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Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

iPhone X
iPhone X

Last year, Apple unveiled a smartphone that looked completely different from all the other phones on the market.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Hollis Johnson

One year later, that design is everywhere.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider

Here's the OnePlus 6.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider

Here's the LG G7 ThinQ.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider

Here's the Huawei P20 Pro.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Huawei

Here's the Asus Zenfone 5.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Asus

Here's the OnePlus 6T.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider

And here's the Pixel 3 XL from Google.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

See any similarities to Apple's design?

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

All of these smartphones have what people typically call a "notch," or a cut-out at the top center of the phone.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Apple

Though Andy Rubin's Essential Phone was actually the first to introduce this design a few months before the iPhone X last year, it wasn't officially "a thing" until the iPhone X went on sale.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider

Google, in particular, is driving the adoption of notches among Android phones. Aside from the new Pixel 3 XL, Google's latest version of Android supports notched smartphone designs, which makes it easier for other Android phone makers to build those kinds of phones. Great.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

YouTube/MKBHD

For what it's worth, copying Apple is nothing new — for better or worse.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Thomson Reuters

Apple's smartphone designs have inspired the industry, and countless imitators, for years. Fingerprint sensors and virtual assistants weren't "a thing" until Apple put those features in an iPhone. These days, you can't find a smartphonewithout those features.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Business Insider/Steve Kovach

It happened again this year. In the 12 months since Apple unveiled the iPhone X, with its edge-to-edge display and "notch" at the top of the phone, numerous phone makers have introduced new smartphones that look just like the iPhone X — notch and all.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

YouTube/SAMTIME

What's particularly funny is that the notch, in many ways, represents an imperfection with current smartphones.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

YouTube/sakitech

Apple specifically said the goal of the iPhone X was to make a smartphone that was "all screen" — and based on that definition, the iPhone X falls just short.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Hollis Johnson

The iPhone's notch, though it powers a highly sophisticated security system, is the only blemish on an otherwise seamless display. It is edge-to-edge, technically, but not "all screen."

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Apple

In short, Android phone makers are squandering a golden opportunity to leapfrog Apple.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Reuters

What's interesting is how few phone makers are even trying to solve this problem, as if the notch is not a clear design flaw. This phone from Sharp, for instance, has two notches!

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Sharp

To give credit where it's due, some companies are trying different things. Samsung chose not to go down the notch path at all with its Galaxy S and Note phones.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider

Other groups, like Chinese companies Oppo and Vivo, are also experimenting with ways to hide the selfie camera when it's not in use.

Still, many companies, including Google, have simply accepted the notch without challenging it, or at least shrinking it. The notch on the Pixel 3 XL is massive, for instance.

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

YouTube/MKBHD

Perhaps some phone makers think it's better to look like the competition than to try something different. But some day, probably soon, the iPhone will no longer have a notch, and other phone makers will then follow suit, eliminating the notches from their own phones. And we'll look back on this time — the Notch Era — and shake our heads in wonderment. We'll ask: Why did so many phone makers simply follow Apple, when they had a golden opportunity to jump ahead?

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone's 'notch' design — and it's causing them to miss a golden opportunity

YouTube/Unbox Therapy

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