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iPhone X

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They make is so easy to login to the phone -- I'm still waiting for the ability to add multiple users. When I hand my phone to my daughter she should see her apps, my son, his. And when I hand my phone to my wife, she should unlock it and see.... her phone. If 256GB local storage and 11ac WiFi isn't enough storage and bandwidth to make this easy, I would be OK if it only kept the last GB of the camera roll.

Of course this sync should happen directly between our devices when they are on the same network. No need to go through the cloud.

By default if her phone rings it should only alert on her primary device. Unless she authenticates to my device at which point everything is there waiting. If her phone was ringing and she picks up my device and authenticates it should answer the call.

Ideally this is all smooth enough that we have matching devices and don't care which one either of us walks out of the house with.

The end game is that when networks are fast enough, the cloud mature enough, and homomorphic encryption performant, we get to the point where the phone basically lives in the cloud and anyone can pick up any iDevice, authenticate, and be looking at effectively their own device.

I mean, just to expand on this.... there's no explicit sync, and no explicit backup. It's always synced. It's always backed up.

Imagine you walk into an Apple Store and pick up the latest iPhone XV. And there you are looking at your phone, your contacts, your apps, everything.

Underneath, it's a virtual shim. In the first instant it's merely grabbing thumbnails of all your apps and notification metadata so it can "look right". As you click in, scroll around, you polyfill data as you need it. Obviously in some cases a more substantial download would be needed, so you may not be able to pop into an AR game with 1GB of assets within the first 10 seconds of picking up the device, but if your primary is on the LAN you could bring the necessary data locally in ~5 seconds from tapping the icon. Underneath it's doing something analogous to "docker run" on that apps image. In some cases this would lock the image from running concurrently on another device, in other cases multi-master could be fully supported with live sync of the backing stream, e.g. for Apple Mail.

Bu you would have 1:1000000 chances to get into someone elses phone. With 7 billion people in the world it's not so crazy.

First time auth on new hardware would certainly ask for at least a PIN but more likely your iCloud password. For the encryption keys to transfer I think you would also have to allow the request from some other device which currently held them.

The Secure Element would need to be upgraded to support "multi-tenancy".

That's all assuming the feature works by building on the existing infrastructure.

Ideally between your face and your iCloud password you could bring your "profile" to new hardware without having to touch an existing device. After the first time, just your face is enough.

A four-digits pin code has 1:10000 chances to get into someone else's phone (on first try).

But you can only enter a pin on a phone you have physically with you. With this proposed auto-sync, every new phone is potentially a gateway to anyone else's phone.

Read the GP comment. This is talking about walking up to any random phone and having your own environment synced to it seamlessly. For that to work, the phone would have to know it’s you with basically perfect precision. So 1 in a million is not nearly good enough for that use case.

Not that it's much better, but I thought iOS now required 6 digits going forward?

Meanwhile the front door lock on my house built a couple of years ago only has 10,000 different keys. They probably sold more locks than that in the last few months.

You might check this out: https://www.hypori.com/platform

> As you click in, scroll around, you polyfill data as you need it

polyfill definitely doesn't mean what you think it does.

Likewise. We use it for filling cracks in walls here in the UK.

Haha - how embarrassing! What's the term d'art for a virtual/shim file system which dynamically reconstitutes the data onto local storage as you request it, while presenting a false image to user-space that all the data actually is local already?

> Imagine you walk into an Apple Store and pick up the latest iPhone XV. And there you are looking at your phone, your contacts, your apps, everything.

Imagine anyone points their phone at you in the street, and there they are looking at your phone, your contacts, your apps, everything.

Thanks for saying this. Personally I view a future where the entirety of my data is sloshing around in the cloud, ready to clone to an arbitrary device at the tap of a few keys to be a nightmare scenario.

ready to clone a new you - Weiyoun X! How may I serve the Founder?

Or the cops.

I keep having to point out that assuming this is built on existing infra, FaceID is just the username. Everything is end-to-end encrypted. You can't get the data onto a new device the first time without the encryption key which Apple doesn't have.

You need your iCloud login/password and also (I think) an existing device which has the key to approve the request.

This is literally no different than how it works exactly today when restoring an iCloud backup onto a new phone, except imagine it can happen as a polyfill so it looks instantaneous instead of the 2-4 hours it seems to take today.

The wild thing is, apple kind of already did this with handoff, and the iOS/OSX syncing. If my phone is ringing in the kitchen, and i have my laptop with me on the couch i'll get an alert and i can answer the call on my laptop. Or iPad. It doesn't even need to be near the phone, as long as they both have wifi or LTE connected. And while ipads don't do multiple users, on OSX if my roommate or someone else signed in then their calls and messages would come through too. When configged right, even texting to/from real numbers works.

They obviously already have this tech most of the way there and just... haven't implemented it?

I have to believe it's where they are heading, I just really thought we would be there by now!

I think it still requires faster, more ubiquitous networking. But in general, I think you're correct. This is also probably the long-term solution to how to make iOS a full general-purpose computing device, which to date is somewhat at odds with the "app console" philosophy of iOS's restrictions and the App Store. If I can run anything I want in the cloud with minimal latency, the restrictions on the phone just don't matter as much.

With the family tablet yes, my phone hell no!

What exactly is "your phone"? Is it that physical mass of circuits and lithium ions in your hand? Or is it the bits making up the user-land data you've accumulated on it over time?

"Do you think that's air you're breathing?" ;-)

What I dislike most is handing someone "my phone" for them to use for a minute and they are actually using my phone. If they authenticated and were immediately interacting with their phone I have no problem sharing the hardware for a minute when the wife/kids want to do something briefly on it.

I don't ever hand anyone my phone and it wouldn't be helpful anyway due to the passcode needed.

I understand the point you're making though. You want a phone that's a terminal to the cloud, with caching. That's a fine use case I suppose. Wouldn't stand in your way.

Many phones are cheap enough today (not to mention hand-me-downs) that there isn't a huge need however.

Well I have kids 5 and 8 that when they are using a screen (which is limited) it's always someone else's hardware, usually mine.

