The rumor mill is at it again. For some time now, it’s been apparent that the new iPhone Pro will be using cutouts instead of the notch found on previous iPhones. Leaks indicate it is something like a sideways lowercase “i”.

It’s always looked a little funny to me, and I wondered what on earth they’d do with the very few pixels between the two notches.

Now we have an entirely new set of rumors that they’ll paint those pixels black, effectively connecting the two cutouts to make one long rounded rectangle. The only thing they’ll light in those pixels is the indicator lights for active audio and video recordings.

If true, this makes a lot of sense. I think it looks better this way, and the indicator lights right next to the camera lens hopefully make it more apparent what function they serve. (I suspect a lot of iPhone owners have no idea why those lights show up on their iPhones.) This is one more example of how rumors can lead Apple enthusiasts astray. So many people were upset about the two cutouts looking awkward and silly. Apple likely had the plan to connect them all along.

In terms of additional screen real estate, this new cutout doesn’t really give us much more than we had with the notch, but it does show progress and is one more step toward getting rid of notches and cutouts altogether.