With a little less than two months to go until Apple unveils its late-2025 phones, an intriguing new feature which had looked increasingly unlikely to appear has suddenly roared back into contention. The iPhone 17 Pro is reportedly going to get an anti-reflective screen after all.
The technology, designed to make phone displays more resistant to scratches as well as cutting back on reflected glare, was first touted as a possible upgrade for the iPhone 17 as long ago as March 2024, six months before the launch of the iPhone 16. As interesting long-term rumors often do, this seemed to get less plausible the closer we got to the launch, and in April of this year we covered a report that it had been scrapped because of “problems scaling up the display coating process.”
But hold your horses, because MacRumors now says it’s back on. Basing its coverage on an unnamed “reliable source,” the site claims that Apple suppliers “have been able to achieve a high enough yield on the anti-reflective glass to support mass production” and that the new screen will feature on the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro. The two non-Pro handsets will not get the upgrade, which could help Apple upsell its more expensive models.
It’s believed that the new screen coating may be the same Gorilla Armor that Corning made for Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra, which came out in January 2024. (In their review of that phone, our colleagues on Tech Advisor said they “had no problem using the phone outdoors, even on a bright sunny day.”) It certainly sounds similar, and Apple has a long-standing relationship with Corning. So when we say it’s a new feature, the reality may be that it’s only new to the iPhone, and will have been on the market for the best part of two years when it makes its debut on the iPhone 17 Pro.
To keep up with all the latest news and rumors concerning this fall’s releases, bookmark our regularly updated iPhone 17 superguide. And if you’d rather buy now than wait for the new handsets, peruse our roundup of the best iPhone deals for the lowest prices on the current range.
Author: David Price, Editor, Macworld
David has been writing about technology for well over two decades, and got on board the Apple hype train when covering the original iPhone launch in 2007. He is an enthusiastic Apple Watch evangelist and feels that the HomePod is misunderstood.