But it's also bigger than that. If everything you do user-land can be synced down fairly instantly to any piece of hardware - phone, tablet, desktop, TV, watch, etc. - it provides a level of mobility and usability which can enable some very powerful use cases.

Approaching a device and have it immediately be "yours" is important for the screens in the self-driving ride you hail, or the shared workspace you might rent by the minute, or even the TV you sit down in front of in your own living room.

But this could even extend to the POS terminal which you checkout with at a store, a screen you walk up to in a mall, a digital assistant you approach in a store, an ATM, etc.

FaceID is transparent walk-up/pick-up authentication, which is table stakes for some very cool possibilities.

If your kids are using your phone, and it becomes "their phone", what happens if someone tries to call, text or notify "your phone"? Do you expect some sort of hybrid profile with cross-notifications and contacts? That's messy.

Your kids want their own device. They will get it sooner or later. Mobile devices by nature are personal objects, complete with personal greasy screens and battery levels we have nobody else to blame for.

Approaching a device and having it become "yours" might be a fine idea for certain applications, but I'd argue the living room TV is better off having a default profile which everyone in the house uses. If one person's profile is lagging or missing content or apps or settings, they fall behind and we now have a frustrating scenario of some profiles better than others for watching TV. Obviously sub-usage areas such as Netflix makes sense to have different profiles, but not the whole TV.

Then allow any computer to be configured that way, but don't try to sell lack of this feature as a feature.

Why would you restrict this to iDevices?

I'm not sure what you mean? It's not going to work as a 3rd party service. So Apple can do it for its customers and I guess Google for its own, and Microsoft, and so on....

But how is Google going to ensure "full portability" across the lineup of all Android devices in the same way that Apple could do so for iOS?

Edit: Maybe this is what you meant? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15234615

What does my twin brother see when I hand him my phone?

Even identical twins might not have facial features (due to body fat percentage differences or sun exposure) which are close enough to fool it.

It's an interesting question how exactly the device switches to the remote profile mode versus an "authentication failed" route. If the profile has never existed on the device you'll need permission from someone who is live on the device (in other words you need to get past the lock screen) to retrieve a new profile.

But if two profiles are live on a device owned by identical twins who can't be distinguished by FaceID -- perhaps detected by trying to authenticate the human to both profiles and seeing if both pass -- you're going to need a PIN (or something else) to distinguish them.

Honestly, I am waiting to see how FaceID works for various use cases.

Just me, without a twin, change beards all the time (shave it, grow it, shape it, etc).

I have also have friends who do contact sports (brazilian juijitsu) and trust me, their ears change shape all the time.

I dont have any personal friends that box, but man, I can also see that not working so well.

He doesn't. You turn the feature off.

Well since it doesn't have touchid, you're pretty much back to using a pin/password, so back 5+ years ago

Apple said in presentation you can't use FacialID if you have a (evil) twin.

I strongly doubt that Apple will make it easier to share devices.

Every Apple device, from Macbooks to iPads to iPhones to Airpods is built to be a personal device. Even Macs, theoretically capable of multi-user, are a pain to share (eg try updating a Mac App Store app purchased with a different user account than the one you are logged in as)

Apple doesn’t want to sell one shared device to a family. They want to sell multiple devices to every family member.

The number of hours I spend per week in front of an iOS device will not decrease by adding this feature. The number of hours my kids spend in front of iOS could conceivably increase though, speeding up the inevitable point where they get their own...

But the number of devices sold by Apple would multiply, which is the whole point.

considering all the hype of a sharing economy would not the opposite be more true?

Only if hype and reality are the same thing.

That's just it, though. It's not about number of hours for Apple. It's about units sold.

More hours would lead to more sold units.

Not if people share their phones.

It still could. Many people buy their kids cheap tablets now because buying them an ipad is too expensive, and later in life those kids will be familiar enough with the Android ecosystem that they may never switch to Apple devices.

If those same parents could instead just hand off their ipad to their children and have it only load their apps this could lead to them being more familiar with ios and buying apple devices later in life.

Not a guarantee obviously, but it could theoretically have an impact in future sales and market share.

Given that a lot of Apple users seem buy a new phone/tablet whenever it's available, I think children end up with the older models.

Still no decrease of sold units

I'm not sure what you mean by that, since what I'm implying is that there is no real economic incentive for Apple to support multiple users.

And on the other hand, there are also benefits (for Apple) of encouraging one-user-per-phone. For example, it makes it more likely it becomes an extension of your identity. Having multiple users per phone undermines that type of personal attachment.

This isn't something that started with Apple - mobile numbers have always been tied to individuals - but it's very convenient for their "lifestyle" approach to selling their units.

Mobile phones will never be shared by people who don't already share them. This is a convenience functionality, not something that would change how you use the device - from the exact reason you said: mobile phones are extensions of identities. This feature is something you would use when your own phone is out of reach (e.g. on a shelf in the living room) and your wife's phone is with you in the kitchen.

True, it will not exactly boost sales, but it will not decrease them. It will make some people more likely to recommend Apple. Everyone will still have their own phone.

You can overcome the risk of decreasing the likelihood of creating personal attachment by letting the foreign user log in to a de-personalized (no custom wallpaper and so on) space and use a limited subset of functionality, e.g. a browser, contact list, the Apple messenger app and a phone app (that would call from your own number/phone over VoIP); this functionality would be available only when both phones are connected to the same wifi.

I don't see it as being that cut and dry. These new features would have to be focus tested, designed, tested, rolled out, and tested some more. There are maintenance costs for it, as well as additional configuration to present to the user. Done poorly, this sharing option might be simply ignored by the user making the above a waste of time and resources that could be spent elsewhere.

It still seems like good investment considering Apple's abundance of those resources.

Adults will never actually have one phone for more people (maybe except for old people, but they don't need this feature to share the phone), it's always just a convenient feature when your phone is on the desk and your wife's one is om the sofa you're sitting on.

I don't think Macs are at all a pain to share, and your example isn't very compelling.

Then, at least around iPhone, they're idiots. I'm not going to have one cellphone for the whole family. Even in the best case scenario of my wife being a stay-at-home mom, I'm going to work. I'm not leaving my phone with her all day at home. And she's not going without a cellphone all day. So... where's the "one device per family" coming in? Even if we assume kids "share" - that works until they're what? 5? 6? 10? At some point the kid is going to want a phone at the same time you do, and eventually "No because I said so" is going to fall on deaf ears.

