Mockup Shows A Bezel-Free IPhone 8 With Dark Mode

With the iPhone 8 being widely rumored to have an OLED display, it would make sense for Apple to build a dark mode as such a display would benefit from it. On an OLED display, black pixels don’t need to be “on” which means that the iPhone could have some serious power savings by having a darker interface.

Designer Vianney le Masne has mocked up the iPhone 8 but has also combined a dark mode and an OLED display to give us a glimpse into what such an experience may look like.

le Masne explains that a dark mode can’t simply be the conversion of white pixels to black pixels, especially with the experience a bezel-free, OLED display has the potential to create. He says that the display tech would help blend the edge of the display and the bezel, creating a seamless experience.

Going dark will massively smoothen contrast between the edge of the screen and the bezel. In fact it will be indistinguishable as the OLED empowered pixels will not emit any light, which regular screens do.

le Masne notes that developers should start building applications from a dark slate, rather than a blank one. This would allow the edges of the interface to be dark and blend into the bezel.

What this means for UI designers will be that you won’t start from a blank art board in sketch, working your way down from top left to bottom right, but rather from a dark slate, in the centre working out towards full black.

le Masne’s mockups really do a good job of illustrating what he’s explaining. The combination of a black phone, OLED display, and a dark mode really does look incredible.

Some of the renders can be seen below. You can read le Masne’s full post on Medium here.