The black cut-out at the top of a phone screen housing the camera and Face ID, introduced by the Essential Phone in August 2017 and made unavoidable by the iPhone X a month later, after which every Android maker copied it while claiming to hate it. The record notes the notch was mocked for five years, replaced by the Dynamic Island in 2022, and is now what people miss.
I saved a screenshot of the first Notch post I saw. Looking at it now, the joke is entirely in the timing. The timing does not survive the screenshot.
'Notch or no notch' as a 2018 phone-review section heading, treated with the seriousness of a border dispute. The record notes the hole-punch won and nobody celebrated.
Still in sincere use as of this writing, which is the only test that matters. Notch has not yet been put on a slide by anyone in marketing, and I intend to keep checking.
What does it mean? Write it the way you would say it out loud.