I think you read the exact opposite of what GP wrote.

I think GP was just saying that in the case of phones, it's silly to try to make the devices single-user since people are going to want to have their own phone anyway, even if they could log in to their partner's phone and see "their own".

No, I really didn't.

>By default if her phone rings it should only alert on her primary device. Unless she authenticates to my device at which point everything is there waiting. If her phone was ringing and she picks up my device and authenticates it should answer the call.

He's talking about each person having their OWN DEVICE, but being able to seamlessly switch between devices among their family group.

Why are you arguing completely different points then?

I believe he's arguing against the idea that Apple won't implement this device sharing because they don't want to sell only one device per family.

Because he is not replying to GP, he is replying to the parent:

> Every Apple device, from Macbooks to iPads to iPhones to Airpods is built to be a personal device. (...) Apple doesn’t want to sell one shared device to a family. They want to sell multiple devices to every family member.

Not sure why people are having problem understanding that.

Oh, you just replied to the wrong comment.

My 3 yo borrows my iPhone when we ride home from kindergarden and I don't want that he fells asleep. So he watches an episode of Fireman Sam on Amazon Prime or plays a game. He unlocks the phone with his "magic finger" and after 20 min I get my phone back.

It would be so fantastic if he could just start HIS apps and would access a restricted Prime account. My 6 yo is the same and since he was 2 1/2 I switched by iPhone twice. So I don't see the case that it's not important as they will get their own ones when they are 8 or so - that's 5 generations of iPhones.

I assumed iOS had multiple users, no? Android has native multi-user functionality, primary, secondary, and guest users. It allows to do exactly what you are asking. Samsung has an additional feature where a folder keeps a unique set apps (sandbox) that can be completely different than the rest of the phone. Samsung calls it a secure folder. That allows each set of users to have two set of apps if needed.

https://source.android.com/devices/tech/admin/multi-user

my $200 Xiaomi phone has exactly this functionality - 'second space', unlockable by second fingerprint

$40 Amazon Fire tablet.

"No because $1000" is a valid answer in my house.

I don't think that anyone was suggesting that they will pay $1000 for a child to have a phone. The iPhone SE sells for $150 - $199 brand new from bestbuy: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/at-t-prepaid-apple-iphone-se-4g...

Good price - is that SIM-locked to the prepaid carrier?

Yes. I think it needs to be in service with them for 6(?) months before they unlock?

Even changing the email address of the Apple account is a world of pain. It confuses all of the ecosystem. But I think it is just poor software design, not necessarily malice.

Who needs malice if one can have poor software design for free.

that's a good quote. Not sure if it means much, but it sounds good and intelligent :)

I targeted "funny", but "intelligent" sounds good too.

Being allowed to have my own email address that I bought that relates to my domain would make iCloud a lot better. But it's not all that difficult to stumble across brittle edges unfortunately, so adding more isn't going to be helpful.

I've had the pain of trying to do this once before when my parents got a new email address. The Apple account was never consistent thereafter, with different devices showing either the new or old email address.

We solved it once and for all by creating a new Apple ID under the new email address.

The problem with doing that is the music and the apps purchased.

I think it might be OK if you turn on family sharing and add the new Apple ID?

> I strongly doubt that Apple will make it easier to share devices.

So Apple devices are actually closer to being a PC than what we commonly call a Personal Computer.

Steve Jobs talked about this when he returned to Apple. He basically discussed how he would work at his home Mac and then come to the office and login and suddenly with the internet and networking the work Mac would be exactly the same.

I think the ideal should basically be that. You can pick up a phone, any phone (limited to iPhones for Aplle), login to your iCloud account and suddenly it's your phone, indistinguishable from the other phone thst was yours, outside maybe unavailable hardware features.

That's one of the great things about web apps. I can log into Gmail anywhere and it's the same thing. I haven't used it, but I believe this is the promise ChromeOS delivers.

Isn't this the decades-old idea of Plan9?

I see distributed computing as a slightly lower-level concept in the more generalised field of ubiquitous computing.

IIRC, it's what he had at NeXT (in the office and on the machine(s) in his home). Plan 9 may have existed at AT&T, but first shipped in 1992 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs#History)

It's the decades-old idea of thin clients.

No, it's not, because the CPU is still local, so you're not just using your device as a terminal to a remote server.

We don't have the infrastructure for this yet.

The absolutely open version - even if it was just storing apps centrally and downloading them on demand, and not downloading everything - would still require something like 100 times more bandwidth than we have now to be usably fast.

A workable version, with local storage providing device accounts for a small number of users, would still need more local storage than we have now, and storage isn't cheap enough yet to make this fully affordable.

256/512GB devices could possibly handle family needs, just about, but would struggle at work.

IMO network bandwidth and latency is a bigger problem than storage. Right now, I can stream [1] HD movies from my homeserver to wherever my notebook is right now, because the upstream at home is wide enough (6 megabits per sec). But that application only works because it has quite predictable bandwidth requirements and can cope with latency quite well. Many other applications would be horribly slow if every file access had a second-long roundtrip.

[1] via sshfs

It is certainly something Rob Pike wants. Read the "What would be your dream setup?" paragraph here: https://usesthis.com/interviews/rob.pike/

A lot of people have had that idea over the years (remember John Gage's "the network is the computer"?) You could even argue The Shockwave Rider, a 1975 Science Fiction novel, described it pretty well.

I don't know about the Steve Jobs quote though, do you have a link?

The first time I saw this implemented was in 1996 at Olivetti Research Lab in Cambridge UK. Everyone had an IR badge, and when you walked up to a machine it recognized you and popped up your desktop (no login, and it was exactly how you left it).

Technology-wise it was a bit of a dead end. However the underlying protocol was VNC which they invented for this purpose.

With ChromeOS you can, if you wanted to, sync all of your profile/settings to Google, "power wash" (completely clean) the machine upon shutting down. Then when you reboot syncing everything back to the machine happens upon entering your credentials.

