36 MACWORLD AUGUST 2019
iOSCENTRAL IPHONE X NOTCHnotch: It sticks out like a black
tongue on the Google Pixel 3
XL (go.macworld.com/xlp3),
and it lurks in the corner of
Samsung’s overly ambitious
Galaxy Fold (go.macworld.
com/glfd). All these months
later, Apple’s implementation
of it remains, well, top notch.
Nobody here is
suggesting that Apple
invented the notch. Indeed,
the tragically inessential
Essential Phone (go.macworld.com/esen)
marked its debut five months before the
iPhone X. Not long after that, a notch
appeared on the Sharp Aquos S2. There’s
also some truth to the argument that the
notch was “inevitable,” considering this
decade’s push to make front-facing
displays that extend as far to a
smartphone’s edges as possible.
Short of developing a technology that
allows a selfie camera to work behind the
pixels of a display—and it seems Oppo
and Xiaomi are at least working in that
direction (go.macworld.com/dirc)—you’re
not going to have an edge-hugging
display on a fully-featured smartphone
without some sort of screen cut-out. And
even with Oppo and Xiaomi’s dubious
concept, you’re missing out on all the
advanced features Apple manages to
work into its notch.
A NOTCH ABOVE
Apple, as it so often does, showed us how
such a seemingly clunky concept as a
notch could boast a degree of elegance.
That is usually the true nature of Apple’s
“innovation,” not the initial invention. The
notch itself is a thin strip with carefully
rounded corners that meld into the
interface rather than a circle that looks like
an ink drop, as in the Essential Phone.
(Designer Brad Ellis described in detail [go.
macworld.com/brad] how much thought
went into those rounded corners.) In this
strip, Apple manages to pack a camera, a
speaker, a microphone, a flash, and
multiple sensors for its futuristic True
Depth technology that maps your face with
lasers for more accurate identification.
Other phones have smaller notches, but
that’s because theirs are usually restricted
to housing cameras.Et tu, Google?