Apple disputes YouTube star's shocking claim about how Animoji work

You know the Animoji? The cool feature that lets you send cute face-mapped animated voice messages? The one that Apple made exclusive to the iPhone X?

Yeah, those. There's been some confusion as to whether they really require the iPhone X's array of cameras and sensors built into its TrueDepth camera or if Apple could have included the feature on the iPhone 7 and 8.

Despite a video by YouTuber Marques Brownlee (better known as MKBHD) showing how Animoji still work when the TrueDepth camera's various sensors are covered, they do need them in order to work properly, an Apple spokesperson told Mashable.

When Apple announced the iPhone X in September, it said Animoji used the device's TrueDepth Camera (that includes everything crammed into the notch) and the A11 Bionic chip to mimic your facial expressions.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

In Brownlee's review video (skip to around 11:46 to see him covering the TrueDepth camera), he covers up the fancy advanced sensors -- the infrared camera, "Flood Illuminator," and "Dot Projector," mainly -- that Apple says "helps analyze more than 50 different muscle movements to mirror your expressions in 12 Animoji."

Mashable has replicated the findings. We covered everything within the TrueDepth Camera except for the front-facing camera and Animoji still worked.

This discovery suggests Apple could have included Animoji support for the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus (the only other phones that are also powered by the A11 Bionic chip), but chose to keep them exclusive to the iPhone X.

And that's actually true. Apple intentionally made Animoji an iPhone X-only feature because they work better that way, not because it didn't want older iPhone users to get in on the fun.

While Animoji do continue to work when everything but the front camera is covered up, they will not work as well over time without the depth map of your face that's created by the infrared camera.

iMore's Rene Ritchie was briefed by Apple and has a good explanation on how the infrared camera helps make the Animoji work more accurately:

"The IR system only (currently) fires periodically to create and update the depth mask. The RGB camera has to capture persistently to track movements and match expressions. In other words, cover the IR system and the depth mask will simply stop updating and likely, over time, degrade. Cover the RGB, and the tracking and matching stops dead."

Animojis aren't the first iPhone feature that Apple's chosen not to support on older devices. In 2011, when Apple released the iPhone 4S with Siri, many older iPhone users cried foul, claiming the company left them in dark because prior to Apple's acquisition of Siri, it was a third-party app that worked fine on older hardware.

While that sucked for iPhone 4 (and older) users, integrating Siri at a system-wide level wouldn't have worked as well on those older devices using older chipsets.

The reason why Apple products work so seamlessly is because the company tunes the hardware and software to work at peak performance. A sub-par Animoji experience wouldn't be "magical" or "just work."

That's probably little comfort to iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 owners who wouldn't mind getting a little Animoji karaoke going. For now, the only way to get Animoji is to pony up $1,000 for the new iPhone X. It's not cheap, but you wouldn't buy the phone just for that feature alone, anyway. There are plenty of reasons why the iPhone X is worth the money.

CORRECTION: Nov. 15, 2017, 3:27 p.m. EST This article has been updated to include corrected information about how Animoji work and what hardware they require to work properly. It previously stated Animoji might not need the iPhone X's TrueDepth camera sensors to work, which is incorrect.