This is exactly what the hand off feature in iOS is about, granted it does not work across all apps but they have done some great improvements with iOS 11 and hopefully will keep improving upon it in the future

>> how he would work at his home Mac and then come to the office and login and suddenly with the internet and networking the work Mac would be exactly the same

I don't think this is the right end game. Now that almost every adult in the 1st world has a mobile phone in their pocket that is more than capable of being a desktop PC, the solution we should be heading for is universal docking stations (preferably) wireless. So that wherever you are, there's a large screen+keyboard+mouse (or the phone screen can be a trackpad) and your phone just connects to those, be it at work, or home, or in a hotel.

Your main machine is in your pocket; a lot of non-techie people don't even have any other personal computing device (laptop/desktop etc.).

Personally tho, I like having a division between my work machine(s), and my home machine(s).

I would like to have a docking station that could turn my phone into a desktop-like device, with a proper mouse, keyboard and monitor(s). I don't need much, a full-featured web browser, Spotify and a handful of other straight-forward apps are all I really need, but I wouldn't mind a fully-fledged Linux environment.

If I could also get a laptop-like dock, my phone would take care of ~95% of all my computing needs.

Strictly personal, though. I envision simply having a different phone for for work, for privacy reasons. But plugging it into the same docks.

That's close to the day phone/night phone thing so causes instant revulsion for me.

Parent and grandparent posters: how about a sandboxed part of storage under employer's admin with employer's data? Your phone, they get to manage a small protected portion. VOIP for corporate voice calls?

That's what BlackBerry did with BB10 to support BYOD users.

And the new BlackBerry KeyONE does it too, even though it runs Android.

We have two of them in this household, they are VERY nice phones.

I have a work phone provided to me for free, which I am allowed to use privately, as much as I want, no usage caps whatsoever. I am eligible to upgrade it every 2-3 years to theoretically any brand new Android or iPhone.

And yet, I insist on having a completely separate phone of my own, on my own subscription, completely separate from work.

The work phone is business-only, I have my company email, all of the apps we offer, and the ones we use internally, and that's it.

The personal phone has all the Facebook and messaging and other funtime apps that I use personally, and nothing work-related whatsoever.

The reason for all of this is that I used to have a boss who would call or email at 23:00 and ask me to do something, expecting it to be ready at 09:00 next morning, at the very latest. Because I'm on a "no maximum work hours" contract, he expected me to put in hours basically whenever he wanted (he was later fired, big surprise).

This is why I have two phones, and why my work phone now gets turned off when I leave work, and turned back on when I arrive in the morning. My personal life is not to be mixed with my work.

I fully understand the revulsion towards the day phone/night phone thing. My setup is not a case of handing over, it's a matter of keeping my personal life private.

You've more or less described Microsoft's Continuum [1]. Even down to the "handful of apps." Continuum as it exists today runs UWP applications only.

Rumors have been circulating for years about some future Microsoft mobile device. The latest rumors suggest a Windows 10 ARM device with x86 emulation and their new CShell "responsive" UI. If that rumor pans out, it's possible Windows 10 ARM may also include the Windows Linux subsystem, getting you closer to your ideal.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/Continuum

Sure, but that would tie me to Windows 10, and I'm not exactly interested in that.

well the manufacturers would tie into their system. If apple implemented this, you would be tied to their ecosystem, no? Don't see a way around that :)

I definitely see a way around it. An open standard, based on USB-C 3.x would be ideal.

The docking station for my Thinkpad doesn't lock me into a specific software ecosystem. I see no reason why a hypothetical phone dock should be any different.

I was a backer for the never-got-off-the-ground Ubuntu Edge apparently back in 2013.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge#/

I also like a division between home and work devices, but I largely accomplish that by simply having a Personal and Work account with Google.

More appealing to me is the idea of being able to have my Work computer with me all the time if needed, without carrying a special bag, etc. I like the vision of Universal Docking Stations, where you go the coffee shop and just sit down and start typing on your own device, with a full sized screen and keyboard, which you carry in your pocket.

This was looong ago and in the context of desktops which weren't as numerous and obiquitous as phones. Now Apple probably wants you to have 3, 4 of their devices and not 1 per room that can easily be shared.

It seems obvious to me that Apple is developing the technology that will enable this. Handoff, continuity, iCloud, Apple Watch authentication/unlock... step by step, we're getting to a point where your user identity and your current work all travel with you.

I think a laptop is what he was really after, 1 computer that’s the same everywhere you are.

How often do you change phones? I get it more with the model of desktop computers, maybe even laptops. But phones? Why? Is this a vision of a world where phones are treated like umbrellas?

In any case, my desires are for the opposite. If you don't own the storage substrate, you don't own the data on it, and I prefer to own my data. I have an iPhone, but don't use iCloud, except for syncing a couple specific things.

I remember the first release, and remember the NeXT model of "home directories on an optical drive". I was really, really hoping at the time that the iPhone would be that home directory, portable between machines. Now, I join the chorus of folks who think I should just be able to plug a monitor and keyboard into my phone. But that also needs to come with a viable computing environment, which for me means a unix shell and hardware control. Which is why I'm bolting for an open phone, as soon one actually gets off the ground.

That will never work since the facial tracking isn't allowed to be connected to a network. Remember all the data for facial tracking is stored locally.

Microsoft had this on Windows Phone -- sort of. It was for the most likely scenario: parents who hand their phone to their kids. They called it Kids' Corner, IIRC... Yes, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=475jxWQ955c

Multiple users are not a common use-case. Everyone* over the age of 12 has their own phone. I doubt Apple will add that feature anytime soon.

*By everyone I mean the majority of people in first world countries, some second, and third.

The smartphone has become the modern day version of the pacifier. Pretty much every parent I know hands their phone to their child and it's unsettling how effective it is at pacifying children.

As for this feature request, I think it makes sense... I wouldn't want my kid tapping on my work email or social apps.

iPhones have Guided Access which can restrict all usage to a single app:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202612

I wouldn't want my kid tapping on my smartphone at all. That description of "pacifying" is... both spot-on and deeply sad.

What do you find deeply sad about it?

Modern version of the television, maybe. And why not?

It is a common case for other iOS device(s) though. iPad in a family is usually shared across family members. I do wish apple add this feature in iOS, for iPads at least.

