Apple Made The Worst Android phone of 2022!

Apple recently unveiled iOS 15, macOS Monterey, and — sort of — FaceTime for Android at its Worldwide Developer Conference. The new FaceTime links feature isn’t a native Android app; it simply allows you to join FaceTime calls through your web browser using a good old-fashioned hyperlink.

But, while Apple expanded its ecosystem with some genuinely cool and impressive additions last week, it wasn’t a new Apple feature or operating system that piqued my interest. Instead, it was the company’s vision of what an Android phone would look like in 2022 that was used to demonstrate the upcoming FaceTime experience for green-bubblers.

The phone is shown next to Apple’s latest iPhone 12 Pro on the official iOS 15 preview page (opens in new tab).

Of course the Android device — that’s the one on the right, by the way — isn’t a real product.

Instead, Apple’s terrible, fictitious 2022 Android phone is an unholy mash-up of design elements from recent years, assembled Frankenstein-style in the least appealing way possible. This nightmare of a phone combines the dimple cutout notch of devices like the Essential Phone with thick, uneven bezels that have long been banned from any respectable handset, all topped off with a nasty plastic-looking outer frame.

The presence of a notch housing the selfie camera, as well as a hefty top bezel that could easily house the selfie camera, may be the most vexing aspect of this design. This is obviously what happens when someone goes out of their way to make a phone look purposefully, almost comically bad.

Aside from the aneurysm-inducing screen borders and misaligned status bar, this Android phone appears to lack a power button, presumably because no one would ever want to turn it on.

Even the cheapest, ugliest Android phones in 2021 look pretty good when shown from the front in the form of a promotional render. This obviously poses a problem for Apple, whose goal is to demonstrate Android compatibility while still making Android phones look icky in general. Cupertino couldn’t simply display FaceTime on the new Galaxy S21 Ultra. Aside from not highlighting an actual competitor, Apple would most likely need to negotiate with Samsung to show the S21’s mug on its website.

In fact, this isn’t the first time Apple has chosen to create its own purposefully ugly Android phone in order to demonstrate Android support. When Apple Music debuted on PC, Android, and Apple’s platforms in 2015, we got this ancient Android artifact that appeared to be five years out of date.

As a result, we now have the Apple Android Telephone 4G, which is only available from AT&T and a shady eBay storefront with zero feedback score.

There is no official spec sheet for Apple’s terrible Android concept device, but if one existed, it would most likely look like this.

Android Telephone 4G Specifications

So it’s not the best Android phone money can buy. But at least this guy appears to be pleased with his purchase. (Or maybe he’s just glad to see his friends after eleven long years.)