A Hole-Punch Camera
Finding somewhere to put the Touch ID sensor isn’t the only challenge Apple would face in trying to put an edge-to-edge display in an iPhone SE. There’s also the matter of where to put the camera.
The larger iPad Air and iPad mini both offer plenty of bezel space to tuck in the camera, but on a smaller iPhone screen, every millimetre counts. Although the camera would be considerably smaller without all the additional TrueDepth sensors, it probably still won’t fit into the edge spaces.
Instead, Apple is reportedly looking to go with a hole-punch camera system, similar to what many Android smartphones have done. This relatively simple front-facing camera won’t need a whole notch to accompany it, so a small camera cutout makes a lot more sense.
Rumour has it that next year’s iPhone 14 will also adopt the hole-punch design, but it remains to be seen how Apple plans to pull that off. It would be interesting, however, if the lower-cost iPhone SE went hole-punch while the flagship iPhones retained the notch. Then again, Apple has also been owning the notch lately by placing it in its highest-end products, so it may not be all that strange to see the more expensive iPhones continue in this direction.