The iPhone x design flaws
Sorry for the long read, I got a bit verbose, but I hate "the notch". I'm not in a position to buy a new iPhone, but I was keeping my eyes open and hope one day to upgrade from my 6s. But right now its working just fine. But when I look to the future, I am appalled by what I can expect as far as screen shape.
I am speaking as an artist and designer. I have worked as a graphic designer, web page designer, and software graphic designer. As well I have been a practicing artist (painter) for my entire life. I at one time worked on shaped canvases. I wanted to explore and reflect more truer how humans actually see the world. And in fact our peripheral vision is constantly reshaping our visual field. It depends on how strong, dark, vivid, geometrical etc.. a shape is on the border of our vision. We create edges and change the shape of our "movie screen" if you like, constantly from second to second as we use our eyes.
But, maybe partly due to laziness or conformity, I now work with square or rectangular shaped canvases. I figured out that humans have evolved to consider a rectangle as the shape we define and separate space. We look at a wall as a complete 2D space. We even sometimes do a "feature wall" which has the effect of separating that rectangle away from the other ones. I forgot, to say I have also worked years as a commercial house painter. It is the shape we are conditioned to accept as "normal" and comfortable. It was established in architecture when Mondrian and the De Stijl architecture movement became popular and influenced building right on through to today.
The rectangle, whether embodied by a mirror, a framed photo, or an artwork reflects the greater shape of the edges of a room, a TV screen, monitor, or movie screen is the shape humans use, for whatever reason, as the shape to use as the window for entering another realm. Whether for fantasy escape or work related / pages etc..The shape whose edges almost disappear in importance because the room itself reflects it, cancels it out. Which leads to the eye/brain giving more weight to what is actually within the rectangle. That is part of the power of 2d illusion painting. Not all art practices of course.
What I discovered from using shaped canvases was that far from creating a more "natural" human visual stage for our eyes, despite my research and exploration of the true physical shape of our vision, using anything but a rectangle, would have the effect of transforming any painting from a window into the illusory world I wanted the viewer to enjoy, into an object in and of itself. Who's overall shape and physical presence, being odd, distracted from the whole concept of creating the illusion of another world within the borders of the canvas.
Which brings me finally to the new iPhone X. And "the Notch". As well as the rounded corners in the screen. It is just not natural for humans, now, to use any other shape other than the rectangle, as the purist form of a window into our visual theater. So this "notch" is highly distracting. Not the notch so much as the "ears" poking up on each side. For every day use I don't think I'd be bothered, but for watching videos, games, or even photos, its just so annoying to have to adjust and have your eyes work around.
Also, to a lesser degree, the rounded corners. Too rounded for me. I will always feel like I am missing a bit of the story when watching video or photos. It just is not the shape that humans have established in their evolution as the story telling shape. It will always give off the impression that one is watching a rounded interpretation of the actual event. Or a toy version. I am just happy to have a very crisp hard edge rectangle on my 6s.
Again, I use my phone for watching sports, movies, YouTube, games and art images a lot. A funny shape wouldn't interfere with other functions. Its just the human act of immersing oneself in an alternative visual story telling reality where it would bug me having some dark shape intruding in on the screen. And the overly rounded corners. Maybe I'm just a picky perfectionist artist. But I wonder how may others feel any of this too.
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Started having battery problems and eventually got to the point where it would randomly shut down with 18-25% battery life. Did the battery replacement thing free of charge. All the measurements said there shouldn't be a problem but I still kept getting random shut downs. Spent some time carrying a battery pack and it just became a pain in the ass. Finally chucked it.
As for being concerned - I think you're probably ok until you start having battery issue and even then, it's not like it turns into a brick. just get's inconvenient.
On the design side, I might not be as anal as you're describing yourself but I'm pretty committed to good design. Spent a couple years in a fortune 500 managing about 35% of the global design folks. I can't do it personally but i've been around enough folks that absolutely geniuses that I can appreciate it. So I get what you're saying about the notch...and I'm telling ya...if you let go of the notch, it'll let go of you.
lol
Which of these shapes for a screen shape draws you in more, envelopes you in the scene rather than your eye noticing the outer shape of the frame of the window? We are conditioned to regard a rectangle (with hard 45 degree edges) as the vehicle we use to exclude the outside world. Using any other shape makes your brain work harder to omit the distraction of any outer border shape that is not a rectangle, to not see the whole thing as an object rather than a window. Its possible of course to do this, our brains are amazing things. But it is still an annoying little hurdle I wish I didn't have to deal with
This:
or this:
or this:
or even this:
