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The iPhone "Notch" is overblown and not really a big deal

  • True

    Votes: 126 81.8%
  • False

    Votes: 28 18.2%

  • Total voters
    154
I prefer the notch over the pill 💊 and hole 🕳. But tbh I don’t really notice one way or the other
 
With the new Macbooks with notches, Apple should have put the best possible camera that could fit within the top bezel, rather than putting a 1080p one which needs a notch housing. There is not that much of a significant improvement from the previous 720p camera to this new 1080p camera that needs a notch. Stains an otherwise perfect laptop in my opinion.
 
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Yeah, it's overblown, especially since the notch on the iPhone is functional, to have FaceID. It's different on Android where at first they just copied the design without being functional. If you are just going to have a regular selfie camera, why have a notch? Good thing they all wised up and do more space-saving tear drop or punch hole nowadays.

What's dumb is Samsung's latest tablet having a notch.... So when you use it in portrait mode, there's a stupid notch on the side. Even Apple is smart enough not to have a notch on the iPad.
 
With the new Macbooks with notches, Apple should have put the best possible camera that could fit within the top bezel, rather than putting a 1080p one which needs a notch housing. There is not that much of a significant improvement from the previous 720p camera to this new 1080p camera that needs a notch. Ruins an otherwise perfect laptop in my opinion.
Have a feeling future versions might have FaceID, so they put that in to get people used to it? :D
 
Eh...I'm willing to cut Apple some slack on the camera bulge. Frankly, it's pretty amazing what we have for camera technology in these devices - and all it takes is that relatively small elevated section on the back! Plus, your case ends up disguising the bulge anyway, so it's not a big deal.
I am not willing to cut them that slack. I agree with you on the amazing camera, but my problem is I don't use it much. As I have expressed many times here on MacRumors, 99% of my camera use is snapping pics of products on Walmart grocery shelves so my wife can choose what she wants me to bring home.

Below is my iPhone 5, my iPhone 6s+ and my iPhone 11 Pro Max. How is the 11 PM Max camera a 'small, elevated section' compared to my iPhone 5?

2022-07-23 06.54.52.jpg

Lastly, you make one assumption that people always seem to and that is assuming I use a case. There are no cases in the picture above. I don't use cases. You may use cases so to you it's not a big deal. But I do not.
 
I am not willing to cut them that slack. I agree with you on the amazing camera, but my problem is I don't use it much. As I have expressed many times here on MacRumors, 99% of my camera use is snapping pics of products on Walmart grocery shelves so my wife can choose what she wants me to bring home.
Genuine question, not being snarky.

If that is the case, why did you go for the Pro?
 
It kinda is overblown and at the same time it kinda isn't. It doesn't make my experience with it any worse but it makes me mad on the intellectual level. I just can't accept how Apple, a company that prides itself in design, can cut a huge portion of the display like that and get away with it.
 
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Genuine question, not being snarky.

If that is the case, why did you go for the Pro?
No worries, I understand why people would ask.

I got tired of waiting on my 6s+ in 2019 for Apple to get rid of the camera bump, so I went Android. After a year with my Pixel 3a XL (which is a really good phone) I decided that all-in-all, I prefer iOS. Since you can only run iOS on an Apple device that supports it, that means for a phone it was going to have to be an iPhone. So, that's one part of this.

The second part is me. Call it snobbery if you like, but when I upgrade phones I prefer to get the top offering and the option with the max capacity. For the 11 series that was the 512GB 11 Pro Max. I like to buy what I want and let the need for anything sort itself out. I don't need what I got, but I wanted it. I don't upgrade all that often (every 2.5 to 4.5 years) so that's another reason for getting what I want instead of just what I 'need'.

Now at the time the iPhone 12 was also being offered, so the question might be "Why didn't you go for the 512GB iPhone 12 Pro Max?" And in this instance, while I did want what I want, I didn't want to pay the monthly difference in price between the two phones. The 11PM is also LTE only, which was another reason I didn't get the 12PM.

So, I rationalized to myself that the camera on the back of my 11PM doesn't look as bad as the ones I've seen on the back of earlier models. Which is a bit of hypocrisy I know, but nothing is perfect and there's always something to not like about something. I'm telling myself it's not so bad. :)
 
I think the notch "issue" is overblown on every Apple product that has one.
I’m somewhere in between. I hate the notch on my iPhone, but on my MBP 16 it doesn’t bother me in the least.

