LAUGHINGSTOCK: The three cameras on the newly-revealed iPhone 11 have already become victims of the Internet’s mockery.
By Jennifer Hibbard , Staff Writer
The Internet collectively cringed when the iPhone 11 was first unveiled. Apple, a company known for producing sleek and visually-pleasing phones had suddenly decided to add not one, not two, but three cameras to the back of its new phone. Twitter exploded, with users posting memes comparing the three cameras to a stove or even the Three-Eyed Raven from Game of Thrones. Apple fans, who normally cheer and rush to the store to upgrade to the latest iPhone, are flat-out calling the new device “ugly” in scathing reviews all over the Internet.
Though Apple’s newest flagship phone has only been released for about a month, many Apple fans have already made up their minds against buying it. In an online poll by Sina’s Tech Blog with over 750,000 responses, an unprecedented 90% of respondents opined that the iPhone’s newest upgrade “doesn’t look good.” Respondents to the poll are saying that “[e]ach upgrade [to the Apple phone] gets uglier,” and are indignantly asking what Apple could have been thinking when they designed the device.
The iPhone 11 is “triggering people’s trypophobia,” or the fear of patterns of small holes. Its three cameras are clustered together in a square shape, giving people the same adverse reaction they get when they look at photoshopped pictures of seed beds embedded into human hands. For people with more severe trypophobia, these photos can cause panic attacks and nausea. Others who aren’t quite as sensitive feel “uncomfortable” when looking at these images – and at the back of the iPhone 11.
That’s not to say that those terrifying cameras don’t take amazing pictures. Many of the same reviewers who initially slammed the design are now touting the three cameras as possibly “the best on any phone to date.” Customers have been pleasantly surprised by the crisp image quality and vivid colors these three cameras provide. Now, the question is: Is a perfect picture worth paying the price of a less-than-picture-perfect phone?
In his review of the iPhone 11 Pro, Nilay Patel of The Verge states that the cameras on the highest-end iPhone now outclass its primary rival, the Google Pixel, as well as other Android phones overall. However, their performance was not outstanding when taking backlit portraits or in low-light scenarios. Although this is an improvement in the general quality of Apple’s cameras, it is still not enough to decisively declare that the iPhone 11 has the best camera on the market. Some future software updates remain untested, leaving early adopters and reviewers with an incomplete picture of the iPhone’s potential.
While the iPhone 11 is certainly not the most beautiful thing to come out of Apple’s factories, it does have potential. Its cameras, while visually unappealing and even unsettling for some people, bring the iPhone to a new level of quality that will surely be appreciated by customers. Longer battery life as well as a wide array of colors to choose from will offset prospective customers’ doubts about the aesthetics of the phone in general. All in all, it seems as though there is more good than bad about the new iPhone, but that won’t stop the Internet from doing what the Internet does best: making fun of everything. Whether you’re a defender of the iPhone 11’s design or not, it’s still entertaining to scroll through Twitter’s endless supply of memes before jumping on the bandwagon to buy it once it becomes popular. After all, it’s Apple. We’ll give in at some point.