After analyzing the latest chatter in Apple’s supply chain following a trip to Asia this week, Barclays Research analysts predicted the Cupertino firm will offer a next-generation ‘iPhone 8’ in 2017 in two sizes, one with a screen measuring five inches and the other featuring a 5.8-inch display.

Because the handsets will utilize curved screens, they’re expected to have a bezel-less design allowing them to increase display size while retaining the same overall size as the current 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhones.

The supply chain sources also claim that only the bigger 5.8-inch iPhone will feature an OLED display. The OLED display will be curved on its edge, similar to what Samsung uses on its ‘edge’ devices like the Galaxy S7 edge and S6 edge. Apple will only be using OLED displays on the bigger iPhone due to supply constraints, and it will eventually switch to an OLED screen on the smaller iPhone in 2018 once Sharp’s OLED factories are up and running.

Barclays’ Blayne Curtis, Christopher Hemmelgarn, Thomas O’Malley and Jerry Zhang:

iPhone 8 design didn’t sound 100 percent locked down, but we believe the move is to a bezel-less design with screen sizes getting larger and curved edges in the original envelope. The iPhone 8 moves to five inches (from 4.7 inches) and the iPhone 8 Plus moves to 5.8 inches from 5.5 inches.

This is not the first time that we have heard Apple switch to bigger display sizes for the iPhone 8 in 2017, with the Plus model exclusively using an OLED panel. Considering how Apple has always kept one major hardware feature exclusive to its Plus iPhone every year, it does seem plausible that the company plans on separating the two iPhones next year based on their displays.

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