Why is the iPhone X the most advanced iPhone yet?
For 10 years now, Apple organize a keynote each September when they unveil all their new achievements regarding smartphones.
In 2007 we saw a device which changed our perception of the smartphone as we knew it forever, and which changed the way we interacted with the device, paving the path for the mobile industry as a whole – a 2G device in which Apple presented the capacitive touch screen which was ahead of its time. Manufacturers which offered touchscreen smartphones before the iPhone, (although scarce) mostly had resistive panels. The 2G made a huge boom on the market with its premium build and simple OS design.
In 2008 we saw the 3G version, and in 2009 the 3GS followed which brought stronger hardware and more advanced cameras.
In 2010 there was a leap forward regarding the design – the iPhone 4 represented the perfect symbiosis of glass and metal body and powerful hardware. For the first time ever, the world was presented with the Retina display. After the iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S was unveiled, again with more advanced hardware but with the same design.
Apple stuck to their 3.5” displays until 2011, and in 2012 they opted for the bigger and better 4” display in the iPhone 5, which was a significant step forward technology and design-wise, but which still had the same Retina display. The iPhone 5S (presented in September 2013) represented logical continuation of the whole lineup, and as the successor to the iPhone 5 it brought a more advanced camera, and something that Apple have perfected in the following years – the Touch ID, as the new security measure.
The market got overwhelmed with Android devices which followed the trend of bigger and bigger displays, and Apple decided to sacrifice their consistency opting for a bigger display themselves. In September 2014 Apple announced the new iPhone 6, which, as the main news, brought the 4.7” display, new chassis design and more powerful hardware. The general design of the iPhone 6 remains current even today, since the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus have very similar designs which really express the authenticity and the build quality.
Apple revolution
Next to iPhones 8 and 8 Plus, Apple have announced one more device to follow up in 2017 – the iPhone X. Answering the trend of thinning the bezels and increasing the screen-to-body ratio, the iPhone X represents the design and technological way Apple will walk on in the years to come. As we’ve already seen, each new generation of iPhones brought us something new, and what the iPhone X has to offer, feel free to read.
Chipset
Apple A11 Bionic
What sets all three devices apart from the competitors is the new Apple chipset which ups the performance to a whole new level, far beyond the reach of any Android device. During the years we got used to seeing Apple setting standards in this field, and in regards to this, they are unmatched. The 6 core CPU divided into 2 clusters is not only very powerful, but also very energy efficient which secures longer autonomy. Two stronger cores are clocked at 2.4 GHz while the “power saving” cores are 70% faster than those in the A10. The true treat is the 3 core GPU which was completely built in-house by Apple. Same as the iPhone 8 Plus, the iPhone X comes with 3GB or LPDDR4X ultra-fast RAM which will secure very relaxed multitasking, and the new, innovative way of jumping from an application to an application brings the whole experience to another level. The main news, and also a very important component of the iPhone X as a unit, is the Neural Engine which will enable machine learning in order to execute complex operations such as Face ID and Animojis, which were for the first time presented with this very device.
Display
What separates the iPhone X from all other iPhones is – the display. Previous devices got us used to thicker bezels which was the Apple’s way to go design-wise. However, the market changed and the implementation of edge-to-edge displays inspired the head people of Apple design team to do the same. Apple chose to implement the Super AMOLED display for the first time, guaranteeing excellent black colors and outstanding contrast in their new device. Now we have the 5.8” display with the resolution of 2436 x 1125 pixels which covers 82.9% of the front panel of the device. The aspect ratio is 19.5:9, and for the first time we can see more than Retina pixel density – 458 pixels per inch. The panel in HDR10 and Dolby Vision certified, while the True Tone mode secures very realistic color reproduction, with no oversaturation that we could see in certain AMOLED displays.
Face ID
As we’ve mentioned before, Apple have raised the security to a new level in 2013 with the implementation of a fingerprint scanner in the iPhone 5S. This system offered very quick and safe data protection. In the iPhone 8 and the 8 Plus, we still have the same Touch ID system on the front side, but the X has its own way to go.
We don’t have any buttons on the front, so the Touch ID button has to be on the back, right? No.
The Touch ID system is fully removed from the iPhone X, and it is replaced by the revolutionary Face ID system. It is a system which uses 3D mapping of your face in order to enable access to the device. No, this is not a system which uses the front facing camera in order to recognize the face. This system cannot be fooled with a printed photo of one’s face, which was the biggest flaw of devices which had implemented the facial recognition this way.
Apple have something new and far more complex than anything we’ve had a chance to see so far. The Face ID consists of several sensors located on the front side of the device (True Depth sensor, Infrared camera, Dot projector) and all of them work together in order to register the face the following way:
- Proximity sensor and ambience light sensor help the True Depth sensor “figure out” how much light is needed in order to recognize the face.
- The “Flood illuminator” sensor sheds the light invisible to the human eye onto the face.
- The mini dot projector projects more than 30.000 dots onto your face in order to make a 3D map of it.
- The infrared camera picks up this dot map, as well as the light reflected off of the face.
The set of steps executed while unlocking the device using this system is as follows:
- The infrared image is sent into the iPhone’s “Neural Engine” which creates the 3D model of the face.
- The received map is “presented” to preset algorithms, and it is compared to previously saved face maps.
- The computer makes a calculation in order to determine the percentage in which the scanned face and the stored face are matched.
- The system enables the device to unlock if this percentage is higher than the minimum match value.
After Neural Engine, machine learning and Face ID, what is the next stop in smartphone industry?
