19 ms·

First field report of iPhone X

109 points by steven 9y ago

bsaul 9y ago
"the most anticipated product in years"... stopped reading there. Anticipated product in years ? Really ?? not even "most anticipated Apple product in years " ? For a phone with a missing button and a face recognition feature nobody cares about ?? I am an iOS developer, and i generally love apple product, but frankly it's time everyone, including hard-core apple fans, agree that apple has been under-delivering those last 3 years. If i had to say "anticipated" about something, i'd say the watch 3 is far more interesting and opens more application use.
- dep_b 9y ago
  I agree on the Watch 3. Leaving my phone at home feels like the future is here. The shared SIM solution is very elegant but requires carriers to cooperate. But once established many IoT manufacturers can enjoy it.
- baby 9y ago
  Considering the iPhone 6S is the best phone I ever had, I can see how you might feel like they're under delivering. But maybe it's just because we've reached a point where phones are so good that we don't notice updates that much. On the other hand, what would really be a revolution in the mobile landscape would be to have long-lasting batteries. Recharging a phone every day is still a huge pain.
- ashark 9y ago
  Reactions to the last Apple event at my generally Apple-loving and Apple-hardware-heavy place of employment: Apple Watch 3 — Holy crap that's amazing, I may get rid of my phone for this and just buy a nice stand-alone camera! Oh, you still need a phone. So much for that. iPhone 8 — Meh. Not as big a jump as the 7. Looks... fine. iPhone X, after the ultra-hype leading up the announcement — The hugely revolutionary, world-changing thing is a second, slightly better phone? Am I accidentally watching a parody? iPhone X was especially a let-down after the almost-awesome but then totally-not Watch 3 thing—which was (the Watch 3, that is) still the most interesting thing they announced, despite being like 20% as interesting as it initially appeared to be.
gigatexal 9y ago
A surprisingly honest take on the phone. Faceid will take some revisions to get right but overall he seems to like the phone and looks forward to app developers to make use of its killer features.
twoodfin 9y ago
Interesting PR strategy by Apple, considering the general review embargo hasn’t been lifted yet (I’m assuming more than a few of the usual suspects got review units...this past Friday, maybe?) This is certainly the way Apple would like the X to be perceived, and Levy makes sense as someone likely to be on their wavelength.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
NiklasMort 9y ago
Apple really mastered the art of milking sheep
- ctdonath 9y ago
  Equivalent to 64 then-$40M supercomputers in my pocket for 1/6th the price of my first bare-bones IBM PC.
- coldtea 9y ago
  How enlightened to not belong to the "sheeple" merely by buying a competitive brand! /s
  - ddorian43 9y ago
    Maybe he doesn't buy a $800 Android ? And doesn't buy every new release ? There are new $200+ Android phones.
    - skc 9y ago
      I often wonder what people do with these super expensive phones to be honest. I have a cheap Xiaomi phone and it runs the same apps everyone else does. My guess is that the expensive phones are bought primarily for their cameras. I'm not big into photography but I can see how that makes a stronger argument for the likes of the iPhone X and Note 8 etc.
      - ddorian43 9y ago
        Status/feel-better-inside, cameras, stupidity (dont know what they want so they get best), don't know what to do with money, some people need it for their job (marketing stuff, you HAVE to be cool) etc etc.
        coldtea 9y ago
        >stupidity (dont know what they want so they get best) How is that stupid? It's not like a brain surgeon who just gets what's the best out there (or considered top) is in any way stupid because they're not a tech-geek to care to do a full "market review" on their own...
finchisko 9y ago
One thing to Apple PR credit is faceid. For me it's hot needle replacement for failed attempt to integrate touchid into display, but for most people it is innovation.
- dbbk 9y ago
  Please do explain why you don't view Face ID as an innovation over existing technology.
  - bane 9y ago
    Unlocking your phone with your face has been a regular feature of many smartphones for at least 5 years.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - haikuginger 9y ago
      Being able to unlock someone else's phone with a picture of their face has been a bug for the same length of time.
    - yequalsx 9y ago
      The innovation is in implementing it well. I have no idea if Apple has implemented this feature well but if they did then it’s innovative. The innovation is not in being first it’s in doing it well first. EDIT: It is innovative to do things well for the first time.
    - sqlcook 9y ago
      You mean with a picture of your face....
    - pwdisswordfish 9y ago
      No wonder Android people do not understand why people pay good money for very locked down iPhone, to them crappy implementation for hardware and software is good enough.
waytogo 9y ago
Slightly OT: I am most impressed by Apple‘s bold move to drop the iPhone‘s decade old, iconic symmetric design while establishing a new iconic asymmetric design almost over night. As odd as the new design feels, Apple already owns this design, this buckle, this asymmetry. Edit: Why the downvotes (just wondering)?
- macintux 9y ago
  Indeed. https://twitter.com/neilcybart/status/908154535054643202 https://twitter.com/neilcybart/status/908154535054643202
- macintux 9y ago
  Positive observations regarding Apple, factually correct or not, seem to attract downvotes. The downvotes on this comment in particular really baffled me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15538585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15538585
- aetherson 9y ago
  I downvoted you because I thought your comment was without content. What does it mean, to own the design? What alternate world would cause you to feel differently about the design?
  - mattnewton 9y ago
    Not gp, but it means to me that when someone looks at the layout they unmistakably know it is an iPhone X, in the way the phone’s top and bottom bars used to mean iPhone.
- parzivalm 9y ago
