What do you think of the rumored ‘hole + pill design’ for the iPhone 14 Pro?

Ever since the first iPhone made its grand debut, smartphones have primarily been all about looking at a sheet of glass. It might be hard to remember, or impossible to imagine even in todays’ world of foldable phones, but just before Apple unveiled its first phone, the industry had some pretty unique designs out there. And then it all kind of started to look . . . the same.

Even as the industry simply focused on giving smartphone buyers bigger and bigger glass panels, phones for the most part kept things pretty tame. There were some exceptions, of course, both in the hardware design of the phone itself and when manufacturers started bending those sheets of glass. But, for the most part, the smartphone buying crowd seemed pretty content on just having as big a phone as we could handle and calling it good.

That’s probably still the case, of course. We heard not too long ago that while Apple is indeed trying out some foldable iPhone prototypes, the company isn’t quite sold on the idea that foldable smartphones aren’t just a fad that will burn out sooner or later. Which means the company has to try and keep things unique now, with a design that’s both familiar to the company and familiar to the millions of people who buy iPhones.

Enter: The Notch.

How crazy it must have been for the folks out there who hadn’t seen a single rumor regarding the iPhone X’s design, right? To either watch that event in real time or even see the phone in person and get a glimpse of that notch without any buildup. The notch has always been controversial, even today it’s still an element that some people give a negative mark to iPhones. While others simply ignore it’s there and more on with their lives. For me, I technically still hate the thing, but I’ve also just moved on with my life. I’m going to buy an iPhone, it’s going to be a Pro model, and that’s that.

Which is why I’m not sure I have any feelings about this rumored “hole + pill design” we saw earlier this month. Well, technically we first saw it back in 2021, but with this latest rumor it’s starting to feel really real. That last report said Apple wants to keep things unique in the smartphone world, even as it tries to move away from the notch. Even though this probably doesn’t really get rid of the notch altogether.

There’s an expectation that Apple is working towards a future where the iPhone doesn’t have any kind of notch at all. That all the important bits to handle Face ID and the front-facing camera in general are behind the display. Which is probably real! But if Apple wants to keep toying with the design, all in an effort to keep things “unique” for the end user, that sounds pretty great.

What do you think, though? Are you a fan of how the “hole + pill design” looks? Think it will be a non-issue in the final build of the upcoming handset? Or do you think it will be even more annoying than the notch in its current form?