First look: Hands-On With Apple's iPhone X

Apple released its first major iPhone redesign in three years on Tuesday with iPhone X, a technologically advanced smartphone that boasts an all-new OLED Super Retina Display, TrueDepth camera system, Face ID, A11 Bionic Chip with onboard neural engine and more. AppleInsider went hands-on with Apple's newest flagship and came away impressed by the handset's fit and finish.

As analytically anticipated — based on what we already knew before the final details were unveiled and prior to some time hands on — iPhone X gives Apple the ability to drive sales of an "even more premium" smartphone, featuring specifications and capabilities that are harder (if not impossible) to launch in the mega-million volumes that existing generations of iPhones currently sell at. 

But with the details presented in the keynote—and getting to see and feel iPhone X hands on—this reality takes on a whole new meaning. Apple didn't just slap on a better camera and upgrade the screen resolution in order to charge more or declare a "technological first." The application of and integration between all of the new iPhone X features is nothing short of phenomenal.

The new Super Retina HD of iPhone X is shockingly great, with vibrant wide color and very dark blacks. But it's also perfectly integrated into the new stainless steel case design in a way that's reminiscent of how Steve Jobs described iPhone 4 as having the high-end appearance and specialized look and feel of a Leica camera. iPhone 6/6s/7 shared a nice design, but it seemed basically utilitarian. So much so that every other phone maker copied it, calling it the obvious way one had to design a phone these days. iPhone X—and to some extent iPhone 8 as well—feels like a dive back into feeling differentiated and fancy.

I think Apple did a good job with its new phone. It puts a big screen in a small body. Bezels? Gone. And the Face ID hardware conveniently powers the most adorable thing ever: Animoji. Plus, Nilay said the iPhone X feels like "the future of the smartphone," and I love the future.

I'm due for an upgrade: My iPhone 7 has a broken screen, and I already feel the battery fading. I typically buy one phone a year, and it's been a year. The insatiable consumer in me feels an urge to buy something, and the technologist in me feels the urge to buy one of the most advanced phones on the planet.

But I think I'm good, actually.

I might buy an iPhone 8 if I get a good trade-in deal through my carrier. Wireless charging would be nice to have, and I always enjoy a nice bump in processor speed. But I don't think I'm really the sort of person the iPhone X was built for. I like my phone. I use it a lot. But I guess I'm not a phone person, and apparently it required a $999 iPhone to prove it to me.

It's sort of like with cars. If I bought a car, I would try and find one that's really reliable and convenient, with good gas mileage and a nice resale value. I'm not a car person. It's not that I can't appreciate a car that goes fast, or looks amazing. It's just that those things aren't very central to my identity, or high on my priority list.

The iPhone X is a Ferrari but all I want is a Honda, is what I'm saying. Am I doing this car analogy thing right?

If the iPhone X was the only new iPhone available, and if it was available for a typical iPhone price, I would be overjoyed. Design-wise it's everything I want in a phone. But the iPhone 8 is good enough for me. Great, even. And it's $300 cheaper.

These are the obvious economic considerations that people all over the world make when buying all kinds of products. But Apple has only had one flagship iPhone until now, so the choice was always fairly simple: do I need a new phone, or no?

Now I have to decide if I want a great phone or a greater phone, and I'm realizing that I have no desire to pay extra for a greater phone.

For me, the phone is primarily a consumption device. I listen to podcasts and Audiobooks, watch YouTube videos, and play Egg, Inc. on my commute. Among those activities, only YouTube would be slightly improved by the iPhone X. As for communication, I'd be just as good at responding to Slack messages and texting my friends with any iPhone built in the past four years.

And while the camera is always the best reason to buy any new iPhone, the iPhone X’s dual camera setup is barely different than that of the iPhone 8 Plus. Also, I've already forgone the camera improvements available on the iPhone 7 Plus in order to keep my phone small and relatively cheap. I don't use my phone camera very often, and while I'd love to have Portrait mode and the iPhone X's smart front-facing camera, those features aren't worth hundreds of dollars to me.

In fact, to get down to the real economics of the situation, I've been saving my money for a real camera and lenses. I'd rather put $999 towards something that was designed for filmmaking, not designed for Snapchat. I feel best about spending money when it's a tool designed for my creativity. Phone photography is a true art, but it's not my chosen artform. If I got an iPhone X, I would be getting it for sheer luxury, not creative empowerment.

If the new strategy from Apple is to build a normal phone for people who like normal phones, a big phone for people who like big phones, and a premium phone for people who like premium phones, I think I'm going to pick the normal phone every time. I love my iPhone, but I don't need the best iPhone.

The iPhone X Super Retina HD display is also conspicuously integrated into the True Depth camera and sensor array. When watching a movie, you can view it unobstructed or expand it to full screen, which rounds off the corners and knocks out the slot where sensors sit. The former is nothing like the "flat tire" of the failed Moto 360 smartwatch, which half-heartedly tried to deliver a round display and just gave up on the bottom of the screen.

The black sensor array on iPhone X essentially blends away when watching video full screen. And when used as a phone, it helps differentiate between pulling down Control Center from the top right (the "ear" where the signal and battery meters sit) and pulling down your notifications from the center or left of the screen. 

