One more thing… That is the overture to an announcement equivalent to a stellar collision in the technology industry. Year-on-year, Apple has reinvented the iPhone. With new colorways. Radical. So much so that the design of the iPhone remains the same. Fanboys and fangirls were craving for something different. So Apple gave them the iPhone X.
That notch? Hideous. iPhone X’s designers have plastered the top of the edge-to-edge screen with black tape. Touch ID? Suffered the same fate as the headphone jack. Apple must be crazy. Those were some of my thoughts when I was watching this year’s Apple Special Event.
Post-keynote, many raised concerns about the future of smartphones. Citizens from other camps (Android-users) started bashing on how that very future was in fact, the past. Apple got worried. They addressed various concerns, and the “failure” of the Face ID demonstration was one of them. Then came reports of supply and production issues. And for the first time, Apple let select YouTubers preview the iPhone X right before its launch.
I traded my 7 in and upgraded to the X for about 900 SGD with a telco contract. I must be out of my mind. Why would anyone pay that much for an OLED (Super Retina Display) with True Tone built in, instead of good-old LCD? Who would pay for 3GB of RAM, or the front-facing TrueDepth Camera that enables Face ID? I mean, Animoji must be all that Apple fans want, right?
Gestures
My matte-black iPhone 7 suffered from severe paint-chipping. The anodised finish did not hold up like its predecessor—the Space Gray 6s. The Apple Watch Series 1 has the same defect. Apple calls it a cosmetic issue. Genius. I call it poor quality control.
Pit against the iPhone 7, the all-glass iPhone X is buttery smooth both inside and out. But there was still a learning curve to this beast.
Tap (or raise the phone) to wake the screen, swipe up to unlock. Swipe down from the left ear for the notification center, the right for the control center. Hold the side button for Siri, double-press it for Apple Pay. To turn the phone off, hold the side and volume-down buttons simultaneously. For screenshots, side and volume-up. Certain gestures feel more natural to perform than others. I apologise if you have gotten dizzy from reading this slew of new actions.
If you have an iPad running iOS 11, closing apps on the X works differently. On the iPad, swipe up slightly from the bottom edge to access the dock. Continue swiping up for open apps and the control center. Then, swipe those apps up to close them. Simple. On the X, swipe up midway from the bottom and hold to view open apps. Press and hold to trigger the red “close” buttons. Tap on those, or you can now swipe them up to close them. It will take some time to get used to it.
OLED, Battery Life
The Samsung Galaxy series made me think that OLED displays make colors psychedelic. À la puke rainbows. Fake news. Unrealistic oversaturation of colors is Samsung’s game. Natural and accurate color reproduction is what the iPhone X is all about.
OLED displays have deeper blacks and brighter whites than LCDs. This translates to having better contrast ratio. And because OLEDs work without a backlight, devices with OLED are more power-efficient.
Battery life has improved. In my case, a fully-charged iPhone 7 running iOS 11 falls to 20% by sunset on an average day. On the X, I can sleep on it at the end of the day, and still have some charge left on the following morning.
That said, I am not attributing the better battery life to OLED. An iPhone X teardown revealed that the device has an L-shaped two-cell battery.
This is Apple’s foray into OLED, so the X’s display is not without its problems. Some users reported having a green vertical line running down the edge of their phones. Apple has also reminded owners that OLED has a tendency to get burn-in. And hue-shifting when viewing the display off-angle.
Face ID
On several occasions over the first few days, I found my thumb resting on where the home button used to be. That is testament to how Apple has conditioned its users to rely on button presses to wake the phone.
Fingerprint recognition (Touch ID) got replaced with facial recognition (Face ID). But other phone manufacturers have done it before! No, not like this. On the first set up, X’s TrueDepth camera emits 30,000 invisible dots to create an accurate depth map of your face. That means that your ex’s private investigator cannot unlock your iPhone X with a photo of you. (That is, if it somehow falls into his/her hands.) But if you have a twin who is a PI, then you have lucked out.
Face ID works fast. Even in the dark. But Touch ID works faster. There are certain occasions where I miss having Touch ID. Most of which when my face is partially-obscured by a pillow.
Yet, there other scenarios where Face ID trounces Touch ID. Wet or dirty hands? Non-issue. Gloves on? Done. And there is something even more magical than that: when it works so well that you forget that it is there. Look at your phone, swipe up to get right into it. Brilliant.
Redacted
That thing at the top that eats into prime screen estate? The thing that houses some of the world’s most sophisticated technology? Everyone calls it the notch.
Apple wants app developers to embrace it. iPhone X’s owners want it hidden. Now, there is an app for that. Is the notch that prominent? Not at all. It only gets distracting when apps such as Telegram and ProCamera (at launch) are not optimised for the X.
10 days on, the notch has disappeared. This design quirk is now iPhone X’s defining feature.
Camera
The X comes with an extra telephoto lens on its back. Up to the iPhone 8, unless you get the larger Plus model, you have to live with a single wide-angle lens.
I lost my virginity with the Portrait Mode (depth of field) to a Japanese bento. The photo turned out fantastic. I love how Studio Lighting (in beta) enhances the lighting conditions of a photo.
No smartphone camera can achieve the image quality of a dedicated camera system. But for one fits into a pocket, it is pretty amazing. I used the iPhone 7 for (unobtrusive) street photography, and I can imagine how much more I can achieve with the dual-lenses on the iPhone X.
Should You Buy It?
If you like being wired to your headphones, or prefer colors that pop, go for models that have them. As with all gadgets, know your needs, then buy products that cater to them. Get something that you will be comfortable with using.
Make no mistake. The X has several design inconsistencies with iOS 11. I hate the presence of the home bar and the ever-vile volume interface. But I hope that those will get fixed with future software updates.
But I love the iPhone X. Coming from the 7, I love how Apple has brought the True Tone display from the iPad Pro to the X. I love the improved battery life. I love the rear-facing dual-lens camera, the portrait mode, the natural OLED color rendition, and Face ID. And I have even come to love the notch.
Elements still present on my iPad Pro—bezels, headphone jacks, home buttons, and Touch ID—have become archaic. Those are ancient technology devised by humans from another time and age. Or a parallel universe. The iPhone X marks the beginning of its future.
Further Reading
