Dimples. The next iPad Pro will have dimples. If the new iPhone X is said to have "horns" or a "brow" or "ears", depending on which tech commentator you speak to, then we're asserting that the next iPad Pro will have dimples.
Yes. The familiar shape of the iPhone has changed, and the iPhone X introduced us to a new shape and size, with an outline that is all-screen, except for a small area at the top. This top area in black houses the TrueDepth Camera System, a speaker, and sensors, surrounded by a border that has become known as "the notch".
Internally during development at Apple, it was the areas beside the notch that were the focus of nicknames. These areas, housing the time and signal strength, were nicknamed "the ears". Others have called them "horns". Other people called the camera notch the "forehead", the "top chin", or the "black bit". Not very complimentary.
The next iPad Pro will have dimples.
Alas, the next iPad Pro is set to include the TrueDepth Camera System, and it will need to house those cameras, projectors, and sensors around the bezel somewhere. While the iPhone X is typically used in portrait aspect, the iPad is not so lucky. The iPad is sometimes used in portrait, sometimes rotated sideways to landscape aspect to watch movies, attach a keyboard for typing, or to sketch with the Apple Pencil.
Apple will need to decide where to put the cameras. Do they belong on the long-edge? Do they belong on the short edge? Of course they will work in either location, but the determining factor is likely to be field research to find out whether an iPad Pro spends most of its time which way up.
The iPhone is typically marketed standing up, the way it would look when you hold it in your hand for a phone call. The iPad is shown in both variations. Will Apple want the silhouettes to be similar, and so put the camera system atop the short edge of the iPad Pro? Possibly.
However, here at XYZtech, anticipate that Apple wont be using an OLED screen in the 2018 iPad Pro. They'll stay with the current advanced LED screen technology. This will limit their design creativity when it comes to edges and bezels. If Apple wants to maintain design parity with the iPhone X, they'll want rounded corners on the screen, and slim bezels, and notch at the top. LED screens are typically rectangular, and don't lend themselves to rounded corners.
Apple could overcome this by using a rectangular screen, edge to edge, top to bottom, with a border around the glass that mimics that silhouette of the iPhone X, creating a small bezel all the way around, while being a right-angled screen underneath that is hidden by the rounded corners drawn over the top in black paint.
It's these painted-on rounded corners that we refer to as the dimples - the cute anomalies that endear us to its gaping maw.
Until next time,
Xavier Zymantas
XYZ Media Group