AI Predicts What Next-Gen Mobile Phones Will Look Like

06 May 2024

Robert Duke

Since we’ve not had any official announcement about the iPhone 16, or the Samsung Galaxy S25 yet we thought we’d ask an AI tool (DALL-E 3) what it thought a whole range of upcoming flagship phones might look like, and the results were… erm... interesting.

iPhone 16

According to AI, 2024 could be the year that Apple release a foldable iPhone. That prediction may be a tad optimistic since we haven’t heard any credible rumours about a foldable iPhone 16 recently, but it certainly would be an exciting move! Realistically, if one is in the works, we probably won’t see it for at least another couple of years.

Also judging by the predictive images, AI thinks the foldable version won’t have a notch at the top, which could suggest that the front-facing camera would be ‘invisible’ and hidden behind the digital display. That is something many people have been anticipating for a few years on iPhones, but, again that feature might still be a couple of generations away.

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Samsung Galaxy S25

AI’s predictions around what the Galaxy S25 will look like are even more outlandish than the next iPhone, suggesting the possibility of both the front and back of the device having fully useable digital displays. Samsung could utilise similar technology to the Galaxy Z Fold and Flip handsets to facilitate this (though with those devices, they are intended to be used in tandem, so there’d need to be a different approach taken with a front and back setup).

The back also appears to have an absolutely massive extra camera lens on it, which could potentially be for enhanced 8K video recording with increased zoom, but this seems even less likely than the double-sided screen (as Samsung tend to try to keep things pretty clean and simple with their designs, and, if they were to add an extra lens, they would likely keep it within the same housing section as the rest on the top left of the device). A floating camera would significantly affect the usability of the ‘back’ screen, so it’s probably a no-go.

Google Pixel 9

In a similar vein to the iPhone, DALL-E thinks there’s a chance Google might introduce a flip version of their yet-to-be-announced Pixel 9 handset. While we’re quite excited by that prospect, and Google did recently move into the foldable market, we think a flip version probably isn’t on the cards. Also, the addition of a retractable camera section at the top of the device is both extremely unlikely and probably quite impractical in a mechanical sense, so this image prediction is definitely to be taken with a pinch of salt!

Google produce some very cool-looking phones that are very user-friendly and offer excellent performance, and it’d be nice to see some more competition for Samsung in the flip-phone space too, so we’d be all for it if they do decide to dip their toe in!

OnePlus 13

While the world has been crying out for a modern, top-tier smartphone with a physical keyboard, it’s extremely unlikely that OnePlus will deliver it with their next range of flagships. For people who tend to find themselves accidentally typing the wrong characters on touchscreen keyboards, this would be a game-changer, but the general increased likelihood of hardware faults that can come with physical keyboards on smartphones means companies tend to shy away from this approach these days.

Along with this, the notch at the top would be a slight step back from the previous generation, where the OnePlus 12 actually had a smaller front-facing camera without a notch. Basically, the predictions about the OnePlus seem like the most far-fetched of the lot.

Will we see many dramatic changes in the next generation of smartphones?

Most big mobile companies seem to have been sticking to an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!’ approach with their main flagship handsets for the last few years, instead relying on making less eye-catching (but still technically impressive) iterative improvements to existing features.

It might be nice to see a bit more variety in the features and designs of flagships from some of the big brands, but at the same time, the technology has progressed so much over the last decade that it makes sense that they’re more concerned with refinements than reinventing the wheel.

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