Apple still plans ‘glass-centric’ iPhone redesign for 2027

In a bid to refute a report from Jefferies analyst Edison Lee earlier today that Apple’s all-glass iPhone planned for the device’s 20th anniversary next year has been canceled, BloombergMark Gurman of , says the “glass-centric” redesign remains on track for 2027.

Gurman says the 20th anniversary iPhone will make heavy use of glass, with the front and back wrapping around the edges to sandwich a thin metal strip.

The company plans to launch iPhone Pro models next year that will use a new glassy look, according to the people who asked not to be identified because the work is confidential. Glass is used on the front and back of the phones – known internally as the V73 and V74 – and the material will curve around the sides of the devices, with a metal strip down the middle.

Gurman mentions a “more ambitious version” that “used even more glass,” but says the design “was abandoned early” in the development cycle.

It’s possible that this more ambitious design is what Lee was referring to in today’s report, but Gurman implies that it was abandoned some time ago, rather than being a more recent development as Lee had suggested.

Lee’s report also seems to suggest that the all-glass design would have been intended for an entirely new model, saying that analysts at Jefferies believed Apple’s plan was to “expand all-glass features to future iPhone Pro and Pro Max models,” but we haven’t heard of such a potential additional model in some time. All recent rumors indicate that the glass-based design is already here for the Pro and Pro Max models in next year’s lineup.