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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.
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.
...the "notch" made popular by the iPhone X.
Really? "Popular" seems a bit of a stretch.
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.
I do not see a need for this whatsoever. Leave my screen nice and rectangular, thank you very much. Should we start putting notches on laptop screens where the webcam is next?
All I care about is if I can hold the phone at the sides without my hands triggering the touch screen. If it helps them maintain a 16:9 aspect ratio then it's fine, it's hidden by a black status bar anyway. If they want a notch because they're looking to expand the screen vertically to 18:9 then no thanks. I don't like the candy bar form factor.
Twinstiq, game news
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.
What the fuck is a "notch" on an iPhone?
I don't respond to AC's.
Agreed. If you want to be even more cynical, the notch creates a much more unique screen that adds just one more headache to developers who want to build applications for more than one operating system.
NO.
It's really sad that since there isn't any real innovation happening with phones and the best we can come up with is a debate over whether we want some near unusable screen space on either side on the top of our phones.
What about bluetooth that doesn't drop out? Better call quality and consistent connections? Better security and privacy settings? Better battery life? More options for storage? Or how about a phone that will survive falling from a nightstand and I don't need to buy a stronger case for?
Instead we are paying $1k for a "flagship" phone that doesn't really do much more than that $300 phone 4 years ago.
The Essential Android Phone came out with a notch before the iPhone X. Personally, I just see this as a poor compromise to the phone designers drive to marketing bezzle-less designs that people may think they like. I am fine with a bezzle and prefer a little bit of space to accommodate the palm of my hand hanging over.
I wouldn't buy an iPhone X for that silly notch.
Wouldn't buy an android for the same reason.
You know what? I don't mind a bit of top and bottom bezel. If anything, you could even go a bit taller.
You know why? Because it leaves room for some proper dual front speakers.
Fuck this "less bezel" and "thinner" bullshit that disappears as soon as we stick the phone in a proper case; give us functionality improvements.
Log in or piss off.
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.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
This.
I had no idea what a friggin 'notch' was and had to go search for it, thinking I had missed out on some significant innovation. Not so much.
Essentially it is a small non-display 'cutout' in the display screen for things like front facing camera and speaker
----_o_(*)_----
That said, this is nothing particularly new or innovative, was not first developed by Apple, and having a trivial amount of additional asymmetrical screen space around the notch is not of significant value. I also doubt the additional complexity and transition costs for devs is worthwhile.
If a concept already failed to gain traction in the Android marketplace but Apple adopts it later, why must Android manufacturers suddenly bandwagon it? I swear the Android space is driven by fear of missing out as much as innovation at times.
--- Mercutio was right.
Agreed. I bought a Samsung S8+ because it was the best phone available that met most of my wants in a phone. There are 3 things I really don't like about it, though:
- rounded corners on the screen - on some apps I lose information. You gain looks and lose functionality. And I don't like the look. Give me 90 degree corners!
- non-flat screen - why? Why can't I have a choice of a flat screen? Why do have to have this 2.5D crappy screen with rolling rounded edges the mess with my eyes at the edges of the screen.
- 18:9 screen -- the phone is too narrow for its height. Any time I pick up my old Nexus 6 I marvel at just how much bigger the screen looks, how much easier stuff is to read, and how my eye prefers the look. 16:9 is much closer to the golden rectangle (16:9 is a ratio of 1.77, 18:9 is a ratio of 2, the golden ratio is 1.618). And it's the ratio of my TV, so TV programs are designed to fit on it better.
This is a really good question! Should I paint my house red? My neighbor a few houses down painted their house a bright red. It used to be sort of grey, but it's kind of a bright red now. It looks really nice, and updated what had been a "tired"-looking house and turned it into something eye catching, in a good way.
So I'm asking Slashdot: Should I paint my house red?
This is a design decision. Apple decided to include a notch in their new iPhone. Now the phone stands out a bit more against the competition. As smartphone makers generally drifted to the same "glass brick" design (because it makes a lot of sense for what it is) Apple found a new way to identify "that's an iPhone" through a design choice. Now when you see a white smartphone, you can guess what make it is - if it has a notch, it's a new iPhone.
I personally don't like the notch. I use Android, so I haven't used a notch. But I just don't like how it looks. It looks like Apple ran out of room with the phone, and just stuck the camera inside the display.
Maybe some Android phones will copy the notch, just like Android phones started to look more like iPhones in other ways. But I hope they don't.
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.
This is like a 2-for-1, it invokes Betteridge's Law of Headlines as well as the knee-jerk reaction of the Slashdot crowd to any sort of design change Apple makes at all. If only we could rope in Bitcoin somehow it would be like the holy trinity of triggers.
Schnapple
When did "notch" become a technology thing we're expected to know? Maybe explain what it is for people who don't have any Apple friends FFS.
To me when I hear the word notch, I assume that means that there is part of the phone cut out; but that doesn't make any sense and I can't imagine why anyone would want that.
A "notch" in phonespeak must be something than a notch? Maybe a section of the screen that is left blank for some reason- or to be prefilled with ads for other apple products or something equally obnoxious.
The only notches I want are on my bedpost.
In short for someone reading this far and still confused.
The idea of the notch is based in bragging numbers. I don't know what the bezel did to phone developers. I assume the bezel slept with phonedev's mother, but they hate it with a passion. SO much so that not being content so have the screen go all the way up to the front facing camera and wraping around the sides of the phone and pushing out the home screen button on the lower side. The screen is now expected to go all the way around the camera. Creating the effect that the camera made a notch in the phones display and stuck a camera in it. Now phone makers can claim their screen is another centimeter longer if you discount the whole notch in the middle.
The whole thing is stupid because that notch is just screen you can't use, no one wants to watch a video with a camera sized black space on the left side. Thus they start attaching gestures to each side of the notch. and now they're touting it as a feature. "Look at our screen it's a full cm longer AND you get cool new gestures that no one asked for."
I swear some phonedevs won't be satisfied until the entire phone is screen and you have no possible way to hold it without activating the screen.
Just another second banana
Make the notch more round, like the Essential's. Then emphasize the camera a bit more, perhaps with a gray ring around it. Then make the phone talk with a male voice and add a red LED in the camera assembly. Yeah, I think there's no way this could possibly go wrong.
It wasn't designed to be anything but stupid. Because it is stupid.
The fad business comes about like any fad; people are also stupid. You can put the notch right next to pet rocks and the like. Just one more really bad hardware decision by Apple. Of many recent such.
So far at least, Samsung hasn't bought into the "let's put a hole in the display" or the "let's take the analog audio away" or the "let's take away the memory card" stupids, but we certainly are seeing all of those things in various combinations from other non-Apple phone manufacturers.
The design philosophy for these things is "ready, fire aim." Apple gets away with a lot because they have a largely unthinking fanbase. And I say that as someone with multiple Macs up and running.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
[looks hard at Galaxy S9]
Nope. Don't have to deal with it. Not a law of physics.
The notch is just really stupid design.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.