  Apple probably owns the design because most other manufactures hopefully see that you shouldn't be looking at a notch every time you are viewing a video. I've been an iPhone user since day 1 but the screen shape on this phone just makes so little sense. It wouldn't be the worst if Apple made it that iOS scaled everything so media wasn't blocked by the notch but instead if I get the iPhone X I have to wait for app developers to fix the issue. Seems like a poor decision.
Slaul 9y ago
I am excited for this phone (as a lifelong Android user) because of the large screen in the small form factor. I really appreciate high resolution screens but I'm tired of needing ginormous phones to get it. This device seems to have a great screen in the perfect form factor for me. I'm waiting to see some reviews before purchasing but the iPhone X is probably going to be my next phone. Sidenote, anybody have any tips on migrating from android to iOS?
- chillaxtian 9y ago
  https://www.apple.com/switch/ https://www.apple.com/switch/
- simonsez 9y ago
  The galaxy s8 and LG V30 also have large screens in relatively small form factors - are those too big for you?
  - mercurysmessage 9y ago
    Yea I was just about to mention that as well. I never liked touchwiz but I just got the s8 and it's a nice phone. Maybe I just don't like the default icons and design? I'm not sure, but I customized it to look more like regular Android.
    - keyboardhitter 9y ago
      I use Nova Launcher, it's much nicer; I highly suggest it. there's so much more flexibility especially for these huge screens (I'm a Note 8 user). For icons, check out the Samsung Themes app. You can apply icon sets from different themes without touching the rest of the UI.
  - Slaul 9y ago
    For whatever reason I was under the impression that those phones were larger than they are. Thanks for pointing those out to me! I'm still probably going to switch to Apple because I've been working towards being more privacy conscious in the last several months and Apple's stance on privacy and encryption is appealing.
jnsaff2 9y ago
Is ios11 as sucky on it as it is on 6S for me is the real question me thinks.
- PacketPaul 9y ago
  IOS on the 7 has been rock solid. What is wrong on the 6s?
  - jnsaff2 9y ago
    Random freezes, phone calls not having sound, and for me as a podcast/audiobook listener that side is awful, widget not working, having to restart the app or the whole phone, bluetooht connectivity being very unreliable. Usability gone much worse regarding audio. In situations where with ios9 I could rely that I put my headphone on and push the button on the headphones the correct thing would start playing immediately this got worse with ios10, things started to not work always and with ios11 it's so bad that I can't bring myself to spend money on a new ios device. When my 6s dies I hope there will be something other then the duopoly available.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      It is as bad as you report (I run both a 6 and a 7 as daily drivers). I'm running the latest iOS 11.1 beta on my 6 for it to be usable, highly recommend doing so; its superior to the non-beta 11.0.* https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/redemption https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/redemption (Apple ID login required)
    - Strom 9y ago
      The situation is perhaps even worse on iPhone 6, which I have. It feels like Apple doesn't test iOS on older hardware. For example the camera app has rotation freezing problems [1] half the time I open it. It's not a rare occurance, it's a constant issue. It's not a case of slow hardware either, because there are still plenty of times when everything works smoothly. -- [1] When I rotate the phone, half the UI elements react to the rotation and update, but the other half of the UI remains at the previous mode. So I have a UI which is half landscape, half portrait. Depending on the mood of the iPhone, the UI will fix itself in either a second, 5 seconds, or not until I restart the app.
waterflame 9y ago
While I love the phone and find it a big improvement over all current market phones (not that innovative though), I wonder how many people will die trying to unlock their phones while driving. And they will unlock it while driving.
- madeofpalk 9y ago
  I would say similar to the amount now, and less than passcode-based unlock Using your phone while driving is reckless, regardless of the authentication mechanism.
  - Shivetya 9y ago
    however the touch id does not require you to look at your phone to unlock and unconsciously people will look at an X to unlock it even though it only needs to see you, not the reverse. neither is a good idea but Apple recently pushed out lockouts for Do not disturb while driving. I have not tried this feature and it defaults to off. So how well it works, well it won't stop me from using the phone as it appears to be not allowing the phone to interrupt me.
    - jack6e 9y ago
      > unconsciously people will look at an X to unlock it even though it only needs to see you, not the reverse. That does not seem to be the case as the reviewer puts it. Even when he was looking at his iPhone X he could not always get it unlocked: "There have been times when, despite a clear view of my face, the iPhone X has ghosted me. (Apple tells me that perhaps I wasn’t making what the iPhone X considers eye contact.)"
      - johnbellone 9y ago
        You’re looking at it wrong.
    - Infernal 9y ago
      > people will look at an X to unlock it even though it only needs to see you, not the reverse. It explicitly will not unlock by default unless you are looking at the phone (or have disabled the "attention detection" feature), it detects the direction of your eyes presumably to prevent someone from surreptitiously pointing your phone at your face to unlock it while you are focusing elsewhere. > By default, Face ID requires eye contact in order to work, but Federighi says you can disable the “attention detection” feature and Face ID will work whether you look directly at it or not. https://9to5mac.com/2017/09/15/face-id-details-features/ https://9to5mac.com/2017/09/15/face-id-details-features/
nowherecat 9y ago
