Apple has announced the iPhone X, which is modestly describes as “the future of the smartphone.” It comes in an all-glass design with a 5.8-inch “Super Retina” display, A11 Bionic chip, wireless charging and an improved rear camera with dual optical image stabilization.
The iPhone X delivers a new way for customers to unlock, authenticate and pay using Face ID, enabled by the new TrueDepth camera. The smartphone will be available for pre-order beginning Friday, Oct. 27, in more than 55 countries and territories, and in stores beginning Friday, Nov. 3.
The iPhone X introduces a design with an all-screen display that follows the curve of the device, clear to the rounded corners. The all-glass front and back feature the most durable glass ever in a smartphone in silver or space gray, while a highly polished, surgical-grade stainless steel band seamlessly wraps around and reinforces iPhone X, according to Phil Schiller, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Marketing. A seven-layer color process allows for precise color hues and opacity on the glass finish, and a reflective optical layer enhances the rich colors, making the design as elegant as it is durable, while maintaining water and dust resistance, he adds.
The 5.8-inch Super Retina display is the first OLED panel that rises to the standards of iPhone, with “stunning colors, true blacks, a million-to-one contrast ratio and wide color support with the best system-wide color management in a smartphone,” according to Schiller. The HDR display supports Dolby Vision and HDR10, which together make photo and video content look even more amazing, he adds. The addition of True Tone dynamically adjusts the white balance of the display to match the surrounding light for a more natural, paper-like viewing experience.
iOS 11 is redesigned to take full advantage of the Super Retina display and replaces the Home button with fast and fluid gestures, allowing customers to naturally and intuitively navigate iPhone X. Simply swipe up from the bottom to go home from anywhere.
FaceID uses a TrueDepth camera system made up of a dot projector, infrared camera and flood illuminator, and is powered by A11 Bionic to accurately map and recognize a face. These advanced depth-sensing technologies work together to securely unlock iPhone, enable Apple Pay, gain access to secure apps and many more new features.
Face ID projects more than 30,000 invisible IR dots. The IR image and dot pattern are pushed through neural networks to create a mathematical model of your face and send the data to the secure enclave to confirm a match, while adapting to physical changes in appearance over time. All saved facial information is protected by the secure enclave to keep data extremely secure, while all of the processing is done on-device and not in the cloud to protect user privacy. Face ID only unlocks iPhone X when customers look at it and is designed to prevent spoofing by photos or masks.
The new 7-megapixel TrueDepth camera that enables Face ID features wide color capture, auto image stabilization and precise exposure control, and brings Portrait mode to the front camera for selfies with a depth-of-field effect.
The iPhone X also features a redesigned dual 12-megapixel rear camera system with dual optical image stabilization. The ƒ/1.8 aperture on the wide-angle camera joins an improved ƒ/2.4 aperture on the telephoto camera for better photos and videos.
A new color filter, deeper pixels and an improved Apple-designed image signal processor delivers advanced pixel processing, wide color capture, faster autofocus in low light and better HDR photos. A new quad LED True Tone Flash offers twice the uniformity of light and includes Slow Sync, resulting in more uniformly lit backgrounds and foregrounds.
The cameras on iPhone X are custom tuned for AR experiencse. Each camera is individually calibrated, with new gyroscopes and accelerometers for accurate motion tracking. The A11 Bionic CPU handles world tracking, scene recognition and the GPU enables incredible graphics at 60fps, while the image signal processor does real-time lighting estimation. With ARKit, iOS developers can take advantage of the TrueDepth camera and the rear cameras to create games and apps.
The new camera also delivers the highest quality video capture ever in a smartphone, with better video stabilization, 4K video up to 60fps and 1080p slo-mo up to 240fps, according to Schiller. The Apple-designed video encoder provides real-time image and motion analysis for optimal quality video.
Portrait mode with Portrait Lighting on both the front and rear cameras brings dramatic studio lighting effects to iPhone and allows customers to capture stunning portraits with a shallow depth-of-field effect in five different lighting styles.3
With iOS 11, iPhone X supports HEIF and HEVC for up to two times compression and storage for twice the photos and videos.
The TrueDepth camera brings emoji to life in a fun new way with Animoji. Working with A11 Bionic, the TrueDepth camera captures and analyzes over 50 different facial muscle movements, then animates those expressions in a dozen different Animoji, including a panda, unicorn and robot. Available as an iMessage app pre-installed on iPhone X, customers can record and send Animoji messages with their voice that can smile, frown and more.
A11 Bionic, the most powerful and smartest chip ever in a smartphone, features a six-core CPU design with two performance cores that are 25 percent faster and four efficiency cores that are 70 percent faster than the A10 Fusion, offering industry-leading performance and energy efficiency. A new, second-generation performance controller can harness all six cores simultaneously, delivering up to 70% greater performance for multi-threaded workloads, giving customers more power while lasting two hours longer than iPhone 7.
A11 Bionic also integrates an Apple-designed GPU with a three-core design that delivers up to 30% faster graphics performance than the previous generation. All this power enables incredible new machine learning, AR apps and immersive 3D games.
The new A11 Bionic neural engine is a dual-core design and performs up to 600 billion operations per second for real-time processing. A11 Bionic neural engine is designed for specific machine learning algorithms and enables Face ID, Animoji and other features.
The glass back design enables a world-class wireless charging solution. Wireless charging works with the established Qi ecosystem, including two new wireless charging mats from Belkin and mophie, available from apple.com and Apple Stores.
Apple gave a sneak peek of AirPower, an Apple-designed wireless charging accessory coming in 2018, which offers a generous active charging area that will allow iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus or iPhone X customers to simultaneously charge up to three devices, including Apple Watch Series 3 and a new optional wireless charging case for AirPods.
Pricing and Availability
The iPhone X will be available in silver and space gray in 64GB and 256GB models starting at $999 from apple.com and Apple Stores and is also available through Apple Authorized Resellers and carriers .
Through Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program, customers in the US can get iPhone X, with the protection of AppleCare+, choose their carrier (no multiyear service contract required) and have the opportunity to upgrade to a new iPhone every year. The iPhone Upgrade Program is available for iPhone X at apple.com and Apple Stores in the US with monthly payments starting at $49.91.