iPhone 8 specs news and rumors: Apple to rival Galaxy Note 7's curved edge display?

Current media hype is focused on the highly anticipated release of Apple's iPhone 7 in September and most reports say that the Cupertino-based giant will stick with the aluminum body design for the smartphone's seventh iterative upgrade. However, other reports emerge indicating next year's iPhone iteration will bear a resemblance to Samsung Galaxy Note 7's curved edge display as the company celebrates the iconic product's 10th-year milestone.

If rumors prove accurate, Apple may adopt its smartphone rival's curved edge screen design per Patently Apple report. The Apple patent tracking blog reports that of the recently published 80 patents granted to Apple by the US Patents and Trademark Office (USPTO), one patent suggests of an iPhone model sporting a curved display with active sidewalls and virtual buttons. The report also mentioned that the Silicon Valley titan has actually been working on the said technology with an earlier 2013 patent filing for a curved screen display. This could mean that Apple may have come up with the idea first even before Samsung decided to implement it on their Galaxy iterations. The American tech firm is believed to be cooking up a number of innovations in their labs in secret but only unveil them once the company achieves perfection.

Currently, the South Korean electronics giant remains the only smartphone maker that manufactures handsets with flexible organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays. In terms of shipments, Samsung leads the global market per first quarter sales report in 2016. The company launched last year's Galaxy Note Edge and Galaxy 6 Edge iterations with curved displays. Its current Galaxy 7 Edge and Note 7 flagships are also curve-edged.

Meanwhile, an insider source with knowledge of Apple's smartphone plans seems to confirm the abovementioned patent report on iPhone 8's purported migration from flat screen to curve-edged screen with three models slated for the 2017 launch.

"There will be a 4.7-inch model, another that will be 5.5-inches and a premium handset that will be either 5.5-inches or larger equipped with a screen bent on the two sides," the source said to Nikkei Asian Review. Furthermore, the first two variants will still sport the conventional flat screen while the third one gets a curve edge makeover.