I guess that’s as good as you can make the iPhone X appear, without having to be embarrassed about what you are writing. I am tired of seeing one iPhone release after the other, the marketing machinery desperately trying to get people excited to buy buy buy more, while nobody really needs this. I am saying this from an environmental activists perspective and it is very frustrating and upsetting to see so many large corporations completely ignore their catastrophic impact on the environment and people’s lives.. this ultimately costs us our planet, clean air, clean water, dignity ... is it worth it? Do we really need all these gadgets?
- nowherecat 9y ago
  It's ridiculous that I am getting downvoted for having a moral compass. For people who are having any questions about this issue or doubt its validity please watch the Documentary "Death by Design".
saagarjha 9y ago
> it took me awhile to get the hang of pressing down on one of the little cards representing an app in order to evoke a minus sign that allowed me to close it. You're not supposed to perform this action regularly. > I knew I’d mastered the gestures when I found myself trying to use them on my iPad. Oops. My finger no longer drifts to the home button, but pathetically swipes upwards, to no avail. This should work on iPad if you're running iOS 11.
c517402 9y ago
I wonder if that protruding sensor block can be used for touch ID somehow?
RoyTyrell 9y ago
My two questions are: 1. Is the X worth the extra $200/$300 on top of the 8? 2. Is the X worth the $1k+ I know "worth" is relative and depends on your personal requirements, but from someone who's likely a software dev on this site, is it really worth spending that kind of money?
- noncoml 9y ago
  No, it is not. It’s stupid money. If you need a phone that will do 99% if everything that this phone does get a Moto G5plus at 1/4th of the price. But then again wave goodbye to your private data if you do. Having said that, I still preordered one. It’s sexy and highly desirable for no specific reason for me.
- zitterbewegung 9y ago
  You should go to the store and experience the iPhone X for your self and make that determination . Also factor in that you are buying a 1.0 product.
  - ChrisLTD 9y ago
    How so? It's the latest iteration of a product first released 10 years ago.
    - zitterbewegung 9y ago
      New case design and screen with Touch ID makes it a 1.0 product (maybe I should say 10.0 product ) I would wait a month to see if there are any glaring issues regardless . I suspect the OLED screen may have the most issues .
- Aloha 9y ago
  Personally - I picked the X because of a desire to try something new. Also, as a photographer, the new camera looks fairly impressive as well, in addition I expect the larger screen in a small form factor to enable me to use my phone for even more things - beyond that, its upgrade time for me anyhow, the price difference between a 256 gig iPhone 8 and iPhone X is effectively rounding error, as in, its not a significant amount of money for something I use every single day for so many tasks and activities.
hungerstrike 9y ago
Face ID is going to be a monumental failure for people who dock their phones on their desk or car. It's also going to annoy everybody who likes things to happen fast all the time because Face ID will definitely cause a delay and frustrate every user at some point. I have no doubt about this. The lack of a home button is probably the worst design decision. They should have gone with dedicated virtual home button or better yet, stick with the iPhone 7 style home button. iOS 10 and 11 already has too many problems distinguishing between "global gestures" and "application gestures". EDIT: Oh please - tell me why you disagree and prove to me that you're not just an illogical, emotional mob. You think Apple never made a mistake? Pffffftttt! I just spilled my coffee.
- dmode 9y ago
  Down votes are unfortunate. I think it is a legitimate concern at this point. I dock my phone in my car and it is far easier to unlock using fingerprint. But I am convinced that Apple is aware of this use case and iPhone X will not be any different.
  - hungerstrike 9y ago
    We'll see. "I will admit I have not tried Face ID yet, but it's hard to imagine a facial recognition system that solves the problem of having to carefully aim a phone at your face." - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/face-id-on-the-iphone-x-is-probably-going-to-suck/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/face-id-on-the-iphon... "[Face ID] worked the vast majority of times I tried it"... (NOTE: Not ALL the time) - and "...it’s definitely faster than the first generation of Touch ID, though perhaps slightly slower than the second gen." - https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/31/review-the-iphone-x-goes-to-disneyland/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/31/review-the-iphone-x-goes-t... In any case - I don't lock my phone and swiping will definitely, definitely, definitely be way more annoying than being able to click a button.
remarkEon 9y ago
>The iPhone X (pronounced “ten,” not as in X-ray)... Do people really not know Roman Numerals anymore?
- exogen 9y ago
  I'll look it up on my Moto X.
- joefourier 9y ago
  Lack of an iPhone IX might have confused some. And plenty of people pronounced "OS X" as the letter "x", and in that case there was an actual Mac OS 9 to justify the jump from 9 to 10.
- krallja 9y ago
  it’s pronounced “decem”, not “ten.”
jack6e 9y ago
Even though the overall tone of this review was upbeat and positive, it seemed that the baseline conclusion was: "hopefully we find a use for the minor iterative improvements that will make this more than just the next release in a series of underwhelming releases." For one of the first, selectively-chosen reviews of what is supposed to be a ground-breaking product, the article essentially told us 1) the pictures look better; 2) Apple finally imitated Samsung's Infinity Display; 3) my fingers learned new motions that were useless with other Apple products; 4) FaceID became familiar and even worked sometimes; 5) I could put my face on a pile of poo, which required some cool technology. Not that those features or the article suggest the iPhone X is a bad product, or bug-ridden, non-usable, or anything else. But how in the world are people--is Apple--still not embarrassed pretending that this is a revolutionary device? Even if FaceID is intensely innovative and unparalleled new technology - that is just the feature that people use to get to the features they actually want to use. No one is going to buy a phone to play around with the unlocking mechanism, they buy it for what that phone can do for them once it's unlocked. Hyping on FaceID is like saying, "We are revolutionizing mobile computing by entirely overhauling the millisecond process by which you gain access to a slightly improved version of the product you already have."
