Apple unveils iPhone X, and you'll never look at phones the same again
Endless rumors and crazy speculation be gone: The iPhone X -- pronounced "iPhone ten" -- is real.
Apple announced the new phone at its yearly iPhone launch event Tuesday, held for the first time at the Steve Jobs Theater in the company's new campus in Cupertino, Calif.
Due to numerous leaks, we already knew a lot about the iPhone X, but seeing it in the flesh is something else.
The iPhone X is a 5.8-inch smartphone with an OLED display that extends over its entire front side, save for the "notch" on the top that houses the speaker, sensors, and the selfie camera. Apple calls this screen the Super Retina display, and it has 2,436 x 1,125 resolution. The design of the iPhone X is a radical departure from any previous model. Besides that huge screen, it has an all-glass case coupled with a stainless steel frame and a vertically oriented dual camera on the back. Just like its predecessors, the iPhone X is water- and dust-resistant with an IP67 rating.
There's no home button, and no, it has not been replaced by an under-the-glass fingerprint scanner; instead, the phone has an advanced face scanner that can recognize the owner in a fraction of a second. Apple calls its front-facing cameras and sensors a TrueDepth camera system, and the unlocking system is called Face ID. The face recognition is processed by a neural network built into the phone's new A11 Bionic chip (the same six-core chip used in the new iPhone 8).
“Every time you glance at your phone, it detects your face — even in the dark,” Apple's Phil Schiller said at the keynote. As for actually waking the phone up, you do that with gestures; for example, swiping up will bring you the home screen.
Most importantly, Apple says the new system is even more secure than Touch ID. There's a 1 in a 1,000,000 chance that a random person can look at your iPhone and unlock it with their face. And those chances are even lower when that person is not related to you.
It’s not just about security, though. Apple used the new infrared camera for an entirely new, fun feature called Animoji — animated emoji you can control with your face.
About that new display. It's a 2,436 x 1,125 pixel OLED screen that supports both HDR10 and Dolby Vision and has a million-to-one contrast ratio, as well as True Tone support. And yes, it has a notch on top, but this little cutout in the screen houses an impressive amount of tech, including the 7-megapixel selfie cam, speaker and microphone, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, infrared camera and the dot projector.
The vertical camera on the back of the iPhone X consists of two 12-megapixel sensors, which Apple claims are larger and faster than the ones on iPhone 7 Plus, with f/1.8 and f/2.4 aperture, respectively. You can also record 4K video in 60fps or 1080p slow-motion videos in up to 240fps. And the 7-megapixel selfie cam know some new tricks as well; for example, it now supports Portrait mode, so you can now take bokeh-enhanced selfies.
Just like the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, the iPhone X supports Qi wireless charging. Alongside the iPhone X, Apple launched a wireless charging mat called AirPower which can house up to three Apple gadgets at the same time; such as an iPhone, an Apple Watch and the AirPods. The AirPower will become available in 2018.
As for performance, Apple claims the A11 Bionic chip delivers up to 70 faster multi-threaded performance, as well as 30 percent faster graphics performance than its previous generation of mobile chips. The chip's neural engine, the company claims, can perform up to 600 billion operations per second.
The iPhone X will become available to order on October 27, and will start shipping on November 3, in two capacities 64GB for $999 and $1,149 for 256GB. The phone will be available in 55 countries, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, India, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