This rejiggering of standard iOS gestures also helps get rid of the Home Button, because now you can simply swipe up to go to the Home screen or swipe and hold to switch between running apps (a simple and intuitive gesture that also brings it in-line with how iPads work in iOS 11). 

Forcing the entire installed base of iPhone users into this new way of working might cause some blowback, as the majority of people don't like change. But tying these new mechanisms to a premium phone that you have to pay extra for means that iPhone X users will effectively be asking for the new behavior, rather than being pushed into it. 

The other features tied to the Home button, Touch ID authentication and Apple Pay, are now triggered by the side button, bringing iPhone X payments in line with how it works on Apple Watch. This also enables Face ID as a rapid way to authenticate without a fingerprint sensor. This also helps explain why Apple never implemented some of the features that could have been attached to the Touch ID sensor (such as using it as a pointing device with finger gestures)—Apple knew it wanted to eventually get rid of Touch ID and reclaim the Home button real estate.

In one leap, that Home button migration is now done—at least for buyers opting into Apple's Future Phone. For everyone else, Touch ID continues to work the way it has. It remains to be seen what percentage of iPhone users will opt into these new ways of working. On one hand, there are changes to get used to and significant additional upfront expense. On the other hand, these changes are insanely great, enable other super cool features (such as animate emoji or "anamoji," which are incredibly fun to use), and actually simplify how iOS works. Apple may have a hard time building enough. 

Trickle down X tech

The iPhone 6, 6s and 7 generations each sold around 170 million units in their first year. There simply is no source on Earth capable of supplying 170 million good-quality OLED screens within a year, nor can any vendor afford to produce and sell that many 3D depth sensors (the add-on Occipital Structure Sensor for iPad and the rare Android device supporting Google's Project Tango all shipped in volumes far short of one million).

However, by offering a premium-priced iPhone X, Apple can introduce a mainstream 3D True Depth sensor and Super Retina HD OLED display for its premium-hungry audience, and build both into an extremely high quality device that looks premium and feels ultra-luxurious. This was so obvious we could observe it before even looking at iPhone X up close, or having a completed list of its features. 

Perhaps less obvious is the fact that the premium $999-and-up price of iPhone X will not only fund the development, implementation and fabrication of features like the new True Depth sensor and Super Retina HD, but will also help pay for other new features that are shared with its more mainstream cousins, iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. Some new "X" features shared across the board include its impressive build quality, including the glass back that enables Qi wireless charging and makes the latest base model iPhone 8 options look like iPhone 7's Jet Black on steroids (and in three different colors of gloss: silver, space grey and gold). 

All models also share Apple's super fast A11 Bionic chip, as once you design advanced silicon logic, the more chips you fab the less they cost. So sharing the part between both 8 and X product lines allows Apple to also enhance Portrait mode and its dynamic, non-destructive lighting features across all of its 2017 iPhone releases. 

iPhone X additionally enables Portrait mode selfies, using its True Depth technology. Everyone who has used Portrait mode on iPhone 7 Plus already knows how great it would be to have that same kind of technology improving their selfies and front-facing group shots as it already does for their photos of kids and pets (and any inanimate objects that need some heightened drama for Instagram).

Apple' A11 Bionic GPU

Apple's new A11 Bionic chip is a major leap in both processing power and efficiency, enabling that huge new expansion of Portrait mode photography—which became one of the most popular and impressive features of last year's iPhone 7 Plus. The new chip also drives the responsiveness of upcoming ARKit apps and games, in part because it includes Apple's propriety new GPU for accelerating graphics, a feat we weren't certain Apple could pull off so soon. 

The Apple GPU is one of the biggest announcements of the event, but it got the least applause simply because the public doesn't yet fully recognize how important this is right now and into the future. Apple was already leading in mobile devices—particularly in gaming and the smoothness of iOS' UI—simply because it had selected the best available third party GPU designs (in contrast to Android and Windows Phones that were content with more basic graphics). But now Apple has its own in-house GPU technology, and has the ability to tightly optimize its products to achieve even greater differentiating capabilities. 

Note that GPU cores aren't limited to accelerating graphics but are also increasingly being used to plough through tons of specialized math, such as in machine learning and artificial intelligence. The billions of dollars Apple is investing in GPU technology will further widen the gulf we've seen grow between $650 iPhones and average Android phones that now sell for less than $300 via more basic commodity components. But Apple's proprietary GPU technology will also trickle down to mobile devices such as Apple Watch, where the state of the art in $650-and-up smartphone technology has already started driving tomorrow's scaled down micro-devices and appliances like Apple TV 4K and the new HomePod. 

Qualcomm and other mobile chip vendors have lots of Android phone makers to sell their chips to, but those makers are not capable of selling high end devices in iPhone-like quantities. Further, they're also not selling significant numbers of ultra mobile devices such as smartwatches. That means that even if Qualcomm were to develop advanced high end GPUs and super efficient watch chips, it wouldn't have buyers to sell them in volume. And because volume is such a huge factor in overall pricing (to spread out the cost of initial development), there's a catch-22 in place that serves to maintain the status quo in Android-land of serving the low end and medium tiers where smartphones only need to be "good enough."