- mratzloff 9y ago
  I keep my entire music collection on my phone, and my 128 GB 6S is tapped out (almost entirely music). That requires me to do some storage juggling every time I want to update. So I'll probably buy one for the bump to 256 GB alone. Double the storage should last me for quite awhile. The other features are largely irrelevant (except perhaps the inductive charging), but I'll get the X instead of the 8 because it will be 3-4 years before I update again. For what it's worth, the 6S's 128 GB and bump to 2 GB RAM (making Safari usable again on JavaScript-clogged sites) were what motivated me to buy that one. The X, incidentally, bumps that again to 3 GB. The 8 remains at 2.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  Apple could literally release a phone with zero changes to it over the previous "generation" and billions would still want it.
ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
My biggest issue with it is finding out that the aspect ratio has changed and so even thought the screen is roughly the same length diagonally as iPhone 6/6S/7/8 Plus it's width is really like that of a iPhone 6/6S/7/8 and not a Plus. So for Plus users, there's no replacement here it seems.
- matwood 9y ago
  Good point. Here's hoping for an iPhoneX+ next year.
dean 9y ago
I keep reading about how the "notch" is ugly and annoying, but "you get used to it". Like sitting behind someone with a big hat in the movie theatre, after awhile, you don't even notice. Personally, I change seats in that scenario. I just find it hard square claims of "the future of the smartphone" with reviews like "you get used to it".
- dilap 9y ago
  I don't have the iPhone X yet, but I'm actually kind of excited about the notch and the round corners for a (perhaps) silly reason: it brings us deeper into the sci-fi age where screens are organic objects with shape, rather than just hard, rectangular squares. It feels more exciting, more human, somehow. (Also, all the various status bars will now finally have the same height; basically no software properly responds to the double-height status bar when something special is going on.)
  - AndrewOMartin 9y ago
    "organic objects with shape, rather than just hard, rectangular squares" "all the various status bars will now finally have the same height" Pick one.
    - valine 9y ago
      Meaning the GPS and phone call background process status bars will no longer be taller than the standard status bar. This caused lots of issues with third party apps whose developers didn’t test the auto layout edge cases.
      - dilap 9y ago
        not even just third party apps, many of apple's as well!
- pwython 9y ago
  Then again... maybe you do get used to it? Like how our parents got "used to" prior technology's "annoyances"? I'm not saying this is a "get off my lawn" annoyance, but... I'm curious to see how phones evolve after this notch.
mgleason_3 9y ago
Can't help wondering if FaceID's more of a PITA than a help. Do I always have to stop and stare at my phone? What if I'm walking?
- Sevauk 9y ago
  Don't you need to look at your phone to use it anyway ?
  - JustSomeNobody 9y ago
    No. Often my phone is on a desk. So with Touch ID I can walk back into the room, lay my finger on the phone and it wakes and shows me if I have any messages. I don’t have to pick it up, move it, stare directly at it or anything. I get that most people don’t work this way but for me it’s great.
    - macintux 9y ago
      Disclaimer: mine hasn't arrived yet, but you should be able to walk into the room, tap the phone, and it will unlock but leave you at the lock screen to see your notifications. You don't have to be facing it directly, you don't have to lift to wake it.
      - macintux 9y ago
        Welp, apparently you do have to lean over it, per reports. A shame.
- dilap 9y ago
  might depend on a your personal usecase. touchid just never worked reliably for me, so i'm excited to try faceid...
- randyrand 9y ago
  It'll be awesome for people with sweaty hands or in warm or cold climates. Gotta take the bad with the good. Im optimistic.
gallerdude 9y ago
I always have some sort of dream that one year I’ll watch the keynote knowing nothing, but in reality I read every article or rumor leading up until the event.
unabst 9y ago
> “Don’t worry about price, just specify the computer’s abilities,” he told the original team leader. At his first retreat with the Macintosh team, he began by writing a maxim on his whiteboard: “Don’t compromise.” That's Steve Jobs. The notch is a compromise. The spec Apple needed was "no notch". Forcing developers to embrace a premature design decision based on a feature that they couldn't make happen is hypocritical at best. If Jobs had come back to life, we would have been blown away by something from Apple by now. At this point, not sure which is more likely to happen. ----- https://hbr.org/2012/04/the-real-leadership-lessons-of-steve-jobs https://hbr.org/2012/04/the-real-leadership-lessons-of-steve...
- caio1982 9y ago
  I hope you don’t mind a slightly off-topic comment here: we should really stop using the if-steve-jobs-were-alive card; we don’t do this with other iconic tech people who have died, do we?
  - unabst 9y ago
    Maybe we just miss him the most?
pasbesoin 9y ago
If my $300 Moto G5+ (temporary replacement for my bootlooped Nexus 5X) were to, well, f-ing receive timely updates, I'd stick with it for a while. 4 GB / 64 GB (and the option to add a MicroSD card), Snapdragon... 625, IIRC. And a decent IPS display. It's just fine. I'd love to have a better camera, but not at 3x the price. Yeah, this isn't an "Apple" comment. But it is a "US$800 - $1200" comment. And an "it's not really your device" comment. Not when we are at the "mercy" of vendors to provide necessary updates -- or, more often, not to. On that front, Apple is clearly winning. But a grand is a lot to pay for it. P.S. My G5+ has a headphone jack. Useful that now Bluetooth is borked until it receives the update/fix -- IF it ever receives it. Yeah, I'm a broken record... But it's a song these vendors ripely deserve.
hndamien 9y ago
The price is revolutionary. It is a low cost vehicle for high cost signalling.

109 points by steven 9y ago

"the most anticipated product in years"... stopped reading there. Anticipated product in years ? Really ?? not even "most anticipated Apple product in years " ? For a phone with a missing button and a face recognition feature nobody cares about ?? I am an iOS developer, and i generally love apple product, but frankly it's time everyone, including hard-core apple fans, agree that apple has been under-delivering those last 3 years. If i had to say "anticipated" about something, i'd say the watch 3 is far more interesting and opens more application use.

dep_b 9y ago
I agree on the Watch 3. Leaving my phone at home feels like the future is here. The shared SIM solution is very elegant but requires carriers to cooperate. But once established many IoT manufacturers can enjoy it.
baby 9y ago
Considering the iPhone 6S is the best phone I ever had, I can see how you might feel like they're under delivering. But maybe it's just because we've reached a point where phones are so good that we don't notice updates that much. On the other hand, what would really be a revolution in the mobile landscape would be to have long-lasting batteries. Recharging a phone every day is still a huge pain.
ashark 9y ago
Reactions to the last Apple event at my generally Apple-loving and Apple-hardware-heavy place of employment: Apple Watch 3 — Holy crap that's amazing, I may get rid of my phone for this and just buy a nice stand-alone camera! Oh, you still need a phone. So much for that. iPhone 8 — Meh. Not as big a jump as the 7. Looks... fine. iPhone X, after the ultra-hype leading up the announcement — The hugely revolutionary, world-changing thing is a second, slightly better phone? Am I accidentally watching a parody? iPhone X was especially a let-down after the almost-awesome but then totally-not Watch 3 thing—which was (the Watch 3, that is) still the most interesting thing they announced, despite being like 20% as interesting as it initially appeared to be.

gigatexal 9y ago

A surprisingly honest take on the phone. Faceid will take some revisions to get right but overall he seems to like the phone and looks forward to app developers to make use of its killer features.

twoodfin 9y ago

Interesting PR strategy by Apple, considering the general review embargo hasn’t been lifted yet (I’m assuming more than a few of the usual suspects got review units...this past Friday, maybe?) This is certainly the way Apple would like the X to be perceived, and Levy makes sense as someone likely to be on their wavelength.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

NiklasMort 9y ago

Apple really mastered the art of milking sheep

ctdonath 9y ago
Equivalent to 64 then-$40M supercomputers in my pocket for 1/6th the price of my first bare-bones IBM PC.
coldtea 9y ago
How enlightened to not belong to the "sheeple" merely by buying a competitive brand! /s
- ddorian43 9y ago
  Maybe he doesn't buy a $800 Android ? And doesn't buy every new release ? There are new $200+ Android phones.
  - skc 9y ago
    I often wonder what people do with these super expensive phones to be honest. I have a cheap Xiaomi phone and it runs the same apps everyone else does. My guess is that the expensive phones are bought primarily for their cameras. I'm not big into photography but I can see how that makes a stronger argument for the likes of the iPhone X and Note 8 etc.
    - ddorian43 9y ago
      Status/feel-better-inside, cameras, stupidity (dont know what they want so they get best), don't know what to do with money, some people need it for their job (marketing stuff, you HAVE to be cool) etc etc.
      - coldtea 9y ago
        >stupidity (dont know what they want so they get best) How is that stupid? It's not like a brain surgeon who just gets what's the best out there (or considered top) is in any way stupid because they're not a tech-geek to care to do a full "market review" on their own...

finchisko 9y ago

One thing to Apple PR credit is faceid. For me it's hot needle replacement for failed attempt to integrate touchid into display, but for most people it is innovation.

dbbk 9y ago
Please do explain why you don't view Face ID as an innovation over existing technology.
- bane 9y ago
  Unlocking your phone with your face has been a regular feature of many smartphones for at least 5 years.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - haikuginger 9y ago
    Being able to unlock someone else's phone with a picture of their face has been a bug for the same length of time.
  - yequalsx 9y ago
    The innovation is in implementing it well. I have no idea if Apple has implemented this feature well but if they did then it’s innovative. The innovation is not in being first it’s in doing it well first. EDIT: It is innovative to do things well for the first time.
  - sqlcook 9y ago
    You mean with a picture of your face....
  - pwdisswordfish 9y ago
    No wonder Android people do not understand why people pay good money for very locked down iPhone, to them crappy implementation for hardware and software is good enough.

waytogo 9y ago

Slightly OT: I am most impressed by Apple‘s bold move to drop the iPhone‘s decade old, iconic symmetric design while establishing a new iconic asymmetric design almost over night. As odd as the new design feels, Apple already owns this design, this buckle, this asymmetry. Edit: Why the downvotes (just wondering)?

macintux 9y ago
Indeed. https://twitter.com/neilcybart/status/908154535054643202 https://twitter.com/neilcybart/status/908154535054643202
macintux 9y ago
Positive observations regarding Apple, factually correct or not, seem to attract downvotes. The downvotes on this comment in particular really baffled me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15538585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15538585
aetherson 9y ago
I downvoted you because I thought your comment was without content. What does it mean, to own the design? What alternate world would cause you to feel differently about the design?
- mattnewton 9y ago
  Not gp, but it means to me that when someone looks at the layout they unmistakably know it is an iPhone X, in the way the phone’s top and bottom bars used to mean iPhone.
parzivalm 9y ago
Apple probably owns the design because most other manufactures hopefully see that you shouldn't be looking at a notch every time you are viewing a video. I've been an iPhone user since day 1 but the screen shape on this phone just makes so little sense. It wouldn't be the worst if Apple made it that iOS scaled everything so media wasn't blocked by the notch but instead if I get the iPhone X I have to wait for app developers to fix the issue. Seems like a poor decision.

Slaul 9y ago

I am excited for this phone (as a lifelong Android user) because of the large screen in the small form factor. I really appreciate high resolution screens but I'm tired of needing ginormous phones to get it. This device seems to have a great screen in the perfect form factor for me. I'm waiting to see some reviews before purchasing but the iPhone X is probably going to be my next phone. Sidenote, anybody have any tips on migrating from android to iOS?

chillaxtian 9y ago
https://www.apple.com/switch/ https://www.apple.com/switch/
simonsez 9y ago
The galaxy s8 and LG V30 also have large screens in relatively small form factors - are those too big for you?
- mercurysmessage 9y ago
  Yea I was just about to mention that as well. I never liked touchwiz but I just got the s8 and it's a nice phone. Maybe I just don't like the default icons and design? I'm not sure, but I customized it to look more like regular Android.
  - keyboardhitter 9y ago
    I use Nova Launcher, it's much nicer; I highly suggest it. there's so much more flexibility especially for these huge screens (I'm a Note 8 user). For icons, check out the Samsung Themes app. You can apply icon sets from different themes without touching the rest of the UI.
- Slaul 9y ago
  For whatever reason I was under the impression that those phones were larger than they are. Thanks for pointing those out to me! I'm still probably going to switch to Apple because I've been working towards being more privacy conscious in the last several months and Apple's stance on privacy and encryption is appealing.

jnsaff2 9y ago

Is ios11 as sucky on it as it is on 6S for me is the real question me thinks.

PacketPaul 9y ago
IOS on the 7 has been rock solid. What is wrong on the 6s?
- jnsaff2 9y ago
  Random freezes, phone calls not having sound, and for me as a podcast/audiobook listener that side is awful, widget not working, having to restart the app or the whole phone, bluetooht connectivity being very unreliable. Usability gone much worse regarding audio. In situations where with ios9 I could rely that I put my headphone on and push the button on the headphones the correct thing would start playing immediately this got worse with ios10, things started to not work always and with ios11 it's so bad that I can't bring myself to spend money on a new ios device. When my 6s dies I hope there will be something other then the duopoly available.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    It is as bad as you report (I run both a 6 and a 7 as daily drivers). I'm running the latest iOS 11.1 beta on my 6 for it to be usable, highly recommend doing so; its superior to the non-beta 11.0.* https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/redemption https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/redemption (Apple ID login required)
  - Strom 9y ago
    The situation is perhaps even worse on iPhone 6, which I have. It feels like Apple doesn't test iOS on older hardware. For example the camera app has rotation freezing problems [1] half the time I open it. It's not a rare occurance, it's a constant issue. It's not a case of slow hardware either, because there are still plenty of times when everything works smoothly. -- [1] When I rotate the phone, half the UI elements react to the rotation and update, but the other half of the UI remains at the previous mode. So I have a UI which is half landscape, half portrait. Depending on the mood of the iPhone, the UI will fix itself in either a second, 5 seconds, or not until I restart the app.

waterflame 9y ago

While I love the phone and find it a big improvement over all current market phones (not that innovative though), I wonder how many people will die trying to unlock their phones while driving. And they will unlock it while driving.

madeofpalk 9y ago
I would say similar to the amount now, and less than passcode-based unlock Using your phone while driving is reckless, regardless of the authentication mechanism.
- Shivetya 9y ago
  however the touch id does not require you to look at your phone to unlock and unconsciously people will look at an X to unlock it even though it only needs to see you, not the reverse. neither is a good idea but Apple recently pushed out lockouts for Do not disturb while driving. I have not tried this feature and it defaults to off. So how well it works, well it won't stop me from using the phone as it appears to be not allowing the phone to interrupt me.
  - jack6e 9y ago
    > unconsciously people will look at an X to unlock it even though it only needs to see you, not the reverse. That does not seem to be the case as the reviewer puts it. Even when he was looking at his iPhone X he could not always get it unlocked: "There have been times when, despite a clear view of my face, the iPhone X has ghosted me. (Apple tells me that perhaps I wasn’t making what the iPhone X considers eye contact.)"
    - johnbellone 9y ago
      You’re looking at it wrong.
  - Infernal 9y ago
    > people will look at an X to unlock it even though it only needs to see you, not the reverse. It explicitly will not unlock by default unless you are looking at the phone (or have disabled the "attention detection" feature), it detects the direction of your eyes presumably to prevent someone from surreptitiously pointing your phone at your face to unlock it while you are focusing elsewhere. > By default, Face ID requires eye contact in order to work, but Federighi says you can disable the “attention detection” feature and Face ID will work whether you look directly at it or not. https://9to5mac.com/2017/09/15/face-id-details-features/ https://9to5mac.com/2017/09/15/face-id-details-features/

nowherecat 9y ago

I guess that’s as good as you can make the iPhone X appear, without having to be embarrassed about what you are writing. I am tired of seeing one iPhone release after the other, the marketing machinery desperately trying to get people excited to buy buy buy more, while nobody really needs this. I am saying this from an environmental activists perspective and it is very frustrating and upsetting to see so many large corporations completely ignore their catastrophic impact on the environment and people’s lives.. this ultimately costs us our planet, clean air, clean water, dignity ... is it worth it? Do we really need all these gadgets?

nowherecat 9y ago
It's ridiculous that I am getting downvoted for having a moral compass. For people who are having any questions about this issue or doubt its validity please watch the Documentary "Death by Design".

saagarjha 9y ago

> it took me awhile to get the hang of pressing down on one of the little cards representing an app in order to evoke a minus sign that allowed me to close it. You're not supposed to perform this action regularly. > I knew I’d mastered the gestures when I found myself trying to use them on my iPad. Oops. My finger no longer drifts to the home button, but pathetically swipes upwards, to no avail. This should work on iPad if you're running iOS 11.

c517402 9y ago

I wonder if that protruding sensor block can be used for touch ID somehow?

RoyTyrell 9y ago

My two questions are: 1. Is the X worth the extra $200/$300 on top of the 8? 2. Is the X worth the $1k+ I know "worth" is relative and depends on your personal requirements, but from someone who's likely a software dev on this site, is it really worth spending that kind of money?

noncoml 9y ago
No, it is not. It’s stupid money. If you need a phone that will do 99% if everything that this phone does get a Moto G5plus at 1/4th of the price. But then again wave goodbye to your private data if you do. Having said that, I still preordered one. It’s sexy and highly desirable for no specific reason for me.
zitterbewegung 9y ago
You should go to the store and experience the iPhone X for your self and make that determination . Also factor in that you are buying a 1.0 product.
- ChrisLTD 9y ago
  How so? It's the latest iteration of a product first released 10 years ago.
  - zitterbewegung 9y ago
    New case design and screen with Touch ID makes it a 1.0 product (maybe I should say 10.0 product ) I would wait a month to see if there are any glaring issues regardless . I suspect the OLED screen may have the most issues .
Aloha 9y ago
Personally - I picked the X because of a desire to try something new. Also, as a photographer, the new camera looks fairly impressive as well, in addition I expect the larger screen in a small form factor to enable me to use my phone for even more things - beyond that, its upgrade time for me anyhow, the price difference between a 256 gig iPhone 8 and iPhone X is effectively rounding error, as in, its not a significant amount of money for something I use every single day for so many tasks and activities.

hungerstrike 9y ago

Face ID is going to be a monumental failure for people who dock their phones on their desk or car. It's also going to annoy everybody who likes things to happen fast all the time because Face ID will definitely cause a delay and frustrate every user at some point. I have no doubt about this. The lack of a home button is probably the worst design decision. They should have gone with dedicated virtual home button or better yet, stick with the iPhone 7 style home button. iOS 10 and 11 already has too many problems distinguishing between "global gestures" and "application gestures". EDIT: Oh please - tell me why you disagree and prove to me that you're not just an illogical, emotional mob. You think Apple never made a mistake? Pffffftttt! I just spilled my coffee.

dmode 9y ago
Down votes are unfortunate. I think it is a legitimate concern at this point. I dock my phone in my car and it is far easier to unlock using fingerprint. But I am convinced that Apple is aware of this use case and iPhone X will not be any different.
- hungerstrike 9y ago
  We'll see. "I will admit I have not tried Face ID yet, but it's hard to imagine a facial recognition system that solves the problem of having to carefully aim a phone at your face." - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/face-id-on-the-iphone-x-is-probably-going-to-suck/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/face-id-on-the-iphon... "[Face ID] worked the vast majority of times I tried it"... (NOTE: Not ALL the time) - and "...it’s definitely faster than the first generation of Touch ID, though perhaps slightly slower than the second gen." - https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/31/review-the-iphone-x-goes-to-disneyland/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/31/review-the-iphone-x-goes-t... In any case - I don't lock my phone and swiping will definitely, definitely, definitely be way more annoying than being able to click a button.

remarkEon 9y ago

>The iPhone X (pronounced “ten,” not as in X-ray)... Do people really not know Roman Numerals anymore?

exogen 9y ago
I'll look it up on my Moto X.
joefourier 9y ago
Lack of an iPhone IX might have confused some. And plenty of people pronounced "OS X" as the letter "x", and in that case there was an actual Mac OS 9 to justify the jump from 9 to 10.
krallja 9y ago
it’s pronounced “decem”, not “ten.”

jack6e 9y ago

Even though the overall tone of this review was upbeat and positive, it seemed that the baseline conclusion was: "hopefully we find a use for the minor iterative improvements that will make this more than just the next release in a series of underwhelming releases." For one of the first, selectively-chosen reviews of what is supposed to be a ground-breaking product, the article essentially told us 1) the pictures look better; 2) Apple finally imitated Samsung's Infinity Display; 3) my fingers learned new motions that were useless with other Apple products; 4) FaceID became familiar and even worked sometimes; 5) I could put my face on a pile of poo, which required some cool technology. Not that those features or the article suggest the iPhone X is a bad product, or bug-ridden, non-usable, or anything else. But how in the world are people--is Apple--still not embarrassed pretending that this is a revolutionary device? Even if FaceID is intensely innovative and unparalleled new technology - that is just the feature that people use to get to the features they actually want to use. No one is going to buy a phone to play around with the unlocking mechanism, they buy it for what that phone can do for them once it's unlocked. Hyping on FaceID is like saying, "We are revolutionizing mobile computing by entirely overhauling the millisecond process by which you gain access to a slightly improved version of the product you already have."

mratzloff 9y ago
I keep my entire music collection on my phone, and my 128 GB 6S is tapped out (almost entirely music). That requires me to do some storage juggling every time I want to update. So I'll probably buy one for the bump to 256 GB alone. Double the storage should last me for quite awhile. The other features are largely irrelevant (except perhaps the inductive charging), but I'll get the X instead of the 8 because it will be 3-4 years before I update again. For what it's worth, the 6S's 128 GB and bump to 2 GB RAM (making Safari usable again on JavaScript-clogged sites) were what motivated me to buy that one. The X, incidentally, bumps that again to 3 GB. The 8 remains at 2.
craftyguy 9y ago
Apple could literally release a phone with zero changes to it over the previous "generation" and billions would still want it.

ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago

My biggest issue with it is finding out that the aspect ratio has changed and so even thought the screen is roughly the same length diagonally as iPhone 6/6S/7/8 Plus it's width is really like that of a iPhone 6/6S/7/8 and not a Plus. So for Plus users, there's no replacement here it seems.

matwood 9y ago
Good point. Here's hoping for an iPhoneX+ next year.

dean 9y ago

I keep reading about how the "notch" is ugly and annoying, but "you get used to it". Like sitting behind someone with a big hat in the movie theatre, after awhile, you don't even notice. Personally, I change seats in that scenario. I just find it hard square claims of "the future of the smartphone" with reviews like "you get used to it".

dilap 9y ago
I don't have the iPhone X yet, but I'm actually kind of excited about the notch and the round corners for a (perhaps) silly reason: it brings us deeper into the sci-fi age where screens are organic objects with shape, rather than just hard, rectangular squares. It feels more exciting, more human, somehow. (Also, all the various status bars will now finally have the same height; basically no software properly responds to the double-height status bar when something special is going on.)
- AndrewOMartin 9y ago
  "organic objects with shape, rather than just hard, rectangular squares" "all the various status bars will now finally have the same height" Pick one.
  - valine 9y ago
    Meaning the GPS and phone call background process status bars will no longer be taller than the standard status bar. This caused lots of issues with third party apps whose developers didn’t test the auto layout edge cases.
    - dilap 9y ago
      not even just third party apps, many of apple's as well!
pwython 9y ago
Then again... maybe you do get used to it? Like how our parents got "used to" prior technology's "annoyances"? I'm not saying this is a "get off my lawn" annoyance, but... I'm curious to see how phones evolve after this notch.

mgleason_3 9y ago

Can't help wondering if FaceID's more of a PITA than a help. Do I always have to stop and stare at my phone? What if I'm walking?

Sevauk 9y ago
Don't you need to look at your phone to use it anyway ?
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  No. Often my phone is on a desk. So with Touch ID I can walk back into the room, lay my finger on the phone and it wakes and shows me if I have any messages. I don’t have to pick it up, move it, stare directly at it or anything. I get that most people don’t work this way but for me it’s great.
  - macintux 9y ago
    Disclaimer: mine hasn't arrived yet, but you should be able to walk into the room, tap the phone, and it will unlock but leave you at the lock screen to see your notifications. You don't have to be facing it directly, you don't have to lift to wake it.
    - macintux 9y ago
      Welp, apparently you do have to lean over it, per reports. A shame.
dilap 9y ago
might depend on a your personal usecase. touchid just never worked reliably for me, so i'm excited to try faceid...
randyrand 9y ago
It'll be awesome for people with sweaty hands or in warm or cold climates. Gotta take the bad with the good. Im optimistic.

gallerdude 9y ago

I always have some sort of dream that one year I’ll watch the keynote knowing nothing, but in reality I read every article or rumor leading up until the event.

unabst 9y ago

> “Don’t worry about price, just specify the computer’s abilities,” he told the original team leader. At his first retreat with the Macintosh team, he began by writing a maxim on his whiteboard: “Don’t compromise.” That's Steve Jobs. The notch is a compromise. The spec Apple needed was "no notch". Forcing developers to embrace a premature design decision based on a feature that they couldn't make happen is hypocritical at best. If Jobs had come back to life, we would have been blown away by something from Apple by now. At this point, not sure which is more likely to happen. ----- https://hbr.org/2012/04/the-real-leadership-lessons-of-steve-jobs https://hbr.org/2012/04/the-real-leadership-lessons-of-steve...

caio1982 9y ago
I hope you don’t mind a slightly off-topic comment here: we should really stop using the if-steve-jobs-were-alive card; we don’t do this with other iconic tech people who have died, do we?
- unabst 9y ago
  Maybe we just miss him the most?

pasbesoin 9y ago

If my $300 Moto G5+ (temporary replacement for my bootlooped Nexus 5X) were to, well, f-ing receive timely updates, I'd stick with it for a while. 4 GB / 64 GB (and the option to add a MicroSD card), Snapdragon... 625, IIRC. And a decent IPS display. It's just fine. I'd love to have a better camera, but not at 3x the price. Yeah, this isn't an "Apple" comment. But it is a "US$800 - $1200" comment. And an "it's not really your device" comment. Not when we are at the "mercy" of vendors to provide necessary updates -- or, more often, not to. On that front, Apple is clearly winning. But a grand is a lot to pay for it. P.S. My G5+ has a headphone jack. Useful that now Bluetooth is borked until it receives the update/fix -- IF it ever receives it. Yeah, I'm a broken record... But it's a song these vendors ripely deserve.

hndamien 9y ago

The price is revolutionary. It is a low cost vehicle for high cost signalling.