The upcoming high-end iPhone 14 is expected to come with a pill-shaped cutout rather than the notch that's been present on the iPhone in some form since 2017. While we're still months away from the next iPhone, we already have a solid idea of what a pill-shaped cutout would look like in practical use.
A mockup on Twitter by developer Jeff Grossman shows, at least on the Home Screen, what a pill-shaped cutout on an iPhone would look like. The cutout, rather than being continuous with the device's bezel like a notch, is centered slightly below the bezel while being shorter in length and height, offering significantly more screen real estate on either side.
Apple made the notch smaller with the iPhone 13, but the extra space can't be utilized. For example, users still can't show the battery percentage in the status bar but must instead swipe down into Control Center. One would think that with a pill-shaped cutout, Apple may let users display more information in the status bar rather than let it remain unused screen real estate.
If you're interested in trying out the experience of a pill-shaped cutout on your own iPhone, Jeff has shared the screenshot used in his original image. View the image on your iPhone, lock your screen rotation, and turn your iPhone upside down to experience, more or less, what an iPhone 14 Pro may look like in your hand.
A pill-shaped cutout would mark a significant design shift from the notch that's been a hallmark of the iPhone design language since the iPhone X. A pill-shaped cutout would require Apple to fit several sensors and the TrueDepth camera system in a smaller footprint. Rumors so far suggest that only the high-end iPhone 14 models will feature a pill-shaped cutout, while the lower-end variants will continue with the full-sized notch, although that could always turn out not to be the case.
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I prefer the notch. The area above the pill hole is utterly useless, no functionality at all. This design also make the camera hole much more visible to the eye than the notch.
Let's hope they keep the approach of the notch getting smaller and smaller & move the bar above the notch line:
Still not getting why there’s so much notch hate, I hardly notice it
This comment comes up quite a bit.
Where do you think you hear the majority of this ‘Notch hate’? (Yup, you guessed it…) It’s only on sites like this. Do you really think people outside Macrumors discuss how much they have distain for the notch in the general public? No. Consumers generally don’t care. Most people have more important things to discuss, versus a trivial iPhone feature.