Yes, I'd really appreciate being able to hand my iPad to my daughter knowing she can only access her apps, and ideally for a set period of time. They seem to have this working reasonably well within macOS users.

Yep. Two iPads for 3 family members here. It's enough, but you have to remember on which one you left your stuff. If it could seamlessly recognize who picked up the tablet and switch to their stuff, no matter what ipad it was originally on, that would be magic.

I wouldn't even mind having a sync server in the house (a desktop mac, maybe) to help with that.

This is my only gripe with Apple. It's an incredible PITA to share devices even temporarily. You have to log the primary user out of their phone, login with your credentials and we are in business. This whole process is so long and frustrating that it forbids any sharing experience. I do wish Apple or someone made sharing devices a lot easier.

The scenario you describe sounds impractical, unlikely and unworkable, a very edge case "iOS fan family".

Walking out the door with just "any device" that is laying about? Nobody wants that. For one thing, an object like a phone is a personal device, not a sugar bowl passed around and left anywhere.

Your son and daughter will want their own devices, and it makes sense to give them their own devices such as your old phone or cheap phone. For one thing, when you hand your kid your phone you no longer have a phone. Someone might text or call, or the kid will burn through your battery with some game.

This only scratches the surface of what's wrong with your idea.

I would prefer to only have 3 “users”. Personal, Work and Guest. The Guest account would have access to a list of apps that I have installed but would not share my history and data. For example I do not want my wife’s YouTube history mixed with mine.

I think that setting up multiple accounts would make the experience worse as I don’t want other people to get too comfy. On an iPad that is a different case though.

unfortunately our current global network doesn't allow for proper delegation of trust, so your vision is more like a dystopia where a few single corporations and ultimate governments have ultimate power. homomorphic encryption is way too limited to allow these things. traditional encryption is only about encoding channels, its not about solving runtime and delegation problems. it seems more like its going to be the other way around. giant institutions will be replaced with DAC's which perform the desired functions of users/citizens. I'd be happy enough if iPhone would be an open system where I can run my desired OS of choice, with open hardware components and profits going not to already rich investors, who pay close to 0 tax using Irish/Dutch shell companies, but also more to employees and customers.

Heck, it would be nice if my desktops and laptops behaved that way. <plaintive sigh>

>If her phone was ringing and she picks up my device and authenticates it should answer the call.

Unfortunately Apple don't get to decide how SIM cards, phone numbers and the cellular networks work. So that's not going to happen. Note how the watch has to have a SIM mated to your phone to take calls on your number.

As for FaceID and TouchID, that data isn't supposed to be readable at all, it's never sent to iCloud so how would it get synced between phones?

Then there's storage, all the contents of all your family's devices would need to be syncd between them all the time, multiplying up the amount of storage each device would need. You'd completely lose control of managing storage on your own device. You'd also essentially lose control of wireless bandwidth utilisation.

It's a lovely dream and maybe one day we'll get there. None of these problems are unsolvable in principle, but nobody can wave a magic wand and make them all go away. I think in the same way secure resource and feature sharing between apps required Apple to develop Secure XPC, this would require a lot of fiddly, complex technological and infrastructure groundwork before it could be possible.

Macs can answer incoming calls to an iPhone. Why not route the same way?

Maybe there are limitations like needing to be on the same WiFi network or some such.

The Mac isn't receiving the call, the phone is. The Phone is just handing off the UI to the Mac across Bluetooth and Wifi. If the phones worked this way, if his wife walked out of the house with his phone, and let's be clear at that point there might not even be a way for her to tell she's doing it, it would drop off the local network and incoming and outgoing calls would become impossible.

FaceTime audio, FaceTime video and iMessage don't suffer that problem and I preferentially use those. The cloud storage of biometric data is a problem though.

Sharing phones seems like an absolutely terrible idea. It goes against the simplicity and good design that Apple pursue. I can think of tons of problems with this: being out of signal; having biometric data in cloud; running face matching across huge databases where false positives are extremely likely; interrupted signal where things are corrupt; designing efficient caching algorithms; sharing onboard storage with multiple users; security properties protecting that data...

Personal devices are personal for a reason. Simple, elegant, effective. Expensive, yes... but a better solution is to buy your kids cheaper phones.

Oh, forgot the biggest: battery life killer.

> seems like an absolutely terrible idea

Literally every single person in the world with an iPhone and young children wants this feature.

I'm guessing based on your proposed solution, you probably don't have kids? They don't want their cheaper phone; they want your phone.

> They don't want their cheaper phone; they want your phone

What they want isn't relevant. Maybe try some parenting.

> Literally

I literally think you don't know what that word means.

Edit: David Cross explains this point better than I ever could: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ly1UTgiBXM

From the OED:

  Literally (informal): Used for emphasis while not being literally true.

It means figuratively ;-)

It literally doesn't :)

It's literally been used that way for centuries [0].

Consider:

1. It's been used like this for centuries

2. By well-known writers including Dickens, Twain, Fitzgerald, Joyce, Brontë

3. The definition of such usage is included in all major dictionaries

4. It's incredibly common in real-life use of the language

To somehow insist that it doesn't mean that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, requires extraordinary feats of denial.

0: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-lite...

I was so happy when I discovered guided access.... until I realized you can still get it other apps by sharing :/

If Android has it, do you want it enough to switch platforms? Or is Apple betting that, in general, people will just buy more devices?

I'd guess most people hand down their old phone to their kids and then carry that for occasions where they might need them (distraction while waiting somewhere, etc). I don't give my phone to my kids otherwise because I don't want them to drop it and break the screen.

(I'm an iPhone user and have kids.)

I do indeed 'solve' this issue by buying more devices, which is what Apple wants and is a disincentive to them fixing the core issue, so yeah, I'm contributing to the problem.

I used to have the big iPad Pro while my kids had the old busted iPad whatever-it-was. But they were like (to paraphrase), "Fuck you dad, that busted shit loads YouTube hella slow, we want yours!"

So I ended up with a busted old iPad in a drawer, my kids having the big iPad Pro, and I got myself the new smaller 10.5 one. They know they can't use that one, but they accept it because theirs is bigger and not noticeably slower or worse for the things they do.

