About the flagships of 2017 from the standpoint of design.
Original material
On September 12th, Tim Cook showed the world iPhone X. The 10th anniversary iPhone features a 5.8-inch bezel-less display in a stunning new design. The smartphone also features Face ID, a new face recognition system that uses 3D modeling and infrared scanning, which suggests its use in the dark and hints at a more accurate scan than fingerprint scanning (unless you have a twin, of course). Apple claims this technology is the future of smartphones.
But there's a problem. From the screen iPhone X 'looks' at us for an obvious design compromise. The 'bezel-less' display in iPhone X takes up all the space from one edge of the curved glass to the other, but has a prominent notch at the top of the screen. It houses the imaging system required for Face ID authentication. The design of this cutout breaks the impression of a seemingly one-piece, beautiful screen. This design decision looks strange, it looks like a recognition Apple that the company managed to achieve the accuracy from Face ID of the required accuracy only by sacrificing part of the screen. Moreover, the cutout creates ridiculous-looking interfaces when used in landscape mode.
A closer look at iPhone X reveals other trade-offs. For example, Apple tried – but failed – to place a fingerprint reader under the screen. And after this failure, the company, instead of placing the Touch ID sensor on the back of the device, decided to make a cutout for Face ID in the almost frameless display.
Further – more: in iPhone X they did not work on the protruding camera (thanks, iPhone 6) and continued to bravely abandon the 3.5 mm connector (thanks, iPhone 7). At this point, you might be thinking, 'What does Apple do? Can you call this device a flagship of the premium segment? ' Remember this thought, we will come back to it, but for now, let's look at another 'frameless' smartphone this year.
A few months before the announcement of iPhone X, Samsung unveiled the Samsung Galaxy S8, a delightful 5.8-inch bezel-less display, at the Unpacked event. The curved screen without any cutouts gives the already beautiful silhouette of the S8 the impression of a complete absence of any bezels on the sides. But stop – not without problems. For example, Samsung has also failed in its attempt to put a fingerprint sensor under glass. Unlike Apple, it was decided to place it on the back of the smartphone. Unfortunately, the sensor was placed in close proximity to the camera lens, as a result, it is very easy to stain the lens, rather than pressing on the sensor. In the LG V30, the fingerprint sensor is also on the back, but away from the camera, so the risk of accidentally pressing the lens is minimal.
The S8 offers other unlocking methods: retina and face scan. But using such methods poses a security risk. The S8's face recognition can be fooled by a face photo. The retinal scanner – hailed as the highest level of biometric authentication – can also be circumvented. In other words, S8's biometric authentication methods are tradeoffs.
What about the other flagship 'bezel-less' smartphones released this year?
Here is the LG V30, a very similar S8 smartphone with a 'bezel-less' display. Let's be objective, all screens with thin side bezels and slightly wider bezels at the top and bottom will be similar to each other. And this is also a certain compromise in design.
The V30 also offers face recognition, offering users two recognition options: the default, which is easy to fool with a photo, and the 'advanced' mode, which isn't easy to fool around with, but takes a second longer to recognize. Yes, for a second! The newest flagship from LG has two cameras, which allows users to record video in Log format (a minimally processed file that allows advanced users to customize the video more flexibly). Unfortunately, this dual camera smartphone does not allow users to take photos with depth of field effect. Well, the camera sticks out slightly above the body.
I think you already understand where I'm heading, so I'll go over three more flagship smartphones introduced in 2017.
The Essential Phone is the highly anticipated phone from Andy Rubin, co-founder Android. It has a bezel-less display, except for the notch at the top of the screen like in the X, only much smaller. The smartphone has curious magnetic connectors on the back that allow you to connect peripheral devices such as a 360-degree camera. Be that as it may, the cameras in Essential are by and large useless, they are terrible – as unforgivable for a flagship compromise for a flagship as possible. And it also lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack (thanks again, iPhone 7).
