If it weren’t for Face ID, we’d have only one type of smartphone display design right now: punch-hole displays like those on Galaxy S24 phones and other Android devices. But the iPhone’s brilliant biometric authentication system, one of the things I like most about the iPhone, obliged Apple to move from the notch display to the Dynamic Island.

Come on iPhone 17 series, Apple could deliver an even better version of the Dynamic Island display (above) that it introduced in 2022. The pill-shaped cutout could be reduced thanks to a Face ID camera technology upgrade called metalens.

When Apple introduced the full-screen Face ID design, the notch took up a large portion of the top of the screen. The 2017 iPhone X featured the massive TrueDepth camera system that can quickly perform 3D scans of the user’s face for authentication purposes.

Apple has since reduced the size of the notch, with the iPhone 13 offering a significantly reduced cutout. Then the iPhone 14 Pros brought the dynamic island, the punch-hole shape we also get on today’s iPhone 16 models. The Dynamic Island consists of two screen cutouts that are connected with a small part of the OLED screen that is permanently turned off to create the shape of the island.

Apple added software features around the Dynamic Island, turning this design compromise into the talk of the town when the iPhone 14 series launched.

What I mean is that Apple is continuously updating the TrueDepth camera design, and the goal is obvious. Eventually the holes in the screen will disappear. The Face ID components and the selfie camera will be placed under the display.

The development of the Face ID camera may continue with the iPhone 17 Pro Max. That’s what analyst Jeff Pu says. The analyst said in a research note seen by MacRumors that the Dynamic Island will be “much slimmer” on the iPhone 17 Pro Max. This will be the only model of the four iPhone 17 variants to receive the upgrade.

Apple routinely uses the iPhone Pro Max model to introduce new features, which will trickle down to all other versions in the coming years. If the metal’s reputation is true, the same will happen with this new Dynamic Island design. It’s unclear why Apple will only do that with the iPhone 17 Pro Max. Maybe mass producing metal lens devices is too expensive and difficult.

The technology is still exciting. Metalenses are lenses that are made of different materials that are etched into a thin, flat lens. These particles allow the lens to focus light without having to bend. Here is a description of the technology from an MIT Report from the beginning of 2021:

Now, MIT engineers have produced a tunable “metal” that can focus on objects at multiple depths without changing its physical position or shape. The lens is not made of solid glass, but of a transparent “phase-changing” material that, when heated, can rearrange its atomic structure, thereby changing how the material interacts with light.

If Pu’s information is correct, Apple may be ready to bring the technology to the iPhone. The analyst did similar claims about the iPhone 17 Pro Max earlier this year.