Ten Things Nobody Has Told You About The Apple iPhone X

Ten Things Nobody Has Told You About The Apple iPhone X

I’ve been using the new iPhone X for longer than anyone (apart from people who actually work at Apple) and you can read my in-depth review here. I’ve found out a bunch of things along the way. are 10, (or should that be X?), of the choicest insider-information items and usage tips.

1 You thought that new design was late? Actually, it’s early

This phone was in the Apple road map to arrive next September but instead the company decided to bring it forward, which explains why there are not two but three new designs for 2017. As Dan Riccio, Apple’s SVP of Hardware Engineering told me, ‘We had line of sight to go off and deliver these technologies for next year but with a lot of hard work and talent and grit we were able to actually deliver them this year.’ He said that the plan for this kind of design had been around rather longer, too.

‘When we did the first iPhone, we went from a paradigm that was out there that you had a small screen and a physical keyboard, and we dreamed of being able to provide something that was primarily display. We had a dream from day one that it would be all display, edge to edge. And we worked really hard on what we call the forehead and chin, the top and bottom of the product. These served the product very well for many years and we’ve been working really hard to come to a point where we had the confluence of technologies that would enable the design that we wanted for over 10 years now.’

2 And, no, Apple didn’t spend time on trying to put the home button under the display.

Dan Riccio again: ‘I heard some rumour that we couldn’t get Touch ID to work through the glass so we had to remove that. When we had line of sight on getting Face ID to be as good as it was, we knew that we if we could be successful we could make the product we all wanted to do. We wanted to be all in with this, that it could be a better solution. So, we spent no time looking at fingerprints on the back or through the glass or on the side because if we did those things they would be a distraction from enabling the thing we were trying to achieve, that is Face ID in a high-quality way.’

3 Why the rear cameras are positioned like that

It’s not because it’s better for Augmented Reality - it's neither better nor worse for that. It’s because the TrueDepth camera system and other sensors in what’s known as the notch at the top of the display meant that positioning the rear cameras horizontally just wouldn’t work, they’d have overlapped with the tech on the front of the phone.

4 Face ID affects the ringer volume, notifications

This is pretty cool. As the iPhone rings when a call comes in, Face ID starts looking for you. When it sees your face looking at it, and remember, only your face will do this, it lowers the volume of the ringtone. After all, you’re clearly aware and up close, so why shouldn’t it turn the volume down?

Similarly, notifications give nothing away when they appear on the lock screen, just saying, er, Notification. But when the phone sees it’s you looking at it, the message or new item or whatever slides open to reveal its contents. Notifications are for your eyes only.

One more thing about Face ID: it works through some sunglasses but not all. The ones it can’t penetrate are ones which block infra-red rays at the 940nm wavelength. Now, this isn’t information easily gleaned from sunglass manufacturers but at least, now you know!iphone x, iphone x unboxing, iphone x review, iphone 10, unboxing, iphone ten, apple iphone x unboxing, apple iphone x unboxing, apple iphone x unboxing and review, apple iphone x unboxing india, review, iphone 2017, apple iphone x, iphone x hands on, iphone x vs, iphone x vs iphone 8, apple, iphone, animoji, smartphone, space gray, iphone x space gray, new iphone, iphone 10 review, iphone x vs 8, iphone x specs, face id