iPhone Notches on Android Phones
theverge.com
theverge.com
But the problem with these notched screens on Android phones is that they’re purely cosmetic.....the cutouts at the top are self-evidently motivated by the desire to just look — not function, look — like an iPhone X.
Is it ever not the case? The economic incentives drive institutions like The Verge to promulgate clickbait and sensationalized titles
(I am aware that Apple is not the only company that innovates or takes risks. But there does seem to be something unique about Apple that has caused them to draw such ire since seemingly forever.)
So even if a design or detail is bad (according to me, or you, or most people, like a bad movie), a lot of thought went into it, and probably a lot of people will copy it! :)
That someone would actually clone this, making the design somewhat more legitimate... Crikey!
It has become increasingly clear that the experience of the phone in-person and the experience of looking at product screenshots and marketing material are wildly different.
Anecdotally, every single people I know who has the iPhone X has indicated that they don't even notice that there's a notch after the first hour or so of owning the phone.
Make fun of it right up until you copy it, is basically the industry standard now. Headphone jack going away was the same thing, pretty much.
Except most manufacturers are still making phones with headphone jacks. Those who want to sell phones at least.
Even Apple has a headphone-jack option for those who has it as an absolute demand: The iPhone SE.
…also, regardless of who invented it, it seems like this design feature is unavoidable. If you want to kill the bezel but still want to have things like front-facing cameras, you're pretty much stuck with a notch.
I agree with him, I found the use of the term in the article to be bizarre. When he claimed the notches were "purely cosmetic" I read ahead, excited to read something silly; like that the notches didn't house anything, or they were actually just a piece of plastic extending over the screen.
Instead, his argument seemed to be, that if you have a notch, but otherwise design your phone differently from Apple, you're ripping off Apple and doing it for cosmetics. I'm pretty sure if they had gone ahead and done everything the same as the iPhone, he would have written a slightly different article, where he was just as annoyed.
(BTW: Am I really getting downvotes for defending the design decisions of both an iPhone and an Android phone?)
so seems like these phones are copying the design for having a thinner top bezel.
(didn't downvote you.)
[1]Apparatus and method to maximize the display area of a mobile device: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9736383
I find the whole notch design an abomination which should just die and be put to rest: By adding a notch you effectively create a software bezel for renderable content; web site developers have to deal with this. You can't show fullscreen video without obstruction, etc etc. Horrid insanity.
Compare this to the S8 which not only has physical bezels on top and bottom, but also software status bar at the top and software home bar at the bottom cutting further into usable screen space.
Not to mention Apple have nailed the gesture based UX. It feels totally natural and is a pleasure to use. Whereas any time I have to use an android phone it feels clunky and poorly executed.
Call me a fanboy, whatever. But I have never found the same quality experience on an android phone that I get with my iPhone.
The bottom bar is switchable on the S8, and the top one disappears when it needs to. The physical bezels are tiny, on the sides there are none; the S8+ is not lacking for (vertical) real estate.
1. The notch is necessary to house faceid sensors that no current android phone with a notch has
2. The notch isn't cutting into the screen, the ears of the notch are actually cutting into the bezel.
A lot of hate towards Apple (justified or not) has been towards their preference of form over functionality. It's ironic to see Android handset makers taking a functional compromise from the iphone X and making it a completely cosmetic feature.
Well, it’s quite simple. Some people will say it’s copying Apple, but we cannot get away from what users want. You have to follow the trends.
I'm going to guess those users don't reside in North America or Europe.
And they retain the headphone jacks as well, with a fairly decent DAC, so you can keep on using your high end wired headphones if you want.
Notching the display is merely another development in this trend, and what's worse is that it turns what usually is a reasonably standard LCD panel into an even more proprietary part with its associated manufacturing difficulties, since the dimensions of the notch then become another variable in the design.
(More ironically, web and UI design trends are going toward wider margins and blank space, almost as if to compensate.)
Edit: My only problem with this is that there is copying going on even without general/mass acceptance.
The iPhone X's interface is more gesture based than ever before.
(I still swipe up for Control Center on the 6S)
Swiping down from the left of the notch at the top (or from the notch itself directly - yes it recognizes touch) you get your notifications/lock screen.
A person visited a chassidic town and saw that all the chasidim when they entered the walked through doorways would dip their heads. He didn't understand why, perhaps it's a form of piety? So he asked them and was told "we do it, because 'the rebbe' does it". So intrigued, he asked the rebbe, why he does it. And he was told, "Can't you tell how tall I am? I'd bump by head otherwise".
I can also see all the different sized notches being a headache for app developers in the coming years.
>“Some people will say it’s copying Apple,” Asus’ global head of marketing Marcel Campos told The Verge, “but we cannot get away from what users want. You have to follow the trends.”
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/2/28/17062030/i...