Apple Announces iPhone X With Edge-To-Edge Display, Wireless Charging and No Home Button (theverge.com) 570
At its event in Cupertino, California today, Apple unveiled the iPhone X to mark the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. It brings several new features including an edge-to-edge screen, Qi wireless charging, and Face ID. The Verge reports: Because of its edge-to-edge display, the iPhone has no place for a conventional home button, relying instead on a complex facial recognition system to unlock the phone. Called FaceID, the new system will replace TouchID, the home button sensor that's enabled fingerprint logins since 2013's iPhone 5S. Users can wake the phone by swiping up from the button instead of hitting the button. The same gesture will open the control panel once the phone is awake. The updated iPhone 8 will continue unchanged, including both the home button and TouchID. Apple also unveiled the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, which are updated versions of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus released last year. These new devices feature glass backs with support for wireless charging. The Verge provides some additional specs and features in its report: Apple has improved the display on the iPhone 8 line, adding the same True Tone technology it offers on the 10.5-inch iPad Pro to automatically adjust the screen based on the ambient light in the room to offer more accurate colors. Internally, Apple has upgraded the processor from the A10 Fusion found in the 7 to the A11 Bionic. It's a six-core chip with two performance cores that are 25 percent faster than the A10, and four performance cores that the company says are 70 percent faster that the old model. There's also a new Apple-designed GPU that's 30 percent faster, with the same performance as the A10 at half the power. On the camera front, there's a new 12-megapixel sensor on the iPhone 8 that is larger, faster, and finally has optical image stabilization. The iPhone 8 Plus also has new sensors, and offers f/1.8 and f/2.8 apertures now. The dual cameras on the 8 Plus also have a new "Portrait Lighting" feature to adjust the lighting for portrait shots. And Apple says that the improvements apply to video, too, with Apple executive Phil Schiller claiming that the new devices have the "highest quality video capture ever in a smartphone," with support for 4K/60fps video. Slow motion videos now support up to 1080p resolution at 240fps, doubling the the iPhone 7's 120fps option. The iPhone 8 will start at $699 for a 64GB model, while the 8 Plus will start at $799 for 64GB of storage. You can preorder these devices starting Friday, September 15th, and they will be released a week later on September 22nd.
UPDATE 9/12/17: The iPhone X will be priced starting at $999 for the 64GB variant. Pre-order will be available October 27th with shipments starting November 3rd.
UPDATE 9/12/17: The iPhone X will be priced starting at $999 for the 64GB variant. Pre-order will be available October 27th with shipments starting November 3rd.
Not want (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like a plain "on" button, thank you.
Re:Not want (Score:5, Insightful)
But a phone that unlocks when it sees your face is one that the police can confiscate and unlock by simply aiming it at your face.
Why wouldn't you want that convenience?
Re:Not want (Score:5, Funny)
Point it at your junk when it wants the reference picture. Duh.
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That skill would require many hours of Kegels to perfect.
Also fat 'finger' issues, for me anyhow.
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Gee, you don't think it's because everybody plays tech stocks with the strategy of "buy on rumor, sell on news" do you?
No, I'm sure it's because the tech geniuses at the hedge funds think these new products are terrible, and that Apple is going to sell zero units and burn through their hundreds of billions of dollars in their Scrooge McDuck Money Bin on the new Campus in the next quarter...
Hint: this happens on every launch day.
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Print out mugshot, have some rando press it tightly against their face.
At worst you'll need to do some deformation in photoshop prior to printing.
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I'm sure crumpled paper will line up exactly with the 30k dots it has remembering the exact depth of your face.
Now Arya Stark must be beaming with glee over the windfall coming her way.
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I'm sure crumpled paper will line up exactly with the 30k dots it has remembering the exact depth of your face.
That doesn't make it sound like this is going to work particularly well when I'm wearing ski goggles or dirtbike gear. This new form over function could prove to be a very annoying direction for Apple to go.
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But a phone that unlocks when it sees your face is one that the police can confiscate and unlock by simply aiming it at your face.
Why wouldn't you want that convenience?
They addressed this in the presentation. You have to look at it with your eyeballs. As long as you look away with your eyes, it won't unlock.
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They addressed this in the presentation. You have to look at it with your eyeballs. As long as you look away with your eyes, it won't unlock.
What if I'm wearing sunglasses? I can't use my phone?
If they've got that technology then why do they even need a "home" gesture. People could just cross their eyes or something to go home, much easier than using a stupid gesture that will probably give you RSI if you try to use the phone one handed.
Re:Not want (Score:4, Insightful)
Because I'm sure they don't have the tried-and-true PIN entry available still, just like OMG WHAT IF I'M WEARING GLOVES AND IT CAN'T READ MY FINGERPRINT?!
It's not like it takes a room full of PhDs to figure that one out...
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Go ahead and sit in that room with your eyes closed. We have plenty of time.
You can open your eyes, just look left right up down and not at the device.
Re:Not want (Score:5, Funny)
Time not important. Only life important.
Re:Not want (Score:5, Funny)
Big badda boom.
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Not eyes open. Eyes looking at the phone.
If you're just going to hold them until they do it, then that's no worse than a password, and it's better than touchID (which you can force).
Re:Not want (Score:5, Funny)
But they could just send an instant message to it and let Pavlovian conditioning do the rest.
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But a phone that unlocks when it sees your face is one that the police can confiscate and unlock by simply aiming it at your face.
Why wouldn't you want that convenience?
I'd like to get some information on just how accurate that face-match actually is. For example, my beard length changes over several months until I trim it back for another crop. I'm also wondering just how many attempts before you have to type in your passphrase.
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They said in the keynote that Touch ID accuracy was 1 in 50K and Face ID is 1 in one million.
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Siri: What happened? Is it Christmas already? You're playing Santa?
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I've done nothing wrong.
Re: Not want (Score:2)
How is that any different than the current t world where the police could compelled you to touch the finger print reader on your device?
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Gonna suck for identical twins too.
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Don't worry, they're already working on the next model that will remove the screen entirely and just do whatever you should want to do.
Re:Not want (Score:5, Informative)
I get the point you're making, but it's worth pointing out for others that it doesn't just unlock when it thinks it sees you. Rather, it waits for you to focus your attention on it first. It's also worth mentioning that the false positive rate on Touch ID was 1 in 50,000, which was fine for the vast majority of their customers, whereas Face ID is 1 in 1,000,000. If you were already okay with Touch ID's level of accuracy, or else were on the fence before and just wanted it to be a bit better, Face ID may be the leap forward in accuracy that you wanted, even if it seems weirdly different at first glance.
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Re:Not want (Score:5, Informative)
So, a few things:
1) Their demonstration suggests it relies on accelerometer readings to know when to activate the sensor, since they had to raise the device before it started looking for faces. You can probably also click the power button to activate it, but either way, it doesn't appear to be always-on.
2) From what we understand, it isn't using the camera to detect faces. Rather, it's using something more akin to the Kinect, since it's projecting 30,000 IR dots and then sensing them via a basic IR sensor to create a 3D mesh.
3) Even if raising it isn't necessary to trigger the sensors, if the accelerometer is telling it it's stationary, it can stay off 99.9% of the time and just do a quick IR pulse every fraction of a second to see if anything's moved. Likewise, if the proximity sensor is telling it it's in a pocket or pressed to your ear it can stay off 100% of the time.
4) Even if it is always-on (which, again, it doesn't appear to be), they're claiming it gets 2 hours better battery life than the iPhone 7, so they must have figured out some way to optimize things.
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At least Apple are working with an open wireless standard (Qi) instead of trying to push their own custom, proprietary thing.
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A combination of opening up the walled garden just a bit and releasing computers based on current-gen hardware would get me to give them another look.
So along with the new sensors (Score:2, Interesting)
they brought back the headphone jack, right? Because they were able to jam so much other new things why not also find the room for something that caused much consternation last time around? It's only right to confirm their commitment to the consumer and are willing to admit they made an error in removing it, right?
Right?
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they're just not that brave.
Re:So along with the new sensors (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, nobody cares about the headphone jack except slashdot whiners.
Or people who actually use their phones.
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or cussed while shelling out for a lightning splitter so they could both charge and use the adapter at the same time like you could do before with two less dongles.
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If I were the type to drop $1000 on this kind of toy, I definitely wouldn't sweat paying for a good set of Bluetooth headphones. But I'm more of a "bust out the soldering gun when the headphone plug goes wonky" kind of guy.
Re:So along with the new sensors (Score:5, Interesting)
I definitely wouldn't sweat paying for a good set of Bluetooth headphones.
I have yet to see a set of Bluetooth headphones, at any price, that can adequately replace wired headphones for my use case. The battery doesn't last nearly long enough.
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I have yet to see a set of Bluetooth headphones, at any price, that can adequately replace wired headphones for my use case. The battery doesn't last nearly long enough
If you are only worried about battery life then you haven't been looking at the right headphones. My BTS Pro 66 have continuous playback rated at 40 hours.
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Having a active lifestyle is one of the reasons I went wireless. I've seen a number of wired headphones get grabbed by various parts of gym equipment and bicycles to think about it. Of course this never happened to me because I kept my cord well managed but I just got rid of the cord and it became one less thing to worry about.
