Apple’s iPhones in recent years have had a notch. It’a the small black cut out at the top of the phone to house the Face ID camera and the speaker for voice calls.
I found the notch weird to begin, but I got used to “not seeing it” after a while.
Apple is set to shake up their design for the iPhone 14. The black notch will now sit within the screen, and it’ll morph into different notifications or widgets. A short GIF of what this will look like can be found here.
It’s a great example of taking a constraint—such as the need to have the Face ID camera and voice call speaker—and building it into the design of the phone so it feels natural. Or even better, so it doesn’t feel like it’s there.
Carte Blanche problems are hard. Constraints can be superpowers if we embrace them.