Yesterday a rumor claimed that the vanilla iPhone 18 would have some downgrades, and now a report clarifies one of the areas where Apple will save some money: the screen.
The leading candidate for the handset’s display reportedly uses Samsung’s M12+ material, which is a very slight improvement on the M12 that was used in the iPhone 14 Pro and Galaxy S23 Ultra.
On the other hand, both the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max will use the M16 material, which is the successor to the M14 that made its debut in the iPhone 16 Pro and which was later used throughout the iPhone 17 family.
So, if it is successful, the iPhone 18 will have a downgraded display compared to its predecessor. What the new generations achieve is better luminous efficiency, that is, how much power the panel consumes to produce a given level of light. So this means that the iPhone 18 panel, if it is indeed the M12+, could eliminate the efficiency gains of the A20 chip it uses, which is going to be made using a 2nm process.
Whether this will be felt in everyday use remains to be seen, as does whether the iPhone 18 will have worse battery life than the iPhone 17 (though this could also be mitigated by fitting a slightly larger cell). It’s still very early days, given that the iPhone 18 is rumored to launch next spring, and we’re sure we’ll hear a lot more about it in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned.
