iPhone 14 design moves into early production stages

Apple's supply chain is preparing itself for production of the "iPhone 14," with the smartphone's design now undergoing a trial run of manufacturing through some of the company's partners.

The iPhone's annual update cycle is a well-oiled machine, one that has numerous steps and major investments in time and resources at multiple companies to undertake ahead of the scheduled fall release. The 2022 model, the "iPhone 14," has now apparently reached an important stage that involves Apple's famous supply chain.

The new design has entered OEM trial production, according to UDN, a point of the project where the smartphone gets produced at a small scale. The trial production is intended to confirm the design of the new iPhone model can be produced, as well as to try and shake out any potential issues before mass production commences.

Apple typically runs its trial production in mid-to-late February, with assembly partner Luxshare usually involved in the process. The assembly partner usually prepares a bill of materials for the project, which is used in future production, as well as to calibrate testing machines for quality assurance.

However, it is reported Luxshare hasn't been provided with the production service order at this time, leading to suspicion that there's a change in manufacturing. Luxshare won the first assembly order for the iPhone 13 Pro, and secured around 3% of orders in 2021.

As the production service order is thought to be an indicator of future orders from Apple, it is believed that Luxshare won't be heavily involved in Pro model assembly, but will probably do so for the standard model.

In 2021, Luxshare is thought to have assembled around 6.5 million iPhone units, and around 3% of OEM orders.

Set to arrive in the fall, the "iPhone 14" and "iPhone 14 Pro" is expected to include a number of major design changes, including a reduction of the camera bump and removing the infamous notch in favor of a hole-punch camera.