Also, just to ward off more "bro, do you even parent?" comments from people with no kids: No, I don't let my kids use the iPad whenever they want. No, they don't get to watch TV and eat trash whenever they feel like it. They do chores and read books. Woo hoo.

But, anybody with kids will tell you: trying to implement a you will never, ever, under any circumstances, use my phone policy is completely insane. It will make your kids life worse, and it will make your life as a parent a LOT worse.

Oh shit, this United flight is stuck on the tarmac for an extra 180 minutes, and all our new coloring books are already done!

Buddy, I know you're tired, but this is a funeral service for good old Uncle Jesse who suddenly and tragically died, we really need you to hold it together so we can deal with your little brother who is definitely not...

(Et cetera times 1000 pls use your imagination...)

So in these instances, you really want to be able to hand your phone to your child. And if you do so, every piece of data you've stored in the cloud is at risk. And you just can't have critical business data on your phone. Which limits how useful the phone can be to you.

It's like having your own real, biological Chaos Monkey.

And it can be humorous. I laughed when my wife bought a new MacBook and during the very first 10 minutes of setting it, somehow pressed 'th' and had it auto-expand into 20 paragraphs of Japanese text. She was like, wtf, and handed me the machine... boom! Another 20 paragraphs of Japanese text (seemed to be a cooking blog post).

What I guess happened is:

1. somehow, some kid managed to copy a blog post

2. then they managed to somehow get to the "Text Expansion" settings on one of her iOS devices

3. then, they somehow managed to create a new shortcut for "th" and paste all the blog content into the shortcut expansion text area (didn't even think that was possible?)

4. the cloud did its cloud thing and now my wife can't type "the" on any of her machines

That's just a guess as to how that happened. But shit like that happens pretty regularly. The Chaos Monkeys also managed to delete my favorite photo of my wife — I only noticed because it was my favorite, so who knows how many non-favorites they've deleted. The weirdest shit shows up in my photo stream. I have thousands of notes consisting of variants of 'afhdsf8aiyfoew9ry4t340822u9rtf20悪悪悪'. And I can't find this super-super-important receipt in Evernote... another heinous data-loss Evernote bug, or.... the Monkey???

So yeah. Just because you'd like to hand your phone to your child safely does not necessarily mean you're a shitty parent.

If Apple had multi-user on iPhone, or even just a limited Guest Mode, it would get close to completely solving this problem.

Guided Access?

"But, anybody with kids will tell you: trying to implement a you will never, ever, under any circumstances, use my phone policy is completely insane. It will make your kids life worse, and it will make your life as a parent a LOT worse."

My kids (2yo and 5yo) never use my phone and I haven't noticed an issue with my insisting on that. It's likely that they're not old enough to know that the age of their devices is limiting their play so I'll grant that I avoid that issue. And my wife isn't as insistent, so will share her phone with them to keep the peace, but it doesn't seem to be that often.

Might be the ages of the kids? Maybe 5-10yo is tougher?

> Literally every single person in the world with an iPhone and young children wants this feature.

Neither of my sisters, with multiple kids, want this feature. In fact, of all the people I know with iPhones and kids, only one has ever mentioned this.

And he believes coloured TTYs are an abomination.

Well, sure, they don't know they want it.

But if you asked all parents on earth "Hey, would you like to be able to hand your kid your phone and have them be able to use some apps, but not necessarily be able to delete all your data?" I think that the positive response would get pretty close to the literal meaning of "literally all".

I have young kids (3 of them ages 2-10) and our family uses iPhones and I don't want this. Guided Access does what I need it to do. Beyond that I don't want them on my device and my wife doesn't want them on hers. For an iPad however, it might be nice.

Who said anything about biometric data in the cloud? This doesn't need to work the same way the first time you see a device as it will work the second time you see it, after having fully authenticated the first time.

So, it doesn't have to alter the security attack surface or really even a major change in the secure element.

Someone from Apple should just reach out, the design is not simple but it's absolutely workable.

> can pick up any iDevice, authenticate, and be looking at effectively their own device.

This is so obviously the opposite of what Apple has in mind. They want to sell as many phones as possible - not make them shareable.

The amount of development, testing, and customer support this would require likely outweighs any profit increase by a couple of orders of magnitude. It'll never happen.

I don't want to share my device, ever. I like to know where it is at all times, even for benign uses like "i need a flashlight, where's my phone" or "what time is it." This feature would not improve my user experience.

Nobody forces you to setup multiple user accounts.

Even simple `Child Mode` will help drastically.

Ironically, a lot of tech companies had this vision for the enterprise in the late 90s. Insert your id card and instantly see all your stuff. Interestingly, for the most part the market rejected the idea. I suspect this is an idea that sounds good on paper, but ends up being undesirable to the majority of folks.

I think there was a lot of very poor executions too to be honest, with loading time everywhere unbearably long.

I'm not walking out of the house with my wife's phone -- it looks like a Russian tank ran it over several times.

Concur on all the other points. Devices should be as transparent as possible. They're empty shells by design.

TouchID is not stored in the cloud. I hope FaceID isn't either.

This would be less beneficial IMHO on a phone. My wife sometimes uses my phone, but she always has her own nearby. when she is using it, its for a quick, specific reason.

But I could really see this on an iPad. iPad's are often shared around a household, this would be amazing for that. Macs themselves would also apply here.

Then it would be a "mePhone" and conflict with their branding. :)

On a more serious note, the most I think we'll ever see from them is limited web browsing as a guest user.

"I'm still waiting for the ability to add multiple users."

One shared device with multiple profiles for your family members VERSUS One device each for each family member

To understand how Apple chooses to prioritise, simply ask the question - "Which option makes more money?"

> Your face is now your password

no, it isnt. and neither are your fingerprints. none of this publicly available data is a password.

a password is something i can change if it gets compromised. a password is secure from others.

biometric data is a username/id.

why do companies insist on getting this shit backwards?

"My v̶o̶i̶c̶e̶ face is my passport. Verify me."

'Sneakers' had it right. Consider it more of a "passport."

> biometric data is a username/id.

Which is why it's called "Touch ID" and "Face ID".

