I’ve been coming to Mobile World Congress for close to a decade now, and I’ve never seen the iPhone copied quite so blatantly and cynically as I witnessed during this year’s show. MWC 2018 will go down in history as the launch platform for a mass of iPhone X notch copycats, each of them more hastily and sloppily assembled than the next.
No effort is being made to emulate the complex Face ID system that resides inside Apple’s notch; companies like Noa and Ulefone are in such a hurry to get their iPhone lookalike on the market that they haven’t even customized their software to account for the new shape of the screen. More than one of these notched handsets at MWC had the clock occluded by the curved corner of the display.
I have an iPhone X, and the notch doesn’t bother me at all. Face ID works reasonably well – not as good as Touch ID, but good enough – and thus, gives the notch a reason to exist in the first place. I don’t feel particularly strongly towards either Samsung’s small chin/forehead solution, or Essential’s/Apple’s notch solution, and I’m glad it at least creates some visual difference between phones. However, if you decide to go with a notch, don’t just copy Apple’s shape while not actually putting anything underneath it.
I can’t believe this is truly going to be a thing.
Welcome back to 2007, In other words. Everyone is just copying…only the worse parts. In android… I am glad they finally got rid of the home button, its an inconsistent mess. A click to activate, but a touch to scan. Samsung needs to move on, Then its not even real in an ip8!
Finally HTC and LG have figured out that you don’t need to release a new model every year. why? They all look the same and have minor improvements. I never though android would need 6gb of ram, windows 10 boots up faster than ios\android. And when you compare the price of a flagship phone, you get a lot of pc for that.
It doesn’t. 1GB is adequate even for 7.1.
The notch wasn’t even an apple ‘innovation’. It’s such a distortion.
Essential had it first, probably others.
Look, these companies are delivering what they think the market wants. If users want iPhones with notches, they’ll make their devices look like iPhones with notches. Pretty simple.
CaptainN-,
I certainly don’t want a notch in my screen, be it on android or ios. Of course I “think different”, haha.
I don’t necessarily think it’s what consumers want to buy, but more what executives want to sell that is driving a lot of trends. What we would really need to gauge user preference are two phones sold side by side with exactly the same features and only the display notch being different.
I absolutely love my essential phone, the notch took a few hours to get used to, and a few apps are still not ideal with it (feedly is the only one i use). The additional screen real estate makes it worth it.
Personal preferences are exactly that.. personal.
Very few things people attribute to Apple were actually Apple innovations. For example, inertial scrolling existed on Palm devices long before Apple did it, but most people know Apple for it.
Apple recently patented an OLED screen as a keyboard. Something Art. Lebedev Studio designed around jan 1 2008 (Optimus Tactus Keyboard)
We should make a list and put it up on Wikipedia.
Edited 2018-03-09 00:06 UTC
I’m only waiting for sites like gsmarena, specialized on gathering phone specs, add a new item called “notch size”.
Sad this kind of shit is becoming “a thing” on smartphones.
So they are copying a defect !? absurdity reigns supreme.
Marilyn Monroe’s beauty spot is a defect.
The thing about every single one of these new Android devices that has a notch is that they also have a HUGE bezel or gap between the screen and the bottom of the device, so what is the point of having a notch and a screen that goes all the way to the top of the device when you are leaving that gap down there? The iPhone X’s screen goes to all edges of the device, so the notch serves an actual purpose of leaving space for the FaceID sensors, while the notch on these Android devices seems to be purely for visual purposes in imitating the iPhone X.
If the screen on the Android devices went all the way to the bottom I could understand the need for a notch, but they don’t and that makes their notches just a design gimmick.
Another patent war on the horizon! I’ll bring the popcorn!
To include the nonsensical sides of the notch, as if they could be used!
1- IR offset sensors so you could just jab offscreen with a carrot or teacup or crisp or whatever and again, not be losing a precious BTle ‘active’ stylus.
2- Meditative thing one can watch while phone is off and you’re falling asleep, perhaps to the extent that if your head crashes toward the phone asleep it would deploy and eventually recall a little airbag (no explosives, natch.)
3- Place to stick Yubikey I suppose.
4- Antiseptic UV source for people who never clean screens and need it desparately.
5- Does something with those action figures with RFID in them for the hardcore minifig gamer. (cough)
6- Headrest
7- Lat bar mount for heavy Twitter interface gimmickery. See thread? Pump out another rep!
8- Screen lube for power users we haven’t seen yet. For good reasons.
9- Ultrasonic extra-virtual-bass projector.
1×10^1- Dedicated push-to-talk bits
1.1×10^1- Maps visited areas for you, not them.
1.2×10^1- HDMI connectors in there. You’re welcome.
1.3×10^1- Flexible battery access, since they’re supposedly solid-state flexible batteries a’coming.
1.4×10^1- Thing to press by accident which absolves one of any duty or obligation; but if you press on purpose it can tell.
1.5×10^1-1.001×10^3: RESERVED
Still sending to Apple money, Thom? ;P ( http://www.osnews.com/thread?650711 )
Perhaps I could interest you in a 1983 Cadillac with a faux convertible top, faux wire wheels, and a faux, trunk-mounted spare tire?
http://topclassiccarsforsale.com/uploads/photoalbum/83-cadillac-sev…