thoughts about The Notch
(the one on iPhone X, not the minecraft guy)
ipX looks worse (imo) and has much less "edge to edge"y display than Samsung S8/9.
Not to speak about Essential PH1, which, in terms of design, simply blows ipX not only out of the water but all the way out of the local gravity well.
(unfortunately PH1 is not a very good phone otherwise. but man, the design is awesome.)
But, The Notch is distinct and ipX is a status symbol. So everyone is copying The Notch. (1/n)
The funny thing is that The Notch is most likely not a deliberate design choice, it's a choice driven by hardware requirements. Nobody would applaud Huawei for P20 if it didn't copy ipX, they'd rightly call it stupid.
Also, while I do believe that ipX is a very good phone, I don't believe it's so good that it could stand fully on its own. Big part of its success is simply through the virtue of being Apple's flagship. That is what makes it a status symbol in any case. (2/n)
What makes this interesting is that these two things are true:
- Apple could make, I don't know, a phone with a tiny antenna sticking out of it for purely aesthetic reasons, and it would become a status symbol anyway, people would want it and manufacturers would copy the antenna.
- But a big part of Apple's success is that it *doesn't do* stunts like that. In addition to a distinct looking status-symboly phone, you also know that you're getting a very good phone. (3/n)
(* in the meantime.) (also 4/4 </thread>)
In conclusion, the world is stupid, and The Notch has turned into a proxy for some vague notion of style, status and quality. I'm kind of happy that everyone is copying Apple, because that means that the distinctiveness will soon be lost.
But in the mean, we get an assload of notches.
And as much as I disliked Samsung's design in the past, I'm happy that S9 is not notched.