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the new Mac Pro
FaceID (Score:2)
FaceID FAILURE!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:FaceID FAILURE!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Face recognition didn't fail, they didn't unlock the phone when it woke up, just like with Touch ID. You have to provide a passcode after the phone has been turned off and on.
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At best, the only thing it does is force users to enter their passcode so they don't forget it
You answered your own question. That is very much why this is in place.
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While there was a gaffe with that demo, it actually wasn't a problem with Face ID. Rather, whoever was prepping those iPhones didn't do something they should have done, which resulted in the presenter triggering a standard security mechanism that everyone who uses Touch ID probably recognized immediately.
As a security precaution, iPhones are currently designed to require that the user enter their passcode instead of using Touch ID:
1) Every time the iPhone is restarted.
2) If it's been more than a week since
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Having used similar sensors (Structure, Kinect etc.) it's fun to play with but ultimately not high quality enough to do anything useful with.
It's official (Score:5, Insightful)
The smartphone market is officially mature, as indicated by the fact that even Apple can't come up with anything other than incremental improvements and gimmicks.
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What's funny is during the keynote they listed the resolution for landscape while showing the iPhone in portrait orientation.
You seem to be under the impression that an Apple keynote is about passing on useful information and accurate specifications. Please report to your nearest Steve Jobs Memorial iReducation centre.
An Apple keynote is about giving fanboys wank material whilst ignoring that someone else had invented it first.
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The smartphone market is officially mature...
Actually, no. We've just gotten to where things get interesting... Android/Linux passes Microsoft on the internet [statcounter.com] and just keeps going. Apple a distant third in that race.
Oh Look (Score:2)
Re: Oh Look (Score:2)
Samsung, lg, asus, name it, every android phone the last 2 years?
Nope Not True Edge to Edge (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nope Not True Edge to Edge (Score:4, Interesting)
If it were much smaller, you couldn't use it with a case, which most iPhone users do (87% according to one survey).
That said, I really don't get the appeal of bezel-less design on cell phones. It seems completely backwards to me. I hold a phone in my hand. The bezel provides a grip surface. Making that surface smaller is an undesirable feature. Yet if the technology is possible in a phone, it should also be possible in a laptop, which I don't hold in my hand, which therefore does not need a bezel. Why didn't the technology get used there first (or, for that matter, exclusively)?
Worse, when the menu bar is white or when watching videos, these bezel-less designs look ugly. That huge gap at the top where the camera goes means that you can't really watch videos on the entire screen, or else you lose part of the image and it looks ridiculous. So app developers will end up adding a zoom mode like they did for the 4:3 iPads so that the unusable area is avoided. And if they don't want it to look ridiculously lopsided, they'll probably trim the other end, too, and effectively we bring back the bezel, just without the convenience of an actual home button.
I just don't get it. What about this is supposed to be an improvement?
It's only $999 (Score:5, Funny)
WTF?
Why is it so cheap? Hoping it was at least $3000 so the peons couldn't afford one
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A smartphone that costs less than a single bitcoin would still be cheap enough.
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Apple gets shit on anyway for supposedly being the most expensive phone, they might as well actually have the most expensive phone.
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FaceID + ApplePay = Problems? (Score:2)
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You have to be actively paying attention, apparently—CFed demoed that. You also have to have your eyes open.
Re:FaceID + ApplePay = Problems? (Score:4, Informative)
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It's gonna be funny watching people try to hold the phone to the terminal and get their face in view at the same time.
Mr. Schiller (Score:2)
Phil Schiller fills us with shilling.
2 years old android (Score:2)
Have almost all these new technologies with better display. .. except for face unlock, which I don't know if it's a valuable option?
Homeless (Score:2)
Both the iPhone and you after you buy it.
another glass back... (Score:2)
Is the facial recognition a cloud service? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Is the facial recognition a cloud service? (Score:5, Informative)
Facial recognition doesn't take any photos, just like Touch ID didn't take an imprint of your finger. It converts it to a mathematical representation and does a comparison inside the Secure Enclave. The analysis it does is non-transferable.
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You're assuming Face ID relies on photos (like most other smartphone facial recognition systems), but so far as we know, it doesn't. Rather, it works a lot more like the Kinect.
Basically, it uses an infrared dot projector and infrared sensor in the new "TrueDepth Camera System" to create a three-dimensional mesh of the user's face by projecting 30,000 IR dots onto your face, then detecting how they relate to each other. Based on the distances between the dots the phone is able to generate a 3D mapping of yo
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"I don't have time to either read or watch the announcement, can you please answer my questions that are spelled out already"
As described in the announcement, all facial recognition is done locally. Nothing touches a "cloud" server.
TrueDepth (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's hoping the face scanning technology becomes user accessible as a general-purpose 3D scanner.
