Oof
While we’re mostly Android users at Unbox, we still have deep respect for what folks over in Cupertino do. Like it or not Apple’s iPhone has changed the smartphone landscape for the better and many, many companies have changed how they designed smartphones thanks to the company.
You only have to look at the photos shared by Reddit user u/Saim_Ray010, which pretty much showed two major shifts in smartphone design because of Apple.
The first set of photos were actually used by Apple themselves when they were involved with a legal tussle against Samsung over patent infringement claims. Now we’re old enough to know that what Apple asserts is true: we’ve used (and reviewed) all sorts of funky phones/smartphones pre OG iPhone that didn’t have a single, unified design language of having a large, touchscreen display and no physical controls. Just take a look at Nokia’s 7380 that was released back in the day. There was certainly a definite shift to touchscreen phones after Apple’s OG iPhone hit sales channels.
The second set of photos are a little more controversial, as it depicts Android phones before and after the release of the iPhone X, the first widely successful smartphone in the market with a notch. Many people can make the argument that the iPhone X wasn’t the first phone with the notch, and they’ll be right – Sharp’s Aquos S2 was technically the first (it was released 3 days before the Essential Phone) but neither of those two were as successful as the iPhone X. Essential and Sharp are nowhere near as influential as the Apple brand as well.
Unlike the OG iPhone, there were a lot of companies that resisted releasing a phone with a notch, though Samsung has proven to be the most stubborn of Apple’s rivals, probably because they’ve spent quite a lot of money mocking the iPhone X’s notch.
Love them or hate them, Apple is still a trendsetter in the industry, with many of its rivals following its footsteps when it comes to designing their phones.
