Editorials · Reviewer Insight
Not even the iPhone 20 will convince me curved screens are good
Apple is about to bring a terrible design trend back.
This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.
Curves belong on other places, not on my screens. | Image by PhoneArena
Rumors are piling up that next year's anniversary iPhone (which will possibly be called some variation of "iPhone 20"), could be adopting a quad-curved exterior glass. This is an extreme example of previous design trends that gave us those old-school curved displays, but mixed with two additional curves towards the top and the bottom of the frame.
Quad-curved phones are nothing new. Chinese phone makers have been experimenting with the concept for years, with Huawei being especially fond of that and equipping devices like the Huawei Mate X6 and Pura 80 Pro being the perfect examples of that.
Will the anniversary iPhone 20 look cool? Probably, but from afar. No matter how Apple's executives spin the tale, it will most certainly be just a device with a curved screen that makes for a great 3D CGI introduction movie but will be plain awkward to use in real life.
And, as I have already bemoaned, once Apple goes quad-curve, I expect that just about all rivals will follow suit to some extent and will copy the trendy (for Apple) design language. That's just the Apple influence; the company's designs are almost always being straight-up copied and emulated.
The upcoming anniversary iPhone 20 will be such an influential device as well, but I already dread it, because I am convinced nothing's better than a good ol' flat screen, regardless of the logo in the back.
Flat is great, and you can't convince me otherwise
Nothing beats a flat screen, and you can't convince me otherwise. The facts are on my side, and I've written more than one article on the topic.
With a flat display, you get the most immersive experience and maximum usable screen area of your phone. There are virtually no mistouches, and even though companies tried to gloat just how advanced their mistouch prevention counter-measures are, mistouches were a common sight for me when I was using phones with curved screens.
Applying a screen protector is easy and effortless, and you get no weird lips or exposed areas, which is the usual happening when applying one on a curved phone. You also get zero unwanted reflections or glare: the curved part of the display always had a bright, undesirable streak of light going from top to bottom.
Finally, you get weird content distortion that makes content displayed near the edges of the screen weird.
Curved screens are simply weird
Currently, all the best-selling phones out there have flat screens. Let's not forget that this was a design trend kick-started with the iPhone 12 that has been going on for more than six years now. It was one of the best industry-wide effects that Apple caused, kickstarting a golden age of display bliss.
After experiencing flat iPhones and Android devices for years, I detest the thought that the anniversary iPhone could break cover and we have to endure a five-minute montage of a Jony Ive-like voice extolling the virtues and benefits of the curved screen that Apple's design crack team has cooked up for us.
This way, implied novelty and FOMO will try to sell us a design trend that has been gone for good for the better part of a decade.
Am I missing something?
Of course, I might be talking out from the experience of my own bubble, but I have never met a person who likes curved screens. Sure, I vividly remember people around me gawking at the Galaxy S7 edge back in the day, but that was merely initial surprise that didn't transfer into long-lasting love for the design trend. With the Galaxy S8 and S9, the novelty quickly wore off, and the era of the mass curved-screen phone quickly came to an end.
I might be missing something here, but I don't think anyone is actively hoping for Apple to release an iPhone with a quad-curved display. More correctly put, I don't think anyone who actively wants to use an iPhone is hoping for Apple to release an iPhone with a quad-curved screen.
The negatives majorly outweigh the potential benefits.
I struggle to name any of the latter.
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