Tag: memory
Kioxia develops functional 2TB microSDXC memory card prototype
As the data recording demands of smartphones, portable game consoles and action cameras continue to increase, the need for ultra-high capacity storage has never been greater. Cloud storage and streaming services help in certain instances but for devices that generate data, local storage is still best.
Queen Elizabeth: Royal Mail issues special stamps in memory of monarch
A Walk Down Memory Lane: Evolution of the iPhone Display Bezels and Notch
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.
The Thick Bezel Era
For the first decade following the iPhone’s 2007 debut, all iPhones featured relatively thick bezels at the top, bottom, and sides of the display. The bezels were either black or white, depending on the color of your device. The bezels were particularly thick at the top and bottom, given the need to house the front-facing camera, earpiece, and the Home Button, which gained Touch ID in 2013.
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.
Say Hello to the Notch
When Tim Cook announced the iPhone X at the Steve Jobs Theater in 2017, he used Apple’s iconic “One more thing” phrase to mark the unveiling of the most significant redesign in the iPhone’s history. The iPhone X introduced several new features to the iPhone, with the most notable being Face ID housed in a new notch that protruded into the top edge of the display.
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.
The Notch Gets Smaller
With the notch remaining essentially unchanged through the iPhone X, iPhone XS/XR, iPhone 11, and iPhone 12 generations, Apple finally managed to reduce its width with the iPhone 13. The notch on the iPhone 13 was made smaller in width but slightly taller. The change was a subtle one, but it emphasized Apple’s efforts toward minimizing and ideally removing the notch, which would see another significant step a year later.
Welcome to Dynamic Island
Five years after the notch’s debut, Apple is finally moving on, upgrading the notch on the latest iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max to a pill-shaped cutout separated from the display bezel. While the cutout may look like one large pill-shaped display intrusion, it is actually two separate cutouts digitally merged and hidden within the iOS user interface through a feature Apple calls Dynamic Island.
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.”
What’s Next?
With the shift to a pill-shape and hole-punch cutout on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, the question becomes about what comes after the Dynamic Island. While the end goal may be a fully unintrusive design with no notch or cutouts, that may be far out in the future until the technology to adequately hide the various cameras and sensors beneath the display exists.
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.
This article, “A Walk Down Memory Lane: Evolution of the iPhone Display Bezels and Notch” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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Librarium launches VR memory palace platform for test preparation
The Dreamcast lives on with a new ‘next-gen’ iteration of its iconic VMU memory card
Sega may have long since left console manufacturing behind, but the Dreamcast remains one of the longest-lived games consoles going, with fans ever so occasionally putting out new Dreamcast releases. The system has a cult following – the Dreamcast never dies.
The latest new development in Dreamcast technology is now available to be backed on crowd-funding site Indiegogo – and it’s a curious upgrade to one of the system’s most unique features – its VMU memory cards.
For those of you who aren’t rapidly hurtling towards their forties or indeed already there, the VMU (Visual Memory Unit) was a fascinating take on the memory cards of the time, making them interactive and fun rather than simply a slab of plastic that held your save data. Original VMUs contained a little LCD screen that could display information from the game you’re currently playing – providing a very rudimentary two-screen experience years before the Nintendo DS would do the same with far more utility.
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Open Channel: What’s Your Favorite Lord of the Rings Memory?
Next week, Amazon will finally debut its fall flagship series, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. This is a show that’s been in development for quite awhile, and Amazon’s spent a frankly absurd amount of money to both get the rights to do the show and make it in the first place. While official reviews aren’t out …