A Walk Down Memory Lane: Evolution of the iPhone Display Bezels and Notch – MacRumors

This week marks the fifth anniversary of Apple revealing the iPhone X, one of the biggest redesigns in the iPhone's history. Among other innovations, the iPhone X introduced the notch to the iPhone with Face ID and a design language that has persisted through the last several years.

In memory of the notch turning five years old this week, we thought we'd look back at the history of the iPhone's display bezels and how they have evolved into the pill-shaped cutout it is becoming today.

Throughout those initial years, Apple hardly touched the bezel design around the iPhone's display, keeping the thick "forehead and chin" bezels as displays gradually grew from 3.5 inches in the first few generations to as large as 5.5 inches with the "Plus" variants of the iPhone 6, 6s, and 7. It wasn't until 2017 that things started to radically change.

With that significant change to the iPhone's display, Apple had to rethink how iOS handled content. The new design also meant that third-party apps needed to be updated to support the notch and be sized correctly for the new display. The notch remained a key design element of the iPhone for four years until it was ever touched again.

Dynamic Island is an entirely new way to interact with the iPhone that integrates the pill-shaped cutout into the iOS experience by moving alerts, notifications, and other information to the top of the display and around the cutout, which digitally resizes to respond to what's being displayed. Dynamic Island has received praise since its unveiling last week, with some calling it the "best design work from Apple in years."

Rumors currently suggest that Apple is planning to bring Dynamic Island to the standard iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus models next year as the feature trickles down from the highest-end models, so it seems likely that Apple's notch replacement is here to stay for at least a few more years. What would you like to see as the next major design change on the iPhone? Let us know down in the comments.

Follow this link:

A Walk Down Memory Lane: Evolution of the iPhone Display Bezels and Notch - MacRumors