“We’ve had a long look at the iPhone 8’s final design now, thanks to all the recent leaks from Apple-published HomePod firmware. Recent code discoveries also brought to the surface details about the screen, including its actual size, and the way the virtual home button will behave,” Chris Smith writes for BGR.
“The iPhone 8 will offer buyers and edge-to-edge screen, but that’s not the entire story. The phone’s almost-perfect design is ruined by a bezel protrusion at the top that’s a necessary evil,” Smith writes. “The iPhone has various components that need to face the user, including the selfie camera, the phone speaker, the new 3D facial recognition system (a bunch of extra cameras), and various sensors. That’s why the top notch is there.”
Smith writes, “But that notch ruins the phone’s perfect symmetry, which is why the iPhone 8’s design is such a hotly debated story.”
Three ways Apple could do this. I picked “bunny” ears version since it’s in their own images from the leak. #iphone8 pic.twitter.com/fiCFWoC9kC
— Max 🇺🇦 (@talkaboutdesign) August 11, 2017
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back in June:
Again with that awful cutout… We doubt that Apple would execute the display in such a way as to draw attention to a black cutout containing the FaceTime camera, earpiece, etc. More likely, the thin top of the display on either side would remain off limits to anything but the deepest OLED black into which such a cutout would simply disappear.
Beloved interns, do what you do best: TTK!
SEE ALSO:
New ‘iPhone 8’ video reveals what Apple’s device might look like at launch – June 23, 2017
No we don’t. It’s not even out yet.
The first image is on point. The background in the “bunny ears” will be black.
By the way: the reason why Apple has switched to OLED is not because it is better in picture, but because the curved shape of the screen in it top part is not possible to make with LCD due to the background lighting is made as a line of LEDs that is placed only on one side of the LCD. This means that it backlight uniformity with such shame will not be really achievable. Only OLED can do that — and, later, micro-LED.
Maybe the cutout areas should be black-on-white for the white/silver versions, and white on black for the black version.
I like the idea of various color notches as contrast. I think the notch area is a pretty cool-looking and highly functional design. I don’t see why people are beefing over it. It’s going to give the iPhone slightly more display area than the competition if that’s going to be used as a marketing gimmick. Hey, iPhone, show me your notch. Yeah, sweet. I honestly don’t see how it takes anything away from the iPhone X’s overall design if that’s how it’s actually going to look.
“ruined”? “hotly debated”? Gawd, spare me!
It’s funny MDN complains that the Apple TV remote is designed in a way that you can’t tell which way is ‘up’ – and I agree – it is terrible!
But to me I think the notch design would give a strong cue as to which end of the phone is the ‘top’.
Even if they didn’t have the ‘notch’ – you would not be able to display content where the cameras, speakers and sensors are anyway – so the landscape view for videos etc would have to deal with the issue of not being able to use the whole screen.
Apple has been obsessed with symmetry in design for the iPhone. I’m sure they will have carefully considered how to make this work visually when the device is in use. Most likely by displaying the system icons (battery, network connections etc, to either side of the camera/sensor/speaker notch.
Why don’t we wait until we get a finished product before we whine about the problems with it?
Does anyone else think that this ‘leak’ is just a clever plan by Apple to throw the iPhone wannabe companies off the scent, and actually they’re going to release a different design without the top notch? Maybe just wishful thinking on my part. But I’ve never known Apple to be so stupid before a release of any product, let alone their 10th anniversary flagship…
I do hope they square up the display and hide that top notch. I think it looks awful – even more so in landscape. That after the beautiful jet black iPhone 7 is definitely a step backwards in appearance.
Making room for constant information feedback for signal strengths, battery life, whatever, something akin to the Mac Menu Bar, would be something I could live with. No more exiting an App to find out if you’re out of a wifi connection.
Set up in a visually neutral format could be very useful. To have the ‘colors’ of the actual screen change and constantly draw your eye there is not something Apple has done throughout their history and hopefully the semi-prophetic ‘reporters’ are as correct as they have been with previous pre-announcements speculation.