For me the difference is that on the phone there’s no way to ignore it as it cuts into content. On the MBP I can hide it if I want, and it never gets into my content, so there is only the upside of extra screen real estate.
 
My iPhone 13 Mini is my first notch iPhone and I was curious how much I'd notice it. Especially on a smaller screen.
Pretty much a non issue as I've come to discount that top area.
Sure I notice it in full screen photos or videos, but not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be.

Of course no notch would be great, but... 🤷🏻‍♂️

No worries, I understand why people would ask.

I got tired of waiting on my 6s+ in 2019 for ... I'm telling myself it's not so bad. :)
Thank you for the reply.
That makes perfect sense. 👍🙂
 
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One of the so-called "benefits" is that it has a smaller notch.
While the notch is not as wide as before, it's also now taller. So I don't think the amount of screen real estate the notch covers is actually less. And Apple didn't move the icons up farther into that part of the screen, so more screen would be opened up below it. But thankfully the notch will be gone with the 14.
 
While the notch is not as wide as before, it's also now taller. So I don't think the amount of screen real estate the notch covers is actually less. And Apple didn't move the icons up farther into that part of the screen, so more screen would be opened up below it. But thankfully the notch will be gone with the 14.

The notch does actually take up a little bit less space overall compared to the previous model. But it does make you wonder why they even bothered doesn’t it? I mean, they didn’t add any extra icons along the top specifically, as mentioned before, the battery percentage which so many people want. I do wonder what planet some of the muppets from Apple are from sometimes: the decisions they make beggar belief.
 
I’m somewhere in between. I hate the notch on my iPhone, but on my MBP 16 it doesn’t bother me in the least.

For me the difference is that on the phone there’s no way to ignore it as it cuts into content. On the MBP I can hide it if I want, and it never gets into my content, so there is only the upside of extra screen real estate.

The notch doesn't cut into the contents, just like on the MBP the screen extends into the notch area giving you more space.
 
What I will never understand why Apple took away the landscape home screen after they introduced the notch phones. Having a sideways home screen in landscape mode on a tripod for video or in an automotive mount as a GPS is ridiculous. If we can have landscape apps, why not a landscape home screen? This all worked fine on my 6s Plus.
 
What I will never understand why Apple took away the landscape home screen after they introduced the notch phones. Having a sideways home screen in landscape mode on a tripod for video or in an automotive mount as a GPS is ridiculous. If we can have landscape apps, why not a landscape home screen? This all worked fine on my 6s Plus.
Because… Apple 😔

If we had the ability to split the keyboard on the iPad Pro 10.5 inch and it helped the typing experience immensely while holding the iPad in your hands, why did this simply software ability get completely removed from the iPad Pro 11 inch onwards?
 
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I am not willing to cut them that slack. I agree with you on the amazing camera, but my problem is I don't use it much. As I have expressed many times here on MacRumors, 99% of my camera use is snapping pics of products on Walmart grocery shelves so my wife can choose what she wants me to bring home.

Below is my iPhone 5, my iPhone 6s+ and my iPhone 11 Pro Max. How is the 11 PM Max camera a 'small, elevated section' compared to my iPhone 5?

View attachment 2033552

Lastly, you make one assumption that people always seem to and that is assuming I use a case. There are no cases in the picture above. I don't use cases. You may use cases so to you it's not a big deal. But I do not.
I get your point....But your iPhone 5 also can't do what the 11 Pro Max can do with it's camera(s). And those extra features are what most people tend to want. Sure, you may not particularly care based on what you want to take photos of. But that's not likely a common opinion.

Obviously, user experience varies. I think it's safe to say, though, that the overwhelming majority of people use their camera phones for more than just grocery-related items. You don't, which is totally fine, by the way...But these devices are indeed built based on what the general market is looking for. According to this article (https://photutorial.com/photos-statistics/), 1.72 trillion photos are taken worldwide every year, with a whopping 92.5% of them being taken on smartphones. So people are taking A LOT of photos. And this is why Apple and other smartphone companies focus so much on camera technology - They know that it's a phone-seller!

To me, it's completely unrealistic to think that we could get camera technology such as this without it leading to a thicker camera section on the phone.