Wait, is this a 2017 flagship smartphone? But it's not 'frameless'! Unfortunately, that's the case, this is – HTC U11.
The gorgeous glass back of the device is very pleasant to look at, but very slippery in the hand. How slippery? So much so that the phone comes with a case. The flagship HTC is 'charged' with some of the best cameras in smartphones, but, unfortunately, due to the thickness of the frames, similar to that of the previous generation of devices, the smartphone at the time of the announcement looked outdated for a year. And also (surprise) it doesn't have a headphone jack.
The Mi Mix 2 hasn't been as groundbreaking as its predecessor, but that hasn't stopped it from getting a beautiful exterior. Compared to last year's model, the flagship received a relatively smaller diagonal and a more rounded profile, which, unfortunately, is already so familiar to us (see S8 and V30). The Mix 2 has only a bezel at the bottom and no cutouts at the top, resulting in a pretty impressive display-to-body ratio. A similar decision was reflected in the placement of the front camera in the lower corner, which is a problem when shooting selfies or video calls. Despite being a flagship, the Mi Mix 2 has only one main camera, which means that it is impossible to take photos with bokeh effect. Oh yeah, (all together) it lacks a headphone jack.
Compromises
It should be clear at this point that all flagship phones launched in 2017 are full of compromises. This is not a coincidence.
If you look at last year's flagships, there are compromise solutions in each model. In fact, they are present in every smartphone released and will be present in every future smartphone. They're even on operating systems: Apple it took three years to add copy-paste functionality to iOS, and Google nine, damn it, nine years to limit background activity applications to optimize performance.
Taking a step back, you will see that trade-offs are built into every product you create. Notice how I said 'embedded' like compromise is a deliberate, deliberate move? And indeed it is.
The design decision in terms of design is a compromise. These are sides of the same coin. Each such design decision highlights a number of trade-offs – other functional features that cannot be implemented, negatively affected aesthetic characteristics and / or potentially compromising device performance.
By analogy with how every action is met with equal opposition, every 'positive' design decision is bound to create a 'negative' compromise. Since compromises are about design, they are deliberate, and in a similar vein: unintentional compromises are a sign of bad design decisions.
Want the best 3D facial recognition system based on the construction of its image? Sacrifice the beauty of a seamless 'frameless' design (iPhone X). Want to release your phone early and keep the good looks? Be prepared to do with biometric authentication below the level (S8). Want to create the smoothest mobile OS from scratch? Limit what it can do and what others can do with it until the industry is ready for more (iOS).
In the process of reasoning and comparing the functionality of products, we often like to focus on the form and subtle differences in design. But it is much more difficult to notice that every design is surrounded by negative space for compromise. In other words, it is impossible to create an uncompromising design without thinking about compromise solutions.
Modern flagships will probably sacrifice something for 'bezel-less' displays with cool biometric authentication. In a few years the problem will be solved – but by that time we will want to get more in a more compact package.
Conclusion
What does all of this mean?
If you are a designer, then you learn to see design and trade-offs, as physicists see electricity and magnetism. The design doesn't end with deciding which functionalities to include in the end device, or which custom scenario to promote. The final solution includes a set of features and custom scenarios that should be discarded.
If you, as a designer, do not know what trade-offs you bring to the product, then it is worth starting to track this moment, it is you who are responsible for this aspect. If you are not a designer, then understand that a no-compromise product exists solely in the marketing reality. This will help you make decisions with greater clarity: it's not which product has the fewest compromises, but which concessions mean less to you as a user.
Smartphones are important not only for what they can do, but also for what they can't. Design decisions also affect the final trade-offs. And it's important to remember this, and accept both the positive and negative.
Posted by Teo Yu Siyang
By and large, the author described everything in his material. Each smartphone has its own design decisions, which will ultimately affect the user experience. And regardless of the smartphone, compromise solutions will be present in your smartphone, be it a flagship or a budget model.