Apple

Best Ways to Hide the iPhone X Notch

Published

6 years ago

06/28/2018

If you own the iPhone X and can no longer tolerate looking at the notched display, there are a couple of ways to hide it.

When Apple launched the iPhone X back in November there was a lot of chatter about the notch that sits at the top of the phone’s display and houses some of the device’s key components.

While many iPhone X users have learned to deal with the notched display (we barely notice it anymore), some people still hate the design. If you fall into the latter group, you’ve probably thought about ways to get rid of the notch.

The only way to truly get rid of it is by trading the iPhone X in for another iPhone. Apple’s iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus don’t have a notch, neither do the iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus.

Apple’s rumored iPhone 11 (iPhone X2, iPhone X Plus, 6.1-inch LCD iPhone) is supposed to have a notch as well so you won’t be able to upgrade to avoid it.

If you don’t want to switch phones, there are some elegant ways to hide the iPhone X notch in a matter of seconds.

How to Hide the iPhone X Notch

If you search for “notch” on the App Store you’re going to discover a fairly long list of apps promising to hide the notch on your iPhone X. Many of them are $0.99 or more. Well, there’s no reason to pay when you can download an app that does the same thing for free.

There are a few free options, but the best app we’ve come across thus far is called Notcho.

Notcho provides you with a few ways to hide the iPhone X’s notch. You can use stock wallpapers that come with app or you can import your own images and use them to hide the notch. There are a couple of caveats though.

The app creates watermarks on the wallpapers, but those can be removed with a one time $1.99 fee. There’s also no way to hide the notch when you’re using apps. The notch is only hidden when you’re on the lock screen or home screen.

Other App Store alternatives include Notchy Wallpapers (free), Notch Remover ($0.99), Custom Notch ($0.99), and Notch (free).

These wallpapers are a great way to hide the iPhone X notch.

If you don’t want to deal with apps and the App Store, you can also hide the notch by downloading high resolution wallpapers from the internet.

Designer Shivam Sinha has released an amazing notch-less wallpaper for the iPhone X and it comes in a variety of colors including Orca, Sunskit Dark, Midnight City, and Deep Space. You can download all of them right here.

Once you get them saved to your iPhone X, you’ll want to:

Head to your Settings app.
Go to Wallpaper.
Tap Choose New Wallpaper.
Tap Camera Roll.
Select your new wallpaper.

For easy access we recommend favoriting the colors you like the most. To do that, head to your Photos, select the wallpaper, and tap the little heart symbol located on the bottom-middle of your screen.

4 Reasons Not to Install iOS 13.7 & 11 Reasons You Should

Install iOS 13.7 for Better Security

1 / 15

If security is important to you, think about installing the iOS 13.7 update.

iOS 13.7 doesn't have any known security patches on board. That said, if you skipped iOS 13.6 or an older version of iOS, you'll get security patches with your upgrade.

iOS 13.6 had more than 20 patches for security issues on board which made it an extremely important update. If you skipped iOS 13.6, you get the patches with iOS 13.7.

If you want to learn more about iOS 13.6's security patches, head on over to Apple's security site for more information.

If you skipped iOS 13.5.1, you get its security patch with your upgrade to iOS 13.7. You can read more about it on Apple's website. The patch is for an exploit used by jailbreak developers.

If you skipped iOS 13.5, iOS 13.7 brings iOS 13.5's 41 new security patches with it. Apple's posted the details on its website and you can dig into the particulars if you're interested.

Among them, patches for the company's Mail app, Wi-Fi, AirDrop, Bluetooth, FaceTime, Messages, and Notifications.

If you skipped the iOS 13.4 update, you'll get iOS 13.4's 28 security patches with your upgrade. You can read about all of them on Apple's website right here.

iOS 13.4 also brought several improvements to Apple's Intelligent Tracking Prevention. Apple's John Wilander outlined them in a blog post and it's worth checking out.

Reports have outlined a vulnerability in Wi-Fi chips made by Broadcom and Cypress Semiconductor that left billions of devices susceptible to attack.

Dubbed Kr00k, the vulnerability allows nearby attackers to decrypt sensitive information that's relayed over-the-air.

Fortunately, it looks like the issue was patched up with the release of iOS 13.2, an update that arrived all the way back in October.

So if you're running a really old version of iOS 13, you'll really want to move your device up to the newest version of iOS 13.

If you skipped iOS 13.3.1, you get its patches with iOS 13.7.

The iOS 13.3.1 update included 21 new security patches that will help protect your device from harm. The company's outlined those patches in detail if you want to dig in.

If you skipped iOS 13.3, you get its patches with iOS 13.7. iOS 13.3 brought 12 new security patches to the iPhone and you can read about each one over on Apple's security page.

The iOS 13.3 update also added support for NFC, USB, and Lightning FIDO2-compliant security keys in the Safari browser.

If you missed iOS 13.2, it had 16 new security patches on board. You can read about all of them on Apple's website right here.

iOS 13.1.1 brought a security patch for a third-party keyboard issue to your iPhone. If you're interested in the particulars, you can read about them over on Apple's website.

If you passed on installing iOS 13.1, you get an additional patch with your iOS 13.7 update. You can learn more right here.

If you're moving up from iOS 12, you'll get iOS 13.0's nine security patches with your upgrade to iOS 13.7. Read about those here.

If you skipped iOS 12.4.1 or any older versions of iOS 12, you'll get their security patches with your iOS 13.7 update.

iOS 12.4.1 only had one patch on board, but Apple's iOS 12.4 update brought 19 security patches to the iPhone. If you're interested in the specifics, you can read about them on right here.

In addition to those patches, iOS 13 itself comes with some security and privacy upgrades including improved anti-tracking features in Safari and the ability to get rid of location metadata in your photos.

You also now have the ability to block apps from using Bluetooth and the ability to allow apps to access your location just once.

iOS 13 will also send you reminders about applications that track your data.