As for the case item...OK - I understand you don't use a case. But according to this data (https://covergadget.com/how-many-people-use-a-phone-case-for-their-iphone/), about 80% of owners do indeed use them. From Apple's perspective, they aren't going to make the entire phone thicker to hide a camera bump in order to appease only about 20% of their customer base. In the end, we're talking about a bump that measures just over 1 cm. Clearly, that's not a deal-breaker for most.
 
I get your point....But your iPhone 5 also can't do what the 11 Pro Max can do with it's camera(s). And those extra features are what most people tend to want. Sure, you may not particularly care based on what you want to take photos of. But that's not likely a common opinion.

Obviously, user experience varies. I think it's safe to say, though, that the overwhelming majority of people use their camera phones for more than just grocery-related items. You don't, which is totally fine, by the way...But these devices are indeed built based on what the general market is looking for. According to this article (https://photutorial.com/photos-statistics/), 1.72 trillion photos are taken worldwide every year, with a whopping 92.5% of them being taken on smartphones. So people are taking A LOT of photos. And this is why Apple and other smartphone companies focus so much on camera technology - They know that it's a phone-seller!

To me, it's completely unrealistic to think that we could get camera technology such as this without it leading to a thicker camera section on the phone.

As for the case item...OK - I understand you don't use a case. But according to this data (https://covergadget.com/how-many-people-use-a-phone-case-for-their-iphone/), about 80% of owners do indeed use them. From Apple's perspective, they aren't going to make the entire phone thicker to hide a camera bump in order to appease only about 20% of their customer base. In the end, we're talking about a bump that measures just over 1 cm. Clearly, that's not a deal-breaker for most.
Yeah, I get that I'm not the typical person. For various reasons of our own my wife and I are not fond of having pictures taken. We've made the obligatory photos of our kids at the milestones of their lives of course - but we were all there, so there's never been much call to sit around looking at pictures. My son in particular hates his picture being taken even more than we do, but all of us do not care for it.

And I understand and have admitted in other threads that there are technical reasons for why a camera setup of that quality does not sit flush to the housing. I've accepted that - but I don't have to like it.

As to cases…

There's a recent Apple commercial where a phone is left on a counter while on silent. It's ringing and vibrating and eventually falls off the counter. It has no case on it. Apple's tagline for the commercial is not to worry because 'ceramic shield'. Some reporter picked up and that and his article states that perhaps Apple is openly suggesting that cases aren't necessary.

The reporter supports his claim by asking the reader how many Apple execs do you see with their iPhones in a case.

Now I've seen the commercial and I think that reporter's story is clickbait which is why I'm not linking to it. But it does make me think. Further. I don't believe that Apple designs their iPhones in regards to cases. They've always stated that their design stands on it's own. So while they won't design a phone to appease me - likewise, they aren't going to design a phone with a case in mind to appease the other 80 percent. Right now, it just happens to be what it is. The moment Apple figures out the technical issues and decides to make the camera flush to the housing I do not foresee an outcry from case users who want their camera bump back because it looks great in a case! Case users will just move on and slap the phone in another case.

PS. My wife is the only one of us four that uses a case and she's dedicated. Otterbox all the way. I've had to force a case on my daughter because…brand new phone…and her last phone was in great condition when I gave it to her. It's not now.

So despite grumbling about the camera bump and cases, it's yet to be a zero sum game for me.
 
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It would be nicer if the screen was purely rectangular but no it’s not a big deal in use. You don’t notice it while using the device. For those that keep getting hysterical over it, reach out and speak to someone. There may be bigger issues that even you don’t realise.
 
I would argue that’s not down to the notch, especially on the narrow iPhone 13s one, but rather down to Apple refusing to give us what we want. They could easily add the percentage if they so choose.

Except Apple isn't going to read minds. Nearly everyone who complains about something never thinks to go to https:/www.apple.com/feedback and provide feedback. I provide feedback on that site all the time and have been contacted on two occasions by someone from Apple asking for more details about something I provided feedback about.
 
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Except Apple isn't going to read minds. Nearly everyone who complains about something never thinks to go to https:/www.apple.com/feedback and provide feedback. I provide feedback on that site all the time and have been contacted on two occasions by someone from Apple asking for more details about something I provided feedback about.

Sorry, don’t buy that in this instance.

Apple will, in my opinion, be aware that people want the percentage back just like they were aware that people were crying out for dark mode.
 
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