Edge (Score:4, Insightful)
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can't imagine what it will be like with an edge to edge phone.
Then just walk into a shop and try it. There's no problem with rejecting touches on the edge of the screen on the Galaxy S6 edge or any other edge to edge display built in the past 3 generations. It's one of those things that you think will be a problem because of your previous experience with a completely unrelated product. But the thing is, when people build something that actively causes a problem they also design engineering solutions for them.
It's like watching people use the stylus on my Surface for t
Is that really a display with a bite out of it? (Score:4, Funny)
Is that really display surface with a bite out of it on the X? What are you supposed to do with the two little devil-horns at the top? Ads I guess. Yeah, nevermind. Devil-horn advertising will be the hot new trend.
ComeFace (Score:5, Funny)
"Set your Apple Face ID to your comeface, so that if someone mugs you for your phone they at least have to wank you off first" - Frankie Boyle [facebook.com].
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You use your unlock code, just like the guy on stage had to do when it didn't unlock for him during the big presentation.
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Supposedly there is a "super-locked" mode that you invoke by pressing the power and volume buttons (or double-clicking them or somesuch) which turns off the FaceID until you enter your unlock code manually.
Popo shows up, double-click, done. Presumably with all the face tracking and recognition stuff they added today, they could extend that to a certain expression - stick your tongue out, phone locks down.
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The Police don't have your unlock code. They simply aim it at your face.
Again, addressed in the presentation. If they point it at your face, don't look at the screen and it won't unlock.
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It's almost as if you haven't understood a single thing about how it works.
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maybe you're the one that is stupid?
It scans your facial features and essentially computes a checksum from the data. not your haircut
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This is stupid, what happens if the face detection does not work? What happens if you get injured or even a new haircut? What if you have a dark complexion or get a tan? This is the smarted form of stupid yet from Apple, a company more and more out of touch with its customers.
This was all addressed in the presentation. It still works if you change your look, because that's not the data points the sensors are looking at.
Re: ONCE AGAIN APPLE INNOVATES! NEXT COME THE COP (Score:2)
/s you forgot because over face unlock I didn't see any innovation there!
Re:Dual Product Launch (Score:4, Insightful)
My mom would. A person who wants a reasonably new phone, doesn't want to show off, wants a couple of years worth of software updates, and doesn't want to spend $300 for the fancy display.
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The ONLY reason people buy iStuff is to show off. Get over it. That's the only 'value proposition' Apple has left. They have lagged in features for years now and now it's all 'OH LOOK SHINY NEW' as the lemmings flock to it.
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Someone who wants a home button.
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There is an simpler answer... Did you happen to miss the fact that the iPhone SE, 6s & 7 will still be available?
Why? Because not everyone wants/can afford the biggest and best... and for just $350 you can get a new iPhone, and for those with a little (or a lot) more money there is a product at more compatible price points.
They did much the same thing a decade ago which the iPod was the must have product and various staggered price points which started as low as $99 (I think).
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I dunno, between the two the 8 looks like the more desirable phone to me.
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Between all models shown on the keynote slide, the iPhone SE is the only one that looks the size of a phone. All others are small tablets.
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My partner got an iPhone SE when her iPhone 6 died. It was cheaper and she likes the smaller form factor better. Not everyone cares to be cutting edge with absolutely everything.
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Business Partner?
Girlfriend?
Wife?
Friend with benefits...?
Enquiring minds want to know....
But seriously...what's the deal with people not telling what their relationship is...."partner" says nothing.
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Someone who wants a phone instead of a slot on a waiting list.
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So your current Apple product is failing horribly, so you are considering getting a new Apple product? Why reward them for making a crappy phone that failed on you?
I had it for 3 years, so that's not too bad. Plus, my wife has had 3 crappy Android phones over the same period, and the design flaw the 6 plus had was corrected in the next iteration.
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how the fuck can a phone change your life -- let alone be revolutionary (okay, the very first cell phone was revolutionary, and maaaaybe the first smart phone) but come the fuck on guy... it's a phone.
Sure constantly being connected is great, as is access to the instant gratification with your social networking likes or whatnots .. thus letting you deal with the existential crisis of being so shallow you cannot even get lost in your own thoughts; But at the end of the day, it's a fucking phone.
a $1000 doll
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I can buy a decent laptop AND a decent tablet for about the cost of that iPhone X.
Oh, right, but that won't give me hipster status.
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how the fuck can a phone change your life
My shits are now longer and more enjoyable.
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If you are looking for a phone to change your life in a meaningful way then you need serious psychological help.
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Re:Cut and paste (Score:5, Informative)
Copy & paste has been in iOS since 3.0 [engadget.com] which was back in 2009. But don't let reality ruin your out-of-date rant.