iPhone X is unveiled: Full front display is now reality

10 years after the launch of the phone that redefined what “smartphone” means, we have the iPhone X (pronounced ten), introduced by Apple CEO Tim Cook at the Steve Jobs Theater in Apple's new campus. Its new Super Retina Display uses a 5.8-inch OLED display with a full-screen design. At the 10 years anniversary of original iPhone, the sole hardware button that controlled iOS has been retired. It’s all screen on the front now and it marks more than one first for Apple. Its new Super Retina Display uses a 5.8-inch OLED display made by Samsung! The screen panel is called Super Retina Display with 458ppi pixel density (the sharpest iPhone yet, the resolution is 1,125 x 2,436px). Both HDR10 and Dolby Vision are supported and the panel offers a whopping million-to-one-contrast ratio. And the 3D touch is still here.

The bezels that are so familiar to Apple buyers have melted away, leading to an odd shoreline up north – the selfie camera, earpiece and several new sensors live there. They enable FaceID, the replacement of TouchID. The Home button is removed, and Tap to Wake is now a feature. You can also use Raise to Wake, then swipe up from the bottom of the display to unlock the iPhone or return to the Home screen. Swipe up and pause to enter multitasking.

The phone is powered by the Apple A11 chipset, which evolves the two-tier CPU design – it has two powerful cores and four energy-efficient ones. A special neural engine inside this chip helps power Face ID. Apple says Face ID can’t be spoofed by photographs, masks, and makeup, and changing your actual appearance with a hat or beard or makeup won’t prevent Face ID from working. Apple says all the processing is completed locally and securely, and the feature only works when you’re eyes are open and you’re paying attention and not looking away.

iPhone X has dual 12MP sensors with dual optical image stabilization which is a first for the iPhone. Both Portrait Mode and Portrait Lighting from the iPhone 8 Plus are also available on iPhone X. iPhone X is the first mobile cam to shoot 4K 2160p video at 60fps. The highest possible 1080p frame rate also doubled, now reaching the impressive 240fps. The front-facing camera on iPhone X supports Portrait Mode and Portrait Lighting as well. The selfie camera also gains Portrait mode thanks to the depth info provided by FaceID, including portrait lighting.

The iPhone X is also Apple’s first phone with wireless charging too. It uses the popular Qi standard.The phone also supports fast charging. The iPhone X can gain 50% charge in 30 minutes if you have a suitable charger at hand.

There are two color options: Silver and Space Grey. Phone's pre-order start October 27, sales begin November 3. The 64GB model will cost $999 and the 256GB model costs $1,149. In Europe, the prices start at £999 in the UK and €1,150 in Germany.

Here is the full press release from Apple:

SEPTEMBER 12, 2017

The future is here: iPhone X

Packed with Innovative Features Including a Super Retina Display, TrueDepth Camera System, Face ID and A11 Bionic Chip with Neural Engine

Cupertino, California — Apple today announced iPhone X, the future of the smartphone, in a gorgeous all-glass design with a beautiful 5.8-inch Super Retina display, A11 Bionic chip, wireless charging and an improved rear camera with dual optical image stabilization. iPhone X delivers an innovative and secure new way for customers to unlock, authenticate and pay using Face ID, enabled by the new TrueDepth camera. iPhone X will be available for pre-order beginning Friday, October 27 in more than 55 countries and territories, and in stores beginning Friday, November 3.

“For more than a decade, our intention has been to create an iPhone that is all display. The iPhone X is the realization of that vision,” said Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer. “With the introduction of iPhone ten years ago, we revolutionized the mobile phone with Multi-Touch. iPhone X marks a new era for iPhone — one in which the device disappears into the experience.”

“iPhone X is the future of the smartphone. It is packed with incredible new technologies, like the innovative TrueDepth camera system, beautiful Super Retina display and super fast A11 Bionic chip with neural engine," said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “iPhone X enables fluid new user experiences — from unlocking your iPhone with Face ID, to playing immersive AR games, to sharing Animoji in Messages — it is the beginning of the next ten years for iPhone.”

Gorgeous All-Screen Design

The Super Retina display employs new techniques and technology to precisely follow the curves of the design, all the way to the elegantly rounded corners.
iPhone X introduces a revolutionary design with a stunning all-screen display that precisely follows the curve of the device, clear to the elegantly rounded corners. The all-glass front and back feature the most durable glass ever in a smartphone in silver or space gray, while a highly polished, surgical-grade stainless steel band seamlessly wraps around and reinforces iPhone X. A seven-layer color process allows for precise color hues and opacity on the glass finish, and a reflective optical layer enhances the rich colors, making the design as elegant as it is durable, while maintaining water and dust resistance.1

Remarkable Super Retina Display

The beautiful 5.8-inch Super Retina display2 is the first OLED panel that rises to the standards of iPhone, with stunning colors, true blacks, a million-to-one contrast ratio and wide color support with the best system-wide color management in a smartphone. The HDR display supports Dolby Vision and HDR10, which together make photo and video content look even more amazing. The addition of True Tone dynamically adjusts the white balance of the display to match the surrounding light for a more natural, paper-like viewing experience.

iOS 11 is redesigned to take full advantage of the Super Retina display and replaces the Home button with fast and fluid gestures, allowing customers to naturally and intuitively navigate iPhone X. Simply swipe up from the bottom to go home from anywhere.

Face ID, a Powerful and Secure Authentication System

Face ID revolutionizes authentication on iPhone X, using a state-of-the-art TrueDepth camera system made up of a dot projector, infrared camera and flood illuminator, and is powered by A11 Bionic to accurately map and recognize a face. These advanced depth-sensing technologies work together to securely unlock iPhone, enable Apple Pay, gain access to secure apps and many more new features.

Face ID projects more than 30,000 invisible IR dots. The IR image and dot pattern are pushed through neural networks to create a mathematical model of your face and send the data to the secure enclave to confirm a match, while adapting to physical changes in appearance over time. All saved facial information is protected by the secure enclave to keep data extremely secure, while all of the processing is done on-device and not in the cloud to protect user privacy. Face ID only unlocks iPhone X when customers look at it and is designed to prevent spoofing by photos or masks.

Reinvented Front and Back Cameras Featuring Portrait Lighting

The new 7-megapixel TrueDepth camera that enables Face ID features wide color capture, auto image stabilization and precise exposure control, and brings Portrait mode to the front camera for stunning selfies with a depth-of-field effect.

iPhone X also features a redesigned dual 12-megapixel rear camera system with dual optical image stabilization. The ƒ/1.8 aperture on the wide-angle camera joins an improved ƒ/2.4 aperture on the telephoto camera for better photos and videos. A new color filter, deeper pixels and an improved Apple-designed image signal processor delivers advanced pixel processing, wide color capture, faster autofocus in low light and better HDR photos. A new quad LED True Tone Flash offers twice the uniformity of light and includes Slow Sync, resulting in more uniformly lit backgrounds and foregrounds.

The cameras on iPhone X are custom tuned for the ultimate AR experience. Each camera is individually calibrated, with new gyroscopes and accelerometers for accurate motion tracking. The A11 Bionic CPU handles world tracking, scene recognition and the GPU enables incredible graphics at 60fps, while the image signal processor does real-time lighting estimation. With ARKit, iOS developers can take advantage of the TrueDepth camera and the rear cameras to create games and apps offering fantastically immersive and fluid experiences that go far beyond the screen.

The new camera also delivers the highest quality video capture ever in a smartphone, with better video stabilization, 4K video up to 60fps and 1080p slo-mo up to 240fps. The Apple-designed video encoder provides real-time image and motion analysis for optimal quality video.

Portrait mode with Portrait Lighting on both the front and rear cameras brings dramatic studio lighting effects to iPhone and allows customers to capture stunning portraits with a shallow depth-of-field effect in five different lighting styles.3

With iOS 11, iPhone X supports HEIF and HEVC for up to two times compression and storage for twice the photos and videos.

Animoji Brings Emoji to Life

The TrueDepth camera brings emoji to life in a fun new way with Animoji. Working with A11 Bionic, the TrueDepth camera captures and analyzes over 50 different facial muscle movements, then animates those expressions in a dozen different Animoji, including a panda, unicorn and robot. Available as an iMessage app pre-installed on iPhone X, customers can record and send Animoji messages with their voice that can smile, frown and more.

Introducing A11 Bionic

A11 Bionic, the most powerful and smartest chip ever in a smartphone, features a six-core CPU design with two performance cores that are 25 percent faster and four efficiency cores that are 70 percent faster than the A10 Fusion, offering industry-leading performance and energy efficiency. A new, second-generation performance controller can harness all six cores simultaneously, delivering up to 70 percent greater performance for multi-threaded workloads, giving customers more power while lasting two hours longer than iPhone 7. A11 Bionic also integrates an Apple-designed GPU with a three-core design that delivers up to 30 percent faster graphics performance than the previous generation. All this power enables incredible new machine learning, AR apps and immersive 3D games.

The new A11 Bionic neural engine is a dual-core design and performs up to 600 billion operations per second for real-time processing. A11 Bionic neural engine is designed for specific machine learning algorithms and enables Face ID, Animoji and other features.

Designed for a Wireless Future

The glass back design enables a world-class wireless charging solution. Wireless charging works with the established Qi ecosystem, including two new wireless charging mats from Belkin and mophie, available from apple.com and Apple Stores.

Apple gave a sneak peek of AirPower, an Apple-designed wireless charging accessory coming in 2018, which offers a generous active charging area that will allow iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus or iPhone X customers to simultaneously charge up to three devices, including Apple Watch Series 3 and a new optional wireless charging case for AirPods.

Pricing and Availability

• iPhone X will be available in silver and space gray in 64GB and 256GB models starting at $999 (US) from apple.com and Apple Stores and is also available through Apple Authorized Resellers and carriers (prices may vary).
• Through Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program, customers in the US can get iPhone X, with the protection of AppleCare+, choose their carrier (no multiyear service contract required) and have the opportunity to upgrade to a new iPhone every year. The iPhone Upgrade Program is available for iPhone X at apple.com and Apple Stores in the US with monthly payments starting at $49.91.4
• Customers will be able to order iPhone X beginning Friday, October 27, with availability beginning Friday, November 3, in Andorra, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Japan, Jersey, Kuwait, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, UAE, the UK, the US and US Virgin Islands.
• Apple-designed accessories including leather and silicone cases in a range of colors will be available starting at $35 (US), while a new iPhone X Leather Folio will be available for $99 (US). Lightning Docks in color-matching metallic finishes will also be available for $49 (US), prices may vary.
• Every customer who buys iPhone X from Apple will be offered free Personal Setup in-store or online to help them customize their iPhone by setting up email, showing them new apps from the App Store and more.5
• Anyone who wants to start with the basics or go further with iPhone X or iOS 11 can sign up for free Today at Apple sessions at apple.com/today.

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple’s four software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.
1 iPhone X is splash, water and dust resistant, and was tested under controlled laboratory conditions with a rating of IP67 under IEC standard 60529. Splash, water and dust resistance are not permanent conditions, and resistance might decrease as a result of normal wear. Do not attempt to charge a wet iPhone; refer to the user guide for cleaning and drying instructions. Liquid damage not covered under warranty.
2 The iPhone X display has rounded corners that follow a beautiful curved design, and these corners are within a standard rectangle. When measured as a standard rectangular shape, the screen is 5.85 inches diagonally (actual viewable area is less).
3 Portrait Lighting launches in beta.
4 Based on a 24-month installment loan; full terms and conditions apply.
5 In most countries.