In fact, in the last 10 years, every iPhone has been mostly an improvement (or, in the case of ” s “, a filing) compared to the previous one, X collects the legacy of all his ancestors, innovating in several aspects which until now, we have taken for granted and let me pass, the term canonical.
Since the first model, the iPhone has always been characterized by frames, the Home button (then the Touch ID) and the perfect symmetry. The iPhone X breaks these scenes, amazing as 10 years ago with a revolution (smaller scope) that still looks at the center of the screen that, thanks to the improvements introduced in iOS 11, is driven by all the user experience. The large display is a wrap-around OLED, which, according to Phil Schiller, goes beyond the problems of this technology.
As I was saying, the features that were once attributed to the Home key, such as app closure to return to the Springboard, through a swipe from top to bottom, and the opening of the app switcher, you get it with the same gesture, but stopping at the center of the screen.
With a swipe right or left on the bottom bar of iOS, instead, you switch from one program to another just like the gesture with four fingers ever on the iPad. A swipe down from the upper-right corner allows you to access the Control Center. The On / Off button, on the other hand, can be used to summon Siri with a long press on it or, with a double-click, to pay with Apple Pay from the lock screen.
We have already had a chance to express and talk about it in the articles published in recent months (to which I refer), but, apart from the initial slide during Federighi’s demo. It proved to be fast and reliable. Being based on a machine learning technology, with time you learn each feature of our face and every change to our look (such as the use of sunglasses or sunglasses, a new haircut or wearing fancy hats), revealing itself reliably in every situation.
Security also improves greatly, given that the chances of Face ID recognizing another’s face as ours are 1 out of a million, while Touch ID can go wrong in one case every 50,000. The TrueDepth camera recognizes 30,000 invisible faces of the user’s face, making it virtually impossible to unlock without its permission. Even realizing realistic masks, Face ID will never miss a hit.
All the cores are independent of each other, but they can be used all together if maximum power is needed: the Fusion architecture limit that allows the use of a core set or the other is exceeded. The new SoC also has a neural engine capable of up to 600 billion operations per second. For those who – like me – wonder what a neural engine is, they already have a response directly from Apple:
A neural engine is a hardware component built specifically for automatic learning: the kind of artificial intelligence that allows computers to learn by observing. It can handle the fast operations required by neural networks, but at the same time is incredibly efficient.
It consists of two core independent of the other six, able to recognize people, places and objects in no time. Obviously, it is the basis of the Face ID and Animoji operation. All A11 SoC is designed to be exploited to the fullest by Metal 2, ARKit and CoreML, so that developers can create efficient, fast and intelligent apps in addition to particularly immersive games. Surprisingly, iPhone X also boasts the first GPU designed internally by Cupertino (with a good pace of Imagination Technologies) that with three core blades exceeds 30% of the performance of the previous generation.
The front camera, on the other hand, is 7 megapixels and as I mentioned earlier, it is not called more FaceTime HD, but TrueDepth, just to indicate the depth detection capability, essential for the Face ID.
Thanks to these new features, you can take advantage of the portrait and portrait lighting modes. All cameras are backed by the next-generation ISP processor made by Cupertino, already present in iPhone 7, which allows the device to optimize the photos, even before they are taken, due to its computational power of 1 billion operations per second. Thanks to the new hardware and HEVC compression, you can record videos in 4K to 60 fps that take up little space. As you rotate the video, you can take photos at an 8-megapixel resolution.
To complement its offer, Cupertino has created AirPower, a beautiful white base for induction charging for iPhone X, Apple Watch Series 3 and AirPods with the new case. The accessory will be available in 2018, presumably with the updated version of the earphones. It is to be noted how the iPhone X display will show the status of the charging of all the devices resting on the base.
The only painful note, for me, remains the invasion of the headset when it comes to displaying photo, video, and full screen games in landscape mode: maybe it will only be a matter of habit, but if Apple adopted the bandwidth solution black as shown in some mockups, maybe the effect would be better.
The iPhone X will be available from November 3 in Silver and Gray Sideral (without Blush Gold, thanking the sky, will not see the light), while the preorders will start from October 27, with a price of $999 for the version 64GB and $1,149 for that from 256GB.