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The next three iPhones could all have big design changes – and one of them might match the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s camera

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No more camera cut-outs and a 200MP sensor

Apple iPhone 16 Pro REVIEW
The iPhone 16 Pro (Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)
  • The iPhone 18 could have under-display Face ID
  • With the iPhone 19, Apple might move the selfie camera under the display too
  • The company is also apparently testing a 200MP camera

Apple doesn’t usually change up the design of its phones every year, but the next three years could be different, as a leaker has shared a roadmap pointing to significant visual changes with each upcoming generation.

Digital Chat Station (via NotebookCheck) has shared a claimed roadmap detailing how Apple might alter the design of each iPhone from the iPhone 17 through to the iPhone 19. First up, with this year’s models we’ll apparently see the long-rumored horizontal, rectangular camera block. No surprises there.

But then in 2026 with the iPhone 18, Apple will apparently hide Face ID under the screen, so there’s just a punch-hole camera cut-out, and then with the iPhone 19 in 2027, the camera will also apparently be hidden under the screen, allowing for an all-screen design with no cut-out.

Numerous sources have suggested that this is something Apple is working on, and some agree with this timeline – in fact as far back as 2023 we heard that the iPhone 19 might get an under-display camera. Still, that’s a long way off so we’d take this with a pinch of salt.

A Samsung-rivaling snapper

What we also might see sometime in the next few years is an iPhone with a 200MP camera – which would be a match in terms of megapixels for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, and far more than the 48-megapixels found in current iPhones.

According to the same source (this time via @Jukanlosreve) Apple is testing a 200MP sensor, but if it’s only being tested there’s no guarantee it will ever be used. We also wouldn’t expect to see it on the iPhone 17 series, since this is the first we’re hearing of it, and we’d think such a big spec change would have typically been leaked long before now.

Digital Chat Station doesn’t say which model might get this, but we’d assume then that we won’t see it before the iPhone 18 at the earliest. And with all these leaks it’s entirely possible that only the Pro and Pro Max models will actually see these changes, at least initially, though the source doesn’t specify.

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James Rogerson

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.

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