Look, the cutout isn’t perfect, but it’s more iconic than you think
I’ve been thinking hard about the notch over the last few days, ever since I saw the news that the iPhone 14 might get the old ‚pill and punch‘ design. I don’t mean the notion that the new iPhone will remove the notch altogether – we’ve heard that rumor for a few years now, ever since it appeared on the iPhone X in 2017 – but that Apple might go for the ‚pill and punch‘ design instead. I wrote something about this yesterday, but I’ve been ruminating on it since – and I’ve had another thought on why it’s going to stick around, despite trying to think about what could cause Apple to drop the notch altogether. There are just so many reasons why losing the little cutout at the top makes little sense for Apple… not least because it needs a place to house all the sensors and cameras that allow for its Face ID to function. Don’t misunderstand what I’m trying to say though: I desperately want to see the notch, and every little thing that interferes with a smooth screen, to be gone from all smartphones. It’s a necessary evil, sure, but I cannot wait for the year when having any kind of notch or hole in the screen of any phone launched is really weird. But I just can’t see it happening in 2022. Perhaps I’ll be wrong. Maybe the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro will come with the notch and the iPhone 14 Max will have something different. Maybe Apple will tear up its own design rule book. But having covered every iPhone launch since the 3G, we’ve rarely seen anything massively change in this way – the notch, surely, is staying. Apple doesn’t do anything it doesn’t have to. When talking about the very early days of the iPhone, it didn’t allow you to copy and paste things between apps. It didn’t have a good camera for years. Only with the iPhone 13 series did it finally offer decent battery life – sure, that likely was a by-product of needing more power to allow for the 5G connectivity, but I was shocked, when I tested the battery life, that Apple hadn’t made a huge song and dance about this big increase to battery life in the iPhone 13 launch. The notch houses a few key things for the iPhone: a variety of sensors, the IR emitter that allows Face ID to function, and the front-facing camera. These are bigger sensors than you find in most Android phones because Face ID needs them – they have to have a home in the chassis somewhere, so when making the iPhone X this was the best compromise Apple could come up with. So anything that replaces the notch needs to achieve the same functionality, and I’m not seeing technology on other phones that could do so right now. OK, I’ve instantly lied. I can think of a few things, and one of them is heavily rumored for the new iPhone… but I can’t see it happening. The punch hole and pill-shaped opening have been used in a few phones recently, and do allow for more screen to spill around their edges, giving a bit more screen real estate.