> Your face is now your password.

That's a direct quote from the product page.

Yet they behave like a password.

No they don't. They behave like a username/password combination. A username is an individual identifier and a password is a confirmation that the identifier is valid for the person it's identifying. TouchID and FaceID confirm both - that it's the correct user that has access and that the user is who they say they are.

It's important to note that in the context of these Apple features, "ID" is for "Identification", not some kind of "User ID" used as a Username.

Username != ID.

Agreed completely. I hope I'm never in a situation where I'm forced to use my face or fingers as a password.

Their job is to sell. They want everyone watching to understand exactly what they mean.

For what it's worth, I would say that Face ID isn't quite a username either. Once known, anyone can reproduce a username. I can't easily recreate your face even if I know you well. That would require an extra set of skills/equipment. The same argument goes for Touch ID.

It isn't a username or password, it's another factor, similar to how we identify people that we know.

It's not perfect, which is why we have policies for accessing things. It's almost certainly a better security mechanism than a password.

> biometric data is a username/id.

> why do companies insist on getting this shit backwards?

They don't have it backwards, but they're also simplifying when they say it's your password. In the presentation they actually say specifically that there's a chance that someone else can unlock your phone (1 in 50'000 for fingerprint, and supposedly 1 in 1'000'000 for Face ID, given that you don't have a twin).

Reality is that it's somewhere in between. A fingerprint sensor or face reader will keep casual snoopers - and most people who find your phone on the street - out. That's all that matters for most people. It's not a username. It's at least moderately hard for someone to duplicate, and it's not something you'd actively share with someone. It's not as safe as a password, but Apple isn't trying to claim that either.

I think it's a good idea to avoid false dichotomy here. Biometrics is biometrics. It should be treated as distinct from passwords or usernames.

Okay, but shouldn't developers make security easy? This makes introducing a sizable hole into existing security easy, which is the opposite of what you'd want.

Yes, touchId/faceId sits in between, it's quick access token, which is enough for 95% of the time, but those other 5% are very important.

Those other 5% might be too important to have your phone involved with them.

Or, if one needs those 5% moments on phones, it's always a possibility (as stated on the keynote) to add password additionally.

1 in 1 000 000 is the same odds as a 6 digit PIN (though you can always change a PIN). That's acceptable to me.

Unless you have a twin... that's probably OK. Ease of use is probably most important. I didn't like that the first demo phone failed!

Is it really true that adult identical twins will easily fool this or other modern face detection systems?

I don't know how they wouldn't. Hell, genetically they are probably similar enough that a DNA test can't tell the difference.

Actually DNA tests exist that can tell apart twins.

Is it a specific test, or all tests? If there is a story exploring this, I'd be somewhat interested in reading it.

Facial recognition is something humans are known to be better at than computers, and identical twins throw off humans all the time.

Even when computers surpass humans at this task (probably not that far off) they will likely have difficulty with identical twins because of how they do facial recognition. At the moment computers do it by identifying points that correspond to the geometry of the face, like nose, eyes, and cheeks. These are all features that would be similar between twins. Usually humans can differentiate twins by fatness, scar tissue, hair style, etc. Not something that can't be overcome, but also not something common with current approaches.

Problem solved: We'll just add scars to twins' faces to distinguish them. /s

It wasn't that it failed to recognize, it was that it had restarted, and all iPhones require the passcode to unlock the very first time after restarting. (You can tell by the small text over the PIN pad in the video.)

My guess is that he didn't want to dwell on the issue, or didn't know the passcode.

Watching someone key in a PIN and recording it, then swiping the phone is easier than building a 3D printed color model of someone's face. Not to mention that having the biometric unlock sitting on top of a PIN means that there are many fewer chances for the PIN to be observed.

Whether biometric access is a password or username is trying to force the wrong paradigm. Going back to first concepts, we had keys and we tried to make them hard to copy but not too inconvenient. The face is the key. No, there's no practical way to re-key this lock, but it's still a lock and key. But the door also has a deadbolt (PIN code) which has to be disengaged for the "face key" to function.

The username concept applies when you have multiple people using the same resource (and don't want to know or reveal whether any 2 people use the same password) -- which again doesn't apply to a single-user device.

Finally, all this combined with the quick "hard lock" of the device (5 taps of power button) gives me the impression of a very thorough approach to security.

> Watching someone key in a PIN and recording it, then swiping the phone is easier than building a 3D printed color model of someone's face. Not to mention that having the biometric unlock sitting on top of a PIN means that there are many fewer chances for the PIN to be observed.

With how cheap video surveillance is these days, any PIN that you've regularly entered on your phone in public is probably recorded on video somewhere.

So is your face, of course, but like you said that's much harder to reproduce.

Yeah it's probably out there if you could magically aggregate all of the video surveillance footage in the world.

It's more like walking around with your pin written on your forehead.

Funny you should say that, here's a video of a guy accidentally unlocking a phone and using his apple pay by pointing it at him https://youtu.be/WYYvHb03Eog?t=1m27s

Except that a regular pin pad lets anyone enter the pin. Your pin code can only be keyed in by 1:1000000 people [citation needed]. So no, your pin is not on your forehead. Your pin is an organic material with color and depth and movement that for all intents and purposes is your actual forehead.

The average opportunist thief won't be able to duplicate that key. The best that they can do is use your actual face, within a few feet from you, while you're staring directly at the phone in their hands.

yea but you realise the implication when revealing your pin in public. By contrast your face is something you wear in public without a second thought.

> building a 3D printed color model of someone's face.

A 3d rendering on a screen is probably enough. The device seems to infer 3D from motion, but would probably be fooled by a rendering or even a recording.

That makes all the interlocutors you had on video chat as potential ID thieves.

False. iPhone X has points(invisible) projected on your face from what depth is calculated. Same as xbox kinect i assume. So 3D rendering on flat display wont fool iphone.

I stand corrected. A depth sensor on the user-facing camer. That one of the weirdest design decision I have seen yet.

It's been done one some laptops via Intel RealSense depth cams or similar hardware. Not sure if any other phones have featured this, though. The ones I've seen typically add the depth cam on the back for niche stuff like 3D scanning.

