Andrew Hoyle/CNET

LG's new LG G7 ThinQ phone has a notch, but the company doesn't want you to think it's copying Apple's iPhone X.

"We planned the notch design before Apple," LG's mobile chief Hwang Jeong-hwan told The Korea Herald.

We don't know whether that means LG had the idea before Apple (how would they know?) or whether LG is simply saying the G7's notch was in the works before Apple introduced the iPhone X in September 2017. Neither Apple nor LG immediately responded to our requests for comments.

The notch on the LG G7 is different than the one on the iPhone X because you can essentially turn it on or off -- blacking out the top corners so the notch seems invisible. Because of this, LG prefers to call its notch a "second display," according to The Korea Herald.

The LG V20, released in 2016, did have a secondary display above the main LCD screen, but last year's LG V30 had a single display instead.