“Four phones and three years ago, I took the first iPhones to ‘go big’ to the ‘happiest place on earth’ for a road test,” Matthew Panzarino writes for TechCrunch. “The review struck a chord, and it remains the one people talk to me about the most. So I’m back on my… business… and did it again. I’ve had the iPhone X for a week and decided to put it back through the same gauntlet.”
“Early last week, I went to Cupertino to pick up the iPhone X,” Panzarino writes. “Now, let’s answer the question everyone wants to know… Face ID works really well. First, it’s incredibly easy to set up. You choose to enable it and then rotate your nose around the points of a clock twice. That’s it. Second, it worked the vast majority of times I tried it, it never once unlocked using a picture of myself or another person’s face and the failure rate seemed to be about the same as Touch ID — aka almost never. As hoped, it’s definitely faster than the first generation of Touch ID, though perhaps slightly slower than the second gen. At several points, the unlock procedure worked so well in pitch black or at weird angles that I laughed out loud.”
“Now, about that notch. It’s caused a lot of consternation and I completely get why people hate it. They view it as a compromise — and it is,” Panzarino writes. “In use, I have to say, the notch is just zero problem for me. I don’t give a rat’s ass about it. I know I’ll probably catch heat but I’m not carrying water for Apple here. I think it is absolutely a compromise but, after using Face ID and the True Depth camera for other stuff, I am willing to deal with it… If, however, you use your iPhone for data entry or browsing or whatever in landscape, the True Depth camera is going to be bang in your way, especially if it’s on the left. No getting around it. If that bothers you, don’t get an iPhone X.”
“Overall, using the iPhone X well takes some time. It’s a big change from a physical home button to a completely swipe-based interface. But it’s fast, fluid and a lot of fun once you get used to it. Before you know it, you’ll forget you ever had to whack a home button to get things done,” Panzarino writes. “There are some rough edges here and there. The notch isn’t for everyone, and the screen does have some color issues at extreme viewing angles. But overall Apple bet big on a bunch of technologies all at once on the iPhone X and it delivered almost across the board. It really is like using the future of smartphones, today.”
MacDailyNews Take: Hey, we’re no dummies. We’re already working on “notch acclimation” (dealing with it, in Panzarino’s parlance) ahead of our iPhone X deliveries on Friday:
Next year, I expect Apple to produce iPhone X2 without the notch, and the entire Notchgate will disappear into the same segment of oblivion where one can find hockey puck mouse, bottom-charging Magic Mouse II, “You’re-holding-it-wrong” Antennagate iPhone 4, Bendgate iPhone 6+ and god knows how many more less than absolutely perfect Apple products that were scandalously disastrous (in the eyes of the oh-so-objective tech pundits who turn to face Mountain View for their worship sessions).
In other words, next year this time, notch will be a long forgotten meme…
I think that there’s no doubt that if Apple could have located those components elsewhere, then they would have done so and we would have a notchless iPhone, but that technology isn’t available yet and until it does appear, the notch is going to be a feature on iPhones ( and I fully expect to see a similar feature on other smartphone too in the very near future – I’m looking at you Mr Samsung }.
The notch is an aspect relating to something I’ve often talked about, which is that modern smartphones are getting too big for some people. Before smartphones, smaller cellphones were more desirable because they were more convenient to carry. Obviously when much of the functionality of an iPhone is via the screen, a very tiny screen would be disadvantageous, but so would an iPhone which is too bulky. We can argue about what the optimum size might be, but few would argue that there is a compelling reason to make the overall iPhone much bigger than it’s screen.
Apple has put in a lot of effort to make iPhones smaller and has also released the iPhone SE for those who appreciate a powerful but compact iPhone. Making the screen occupy virtually the entire front of the iPhone means that the overall dimensions of the iPhone are as small as practical for that screen size.
Having a 5mm forehead the width on the iPhone to house the optical sensors sounds like a possible alternative, but you still end up with compromised aesthetics because the bottom of the screen would have curved corners, while the top would have to either have rectangular corners or artificially rounded corners. I would argue that neither of those options are better that the notch and it leaves quite a lot of wasted space either side of the sensors.
The thing about the notch is…if Apple just had made the phone correspondingly taller to do away with the notch, not that many people (if any) would have cared.
Apple has a habit of taking design details to the extreme of diminishing returns.
The notch bothers me because the alternative of making the phone 3/16” taller would have been such a trivial compromise.
OMG! My sports car has a bulge in its hood that really takes away from its sleekness! My house has these holes in the brick work that let too much light inside (windows)! And now my favorite phone has a NOTCH!!! I can’t survive in this world. I’m going to have to buy a Samsung. Oh, what? There’s an iPhone without a Notch? 8, you say? I could never do that! How “early fall 2017”! It’s winter 2017! Hello?!
Next year, I expect Apple to produce iPhone X2 without the notch, and the entire Notchgate will disappear into the same segment of oblivion where one can find hockey puck mouse, bottom-charging Magic Mouse II, “You’re-holding-it-wrong” Antennagate iPhone 4, Bendgate iPhone 6+ and god knows how many more less than absolutely perfect Apple products that were scandalously disastrous (in the eyes of the oh-so-objective tech pundits who turn to face Mountain View for their worship sessions).
In other words, next year this time, notch will be a long forgotten meme…
I think that there’s no doubt that if Apple could have located those components elsewhere, then they would have done so and we would have a notchless iPhone, but that technology isn’t available yet and until it does appear, the notch is going to be a feature on iPhones ( and I fully expect to see a similar feature on other smartphone too in the very near future – I’m looking at you Mr Samsung }.
The notch is an aspect relating to something I’ve often talked about, which is that modern smartphones are getting too big for some people. Before smartphones, smaller cellphones were more desirable because they were more convenient to carry. Obviously when much of the functionality of an iPhone is via the screen, a very tiny screen would be disadvantageous, but so would an iPhone which is too bulky. We can argue about what the optimum size might be, but few would argue that there is a compelling reason to make the overall iPhone much bigger than it’s screen.
Apple has put in a lot of effort to make iPhones smaller and has also released the iPhone SE for those who appreciate a powerful but compact iPhone. Making the screen occupy virtually the entire front of the iPhone means that the overall dimensions of the iPhone are as small as practical for that screen size.
Having a 5mm forehead the width on the iPhone to house the optical sensors sounds like a possible alternative, but you still end up with compromised aesthetics because the bottom of the screen would have curved corners, while the top would have to either have rectangular corners or artificially rounded corners. I would argue that neither of those options are better that the notch and it leaves quite a lot of wasted space either side of the sensors.
The thing about the notch is…if Apple just had made the phone correspondingly taller to do away with the notch, not that many people (if any) would have cared.
Apple has a habit of taking design details to the extreme of diminishing returns.
The notch bothers me because the alternative of making the phone 3/16” taller would have been such a trivial compromise.
OMG! My sports car has a bulge in its hood that really takes away from its sleekness! My house has these holes in the brick work that let too much light inside (windows)! And now my favorite phone has a NOTCH!!! I can’t survive in this world. I’m going to have to buy a Samsung. Oh, what? There’s an iPhone without a Notch? 8, you say? I could never do that! How “early fall 2017”! It’s winter 2017! Hello?!
5 stars aren’t enough. You deserve an LMAO too! So….
LMAO!!!
Apple ushers in the future…notches for everyone!
whine, whine, whine, whine, whine
How old are you? Seriously – I want to know.
Old enough to bang your mom and sisters, Sean.
Sooooo…. about 14 then.
Your mom and sisters had no complaints.
Non-issue.
Some people are willing to accept anything, you’re one of those people.