Hooray, Android phones no longer look like iPhone | Digital trends

No matter how many smartphones are criticized for being boring and dull, one thing is still true – smartphones released over the past year look far more diverse than ever before. Whether it’s crazy colors, crazy cameras or just crazy materials, advanced Android phones have never looked more different. It is far from the day when Samsung would be Apple, or when HTC launched a smartphone that was a dead ringtone for the then new iPhone, and it reveals the criticism that smartphones all look the same as a fallacy.

More expressive hardware

In 2022, it is different. Go into any phone store and pick up a flagship Android phone and you will find something various. From the choice of materials to colors, there is a lot of variation that you would not find before. The time that Android phone manufacturers used to slavishly follow the iPhone has passed. Many companies strike out on their own and lean unapologetically on their own new designs.

You can call some flashy, and to be fair, some of them are. Xiaomi’s huge camera bulge in the 11 Ultra can serve as a parody of ever-swelling camera bulbs, the racing stripes on Realme’s GT phones are in your face, and Google’s camera bump would certainly do double duty as a face use for a member of the X-Men. These designs come as a result of phones being so ubiquitous and so good that in order for companies to convince you to separate you from your money, they need to signal that their phones are worth the price. A first impression is hard to shake, and these phones certainly leave the first impression.

If you want a phone that looks like it could work as a gaming PC with strange lights, buttons and strange patterns, there is one for you, especially from Xiaomi or Asus. If you want status and look refined and important, Samsung has this market on lockdown, but Oppo’s most expensive phones are also sitting here. Do you want everyone to know that you are a serious mobile photographer? You have the latest Vivo phones with camera bumps that bump other camera bumps out of the camera.

You would never confuse these phones with anyone else. In a market where there are secure phones, the abundance of choices from refined to excessive is something that should reassure a person who is worried about the increasingly boring smartphone market. You can still see some iPhone impact in lower-end models such as the Vivo V23, where sales of as many phones as quickly as possible remain the name of the game, but individual, recognizable designs control the high-end.

Most importantly, the persistence of smartphone companies going their own ways in terms of design is a pretty good indicator of which companies you should support. If a brand goes out of its way to create a distinct, well-thought-out, unapologetic flagship design, you can expect them to plan to stay in the long run. At the same time, if a brand pumps out generic-looking phones, slams generic parts inside, and launches the next “Pro Plus Max” phone, you pretty much know what you’re getting when you buy it.

Software is another story

At the same time, as hardware evolves to be more distinct, the software slides into consistency. Far from adopting Google’s wild ideas about what an Android phone should look like with Material You, the vast majority of Android phones sold have not yet shaken their habit of designing their software to be an iOS clone. Of course, Samsung and Google are a little different from each other, but the majority of Android phones sold around the world come from Xiaomi, Oppo, Realme, OnePlus, Vivo and soon maybe even Honor, if the company plays its cards right.

All of these companies have iOS-like operating systems. There’s the now classic 4 icon dock, the glossy control and notification centers, the system apps design and so on. Even Google itself is slowly creeping towards an iOS-style design. Android 12 dropped the five-icon layout to a four-icon. There is no benefit to the consumer other than that it “looks more like the iPhone.”

At the same time, there is reason to defend this software convergence. For the smartphone brands that have stuck to Google’s attitude towards Android, they have found medium success. Alternatively, the bigger brands that have moved closer and closer to iOS have been rewarded with sales. It is possible that general buyers prefer this type of system.

If you were to choose a regular computer, with Windows or Mac or even Chrome OS, there is a convergence in design that has taken place over the last few years. They all resemble the point that you do not relearn how to use a PC every time you change operating system. There is a message center, a quick action panel, a centered dock, light themes, and dark themes. Why should the same not be the case for mobile?

Be together, not the same

There is a danger in assuming that the only way to get an Android phone that looks different is to get a foldable or other new form factor. It could not be further from the truth in 2022. Of course, foldable phones is different, and they are not records, but for one reason or another, people are still mostly drawn to the big screened records we all know and love.

The good news is that modern phone design from behind drifts further away from the iPhone and gets a completely unique identity. For those who want uniqueness, this is the best possible situation.

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