just one solid slab of glass.

Latest patent describes six sides of glass

A patent application for a glass enclosure describes how Apple could get close to this.

An electronic device includes a six-sided glass enclosure defining an interior volume and comprising a first glass member and a second glass member. The first glass member defines at least a portion of a first major side of the six-sided glass enclosure, at least a portion of a peripheral side of the six-sided glass enclosure, a first region along the peripheral side and having a first thickness, and a second region along the peripheral side and having a second thickness different from the first thickness. The second glass member is attached to the first glass member and defines at least a portion of a second major side of the six-sided glass enclosure.

The electronic device further includes a touchscreen display within the interior volume and positioned adjacent at least a portion of each of the six sides of the six-sided glass enclosure.

The phrase “at least a portion of” is potentially doing some heavy lifting there, Apple admitting that it won’t be glass and nothing but glass. However, the company says that it would give the appearance of a single slab of glass.

The enclosure may appear visually and tactilely seamless, such that the entire enclosure may appear to be formed from a single piece of glass (even though it may be formed from multiple separate pieces attached together).

Additionally, the application says that content would be displayed on every edge, and each would also be touch sensitive.

The electronic device may further include a touch-sensitive display assembly attached to an interior surface of the enclosure and configured to display graphical outputs visible through at least a portion of each of the two major sides and at least a portion of each of the four peripheral sides of the enclosure, and detect touch inputs applied to the enclosure.

Apple says that there would be holes in the glass for microphones and speakers.

The company is of course some time away from being able to actually manufacture this. For now, the closest we are likely to get is the upcoming iPhone 17 Air, which will be the slimmest iPhone the company has ever made.

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Image: Modified version of photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash