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Oh, hey, what's that thing?
Well, I guess if you're watching this on an iPhone X, you're used to it by now.
But for the rest of you, this is probably pretty annoying.
So what exactly is the point of the notch, which is either suddenly in vogue or a huge
source of complaints, depending on your opinion?
Is Apple just trying to tell us all, yeah, we're Apple, and we can do whatever we want
with our gadgets, just like we do with a headphone jack?
Well, not exactly.
In fact, the lesser-known Essential Phone was actually the first modern smartphone to
feature a notch for its front-facing camera, though it's quite a bit smaller than the one
you'd find on the iPhone X.
Released just two months before the iPhone X, the Essential Phone was our first look
at how a phone designer might try to fill as much of the front of the device as possible
with actual screen instead of bezels.
And although they figured out how to bury a fingerprint sensor under the phone, they
figured out how to do it with a front-facing camera, which is now a critical feature in
all modern smartphones due to its utilization by popular apps and, of course, our narcissistic
need for on-demand selfies.
Of course, many phone makers simply hide the camera and other phone components inside of
a bezel, but Essential went with the notch approach because Android OS fills the top
notification bar from the left and right, so the idea was that the camera in the middle
wouldn't block anything super important.
And they even built in an option allowing the user to choose whether or not to hide
the notch in landscape mode by turning the notch side of the screen into a black bar
that won't block anything.
Of course, Apple's notch is significantly larger, leaving only two small loaves of screen
space at the phone's corners.
A big part of the rationale for this is that the iPhone X's Face ID recognition system
needs additional equipment, such as an IR camera and a dot projector, that can't also
—yet— be buried under the screen.
So to be fair, the iPhone X is sporting a pretty cool piece of tech that Essential Phone
and other Android devices don't yet have, and iOS also doesn't display notification
icons across the top of the screen like Android does, making the notches a little easier to
get away with.
And Apple does designate safe areas in app development to prevent content from being
obscured by the notch.
Now of course, this doesn't mean that the notch should be immune from criticism, with
many users noting that it seems like the notch is a bit too big for the iPhone X, and Apple's
technology has completely caught up, especially as we're now seeing phones that are bezel-less
on three sides — a more appealing alternative to the awkward notch, at least for some.
Because awkwardness is in the eye of the beholder, right?
And there's been speculation that Apple is intentionally using the bezel as a signature
look, just like the scroll wheel on the iPod.
And any time Apple does that, other companies, including OnePlus and ASUS, follow suit.
And both have already confirmed they'll be using notches in their upcoming phones, with
one ASUS exec even going so far as to say it's what the people want.
So whether you love or hate Apple for starting this trend, there's a good chance we'll
see notches become more common until solutions for hiding phone components beneath the display
become widespread.
In fact, Android P has features specifically for developers who want to incorporate notches
into app design, so if you are hoping that the phone industry will relent and suddenly
consider a bad idea, you might want to dial your hopes back a notch.
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PIA supports multiple VPN protocols and encryption levels, allowing you to dial in the exact
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