Shortly after the iPhone X made its debut in 2017, many hardcore Android fans began mercilessly chastising the phone. Why would someone care enough about a cell phone they don’t even own to actually make fun of it? That’s a good question, and it’s one we’ll probably never answer. We’re even going to attempt to explore the mindset of Android fanboys or Apple fanboys in this post. Instead, we’re just going to sit back and enjoy the irony.
What’s so ironic about Android fans making fun of an iPhone? After all, this is hardly an uncommon occurrence. Well, the irony here is that the notched display design Apple introduced on the iPhone X that was the butt of so many jokes is now being shamelessly ripped off by so many different Android phone makers that it’s getting difficult to keep count. Don’t worry if you haven’t been able to keep up, though, because we found a handy image that lays out all the iPhone X copycats out there in a single graphic. Can you guess how many there are?
Okay fine, you don’t have to guess because we included a spoiler right in the headline. The answer is 20. Yes, twenty.
Android phone makers have been copying Apple for so long now that they don’t even pretend to have any shame anymore. Yes, of course Apple apes features from Android phones as well, but it’s not exactly the same thing. Whereas Apple might steal a feature here and there, Android device makers unabashedly steal key elements of Apple’s hardware design and its flagship software features. Would you ever see Apple release a smartphone with curved edges exactly like Samsung’s Galaxy S phones? No, of course not.
Android phone makers, on the other hand, love to steal Apple’s designs. They’ve been doing since the dawn of the iPhone, and they’ll likely keep doing it until decades from now when smartphones are a distant memory and they’ve moved on to stealing Apple’s AR glasses designs or whatever else Apple has going on at the time.
The latest victim is of course Apple’s iPhone X, which is now being ripped off by Android phone makers small and large. The vast majority of iPhone X copycats come from smaller Chinese brands, and that’s obviously no surprise. “Designers” at these unoriginal companies wouldn’t know how to tie their own shoes unless Apple showed them first.
But bigger Android vendors have also decided to steal Apple’s iPhone X design, and it’s so shameless that we’re actually embarrassed for them. Among the culprits are Huawei, Asus, Sharp, and even LG — though it remains unclear if the LG G7 the company showed off behind closed doors at MWC 2018 will actually be released.
Allen He, the marketing manager at a small smartphone company called Doogee, posted an image on Twitter that collects all of the iPhone X copycats out there and dumps them into one graphic. There’s an added layer of irony here, of course, since Doogee also steals design elements from Apple’s iPhone X, but it’s an interesting image nevertheless.
Here’s the graphic:
You’ll of course notice that there are 23 phones in total pictured in the image, but we only mentioned 20 iPhone X copycats. The second phone pictured in the graphic is the iPhone X itself. The Essential PH1 is also pictured, but it has a very different type of notch and it was also unveiled before the iPhone X. Then there’s the Wiko Wave 2, whatever that is, which copies the Essential notch rather than Apple’s iPhone X notch.
What’s left is 20 unashamed, Android-powered iPhone rip-offs from companies large and small. Despite all the senseless chatter out there, it’s hard to argue that Apple isn’t still the top trend-setter in the smartphone market.
