Macworld USA – August 2019

AUGUST 2019 MACWORLD 37

For that matter, the iPhone’s notch is
positioned in such a way that it’s usually
out of a direct line of vision, particularly in
larger devices like the iPhone XS Max. I’ll
go so far as to say that Apple’s notch is
only distracting if you’re actively looking
for it, and thus it stands out more
prominently in stage presentations, but not
so much when you’re holding it in your
hand. In other words, much as you’re not
constantly looking for the time or your
signal strength—which sit on either side of
the notch—you’re not always going to be
looking at the notch itself.
The result is not a true edge-to-edge
display, but it comes close to achieving
that ideal without sacrificing the integrity of
the rest of the device. Sure, I’d prefer not
to have a notch, but if you’re going to have
one while also including
advanced face-
scanning technology,
this is how to do it. As
such, the iPhone X
smoothed the way for
the tide of notched
phones that swept in
afterward from the likes
of Google, Samsung,
Asus, Huawei, LG, and
OnePlus.
Even so, Apple
remains one of the few
manufacturers that gets

it right, and largely for reasons outside the

above manufacturers’ control. Apple

controls both the hardware and the

software for its phones, and so it can

dictate (go.macworld.com/dtat) that

developers need to design their apps so

as not to interfere with the notch. When

design elements don’t overlap with the

notch, you’re far less likely to notice the

notch itself. On Android, by contrast,

there’s no guarantee that part of an

interface isn’t going to be chopped off by

a notch on account of the wide variety of

devices that use the operating system, and

many different notch designs.

UNNECESSARY COMPLEXITY

For that matter, few things tend to reveal

the integrity of the notch’s design quite

Impressively, that “selfie” camera on the ZenFone 6 is 48MP

(because it doubles as the rear camera).