Slashdot Asks: Should Android OEMs Adopt the iPhone's Notch?

Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that Google was currently working on a "dramatic redesign" of its Android OS -- one that embraces the "notch" made popular by the iPhone X. A couple weeks after that report was published, Mobile World Congress was happening, and the biggest trend among Android OEMs was the introduction of a notch in their smartphones. The Verge's Vlad Savov argues that Android smartphone manufacturers are straight up copying the iPhone's design with "more speed and cynicism" than ever before.

Should Android original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) adopt the iPhone's display notch? A display notch can offer a greater screen-to-body ratio, for example, but lower overall aesthetic value. It can also create a headache for developers who need to update their apps to account for the notch that eats into the actual display area. What are your thoughts on display notches? Should Android OEMs adopt the iPhone X's display notch in their devices?

If you're not a fan of notches for aesthetic reasons, you may like the solution that OnePlus has come up with. The company will soon be launching their notch-equipped OnePlus 6 smartphone, but will allow OnePlus 6 owners to "hide" the device's notch via software. Users will have the option to black out the background of the notifications and status bar if they so desire.

Comments

No.

[fermat1313]

I'm not a fan of the notch. It's cumbersome, ugly, and requires application designers to make some weird compromises to make it work. All this for the holy grail of small bezels. I'd rather wait until they find ways to put the camera and other sensor under the screen.

Notches seem pointless and miss the point

[sjbe]

A display notch can offer a greater screen-to-body ratio, for example, but lower overall aesthetic value.

Aesthetics are a matter of personal taste. I can see people liking or hating the notch and you can't say they are wrong either way. There is no objective way to judge aesthetics. Conceivably the notch has some potential functional value though it seems a lot of trouble for some pretty minimal gains even under the best of circumstances. I have an iPhone X (spare the snark - it works for me) and I'm utterly indifferent to the notch. It doesn't bother me but I don't find it particularly useful either. Frankly it seems mostly like a mis-feature and a waste of money.

All this sturm and drang about notches really seems to be missing the point. It's an answer to a problem nobody has. What I want them to do is make a phone with a better battery life. They could double the thickness of all but the biggest phones and I would not care. A thicker phone would also enable them to put a better camera into the phone which has value to me. I'd also like someone to really get seamless cloud integration and device and document sharing right because that is still a hot mess whether you are talking about Android, iOS or any other system. You'd think Apple could figure it out since they control their platform the tightest but they always seem to only partially solve the problems.

Re:Popular?

[Anonymous Coward]

But it was made _cheap_ by the iPhone X.

Apple were predicting far higher sales for the iPhone X than happened, and Samsung were geared up to make notched displays to meet that demand. Except the demand never came and now Samsung need to find other ways to offload the notched screens, or take a hit.

Here's a better question

[squiggleslash]

Why has Apple gone off the rails, and why haven't Android phone makers noticed and stopped copying them?

I was never impressed by the iPhone, but can understand why people were and certainly appreciate many technologies the iPhone popularized. However, the last few years have been completely absurd. The iPhone has lost its headphone jack, there's no good reason for the notch, and it still doesn't follow accepted industry standards even though now there's no reason for it not to - USB C in particular.

What has happened to Apple? Steve Jobs' departure should have been an opportunity to throw out the less optimal things Apple was doing solely because Jobs was insisting on it: instead, they seem to have thrown out Jobs' obsessions with elegance and simplicity and adopted his very worst quirks.

Re: dont you mean

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah the article is asking if I want a notch, it should instead be asking if I want a front facing camera at all. I don't. I never use it. I take pictures and videos with the rear facing camera. I don't face time, face book, Instagram, or anything else that requires pointing a camera at myself while I use the screen.

Re:Popular?

[BronsCon]

The notch would have been fine if it were reserved for system use only. You wouldn't have had to update your apps and you even would have gained some vertical space in landscape mode because notifications could have stayed in the notch, nullifying the need for a notification bar. That's where apple screwed up.

Personally, I like the look of the iPhone X and it would have been my next phone (instead of the S9 Plus I upgraded to) if they'd implemented it that way; but it just gets in the way for watching videos or viewing photos, which are two things I do a lot of on my phone, which is what killed the iPX for me.

Re: Popular?

[Anubis IV]

Exactly. Apple took a limitation of the current technology and "owned" that limitation by styling it as a defining characteristic, rather than trying to hide it as others have done. And that was a great marketing decision on their part, because in doing so they've put themselves at the forefront of a fad they created. But make no mistake: the notch is designed to be a passing fad. Just as soon as the technology develops to where they want it to be, Apple will drop it and the models (both theirs and their competitors') that still have one will seem antiquated with their ridiculous notches.

As for the Android question at the top, the answer is, of course, "it depends". If they're doing it because they're facing those same technical limitations and the notch is an easier approach than designing an alternative, sure, embrace the notch and enjoy the fact that you won't have to do the hard work of convincing people it's an acceptable design. If they don't have those technical limitations and they're simply adding a notch to keep up with the fad, then it makes no sense to add one, other than to appeal to undiscerning buyers (which, frankly, is a valid demographic to target since there's good money to be made there).