> Watching someone key in a PIN and recording it, then swiping the phone is easier than building a 3D printed color model of someone's face

Right, but couldn't somebody just use my actual face? Steal my phone, hold it up to my face for a second to unlock it and then run off?

A really interesting thing to think about is what happens if somebody is in custody and is refusing to unlock their phone, but uses face authentication? Can the police just hold their phone up to their face and unlock the device that way or is there any protection from that in the law?

I thought something was mentioned about "active gaze" in the keynote? The phone detects if you're paying attention; it doesn't unlock if you have your eyes closed, it doesn't unlock if you aren't looking directly at it.

Should make it more difficult (though not impossible) to force an unlock by waving the phone in an unwilling person's face?

Not necessarily.

"Excuse me. Is this your phone?"

Or some derivative of that.

You only need to look at the phone for a brief moment. It's designed to quickly unlock. If you had to stare at the phone for 10 seconds it would be a frustrating experience.

The FAR rate is quite misleading especially for facial recognition. FAR counts on the data being "random" for that 1:50,000 or 1:1 million to be true. But you can bet whoever is targeting you will build a 3D profile of your face out of all the pictures it can find on you online. I at least assume it won't be "easy" from the get go to bypass Apple's face unlock tech, like it was for the Galaxy S8 with a god damn 2D picture that we've been known for a decade that's an effective attack, but I also don't think it's impossible. Machine learning techniques will become advanced enough in a few years to build someone's 3D profile like that.

Plus, as the parent said on the issue of not being able to replace your face as you can your password, they can still target your face data stored on the phone.

It's not a password, but it's not a username either. It's something in between: It's vastly easier for me to type your username in the login box than it is for me to create a sophisticated prosthetic or high resolution 3D scan (with correct infrared coloration) of your face.

I wish people would stop repeating the canard that biometrics are usernames, not passwords. Biometrics are biometrics. They are different from both usernames and passwords. They have their own advantages and limitations. Learn them, understand them, and use them or not based on what they are, not some other thing they sort of seem like.

Prosthetics were specifically covered in the keynote.

The neural networks have been trained to recognise them as fake faces.

They're not magic. You can make a fake with enough effort. But it's a lot of effort.

http://www.evolvingai.org/fooling

The weird thing to me is that apparently we have so many people on HN that consider themselves worth the effort to make full 3D renderings of their faces just to unlock a phone. Unless you were Osama Bin Laden, it seems highly unlikely anyone would go to the trouble. If you are that kind of person, you’re probably going to be protecting your information with much more than Face ID.

There would be more than enough detailed photos and videos of politicians, celebrities and business leaders floating around for a skilled sculptor to recreate their faces, there'd be some high value targets there.

Not entirely true. Your email is your password. If you own email and access to it, you can reset and request new password.

Something that I think people underestimate is just how easy it is to observe you entering your password on a phone, and why that (in my opinion) makes thumbprints much more secure than passwords for casual usage - e.g. every-time you unlock your phone.

All you need is a camera over your shoulder and you don't even need to observe the key-presses as generally the current character is displayed on screen. You could likely observe 100s or 1000s of them a day with an overhead camera at transit stations and the like.

The same thing goes for "Tap And Go" contact less payments not requiring a PIN number under $100.

Everyone goes on about how people can run up a few hundred dollars at different stores with your card if they steal it. But consider exposing your pin to surveillance during most common transactions which then also lets you remove cash from an ATM with that card if stolen which is much harder to recover and is also much higher value than the generally $30-$100 limit for transactions without a PIN.

Next minute you'll freak out when I tell you I can clone your house key from a photo of it hanging off your belt...

The general point is that security trade-offs are generally deeper than you might realise on the surface, especially at "public outrage" levels of observation which so frequently haunt the public mind in recent times.

This is a great point, and why I'd like to see more features being locked without a passcode. The move in iOS 11 to restrict device imaging without a passcode is a great step in this direction.

Perhaps we can see more customization as to what biometrics unlock and what they don't?

As long as biometrics don't unlock secrets (keys, passphrases, shared data etc) it is fine. In all other cases you are correct and it needs some form of replaceable, retractable secret i.e. a passphrase.

This would be a very welcome feature but considering how the secret stores work at this point it is not likely to see this any time soon.

Sidenote: The false positive rate on any biometrics is way higher than you think (it is highly disadvantageous to be black unfortunately, yes biometrics are racist). People usually consider the near bound (e.g. small sample size, high differentiation unless you have twin) of the people around them as proof it is impossible but this has been problem a fallacy in even mediocre sized studies.

It still works but I would really like to see your suggestion to make sure real secrets are properly stored/safe.

> As long as biometrics don't unlock secrets (keys, passphrases, shared data etc) it is fine.

That's a weird definition of "secrets". Mails may contain secrets. Pictures may contain secrets. Messenger posts may contain secrets (cf. all the leaks of chatlogs).

If I remove all apps from the homescreen that may contain secrets, that leaves me with the flashlight and Candy Crush.

The other thing is that I kept my phone unlocked in the time after physical keyboards were dead but before fingerprints. There are way to many situations where I want to unlock my phone with one-hand.

A fingerprint lock is way more secure than no lock.

People will freak out... but I don't lock my phone. Never have.

It's either in my pocket or in my hand, and I never ever put it down in public. If get mugged (god forbid.. and do people still mug other people for phones these days?) there's nothing mega personal on it, and I can remote erase it pretty quickly.

Where do you live? Any urban center anywhere in the world phone theft is common.

I wasn't sure, hence asking. London, UK. btw.

I live in Dresden (Germany), and I've never even heard of anyone who has been mugged here. Sure, there will be cases in the statistics, but I can not name anyone who has been mugged, ever.

Theft is a superset of robbery; I know plenty of people who have had their phone stolen because they left it lying out in the open

On ATMs they use a keyboard with random multiple digits per key, e.g. "2 or 7", "8 or 0", etc. That's a defense to the "observing-attack", but it's slow and boring. Also, someone could unlock with other password.

Just remember to change your face regularly, and use a face manager so that you don't ever use the same face twice.

It's easy, find a local biker bar and put your hand in a familiar manner on one of the biker's girlfriend's behind.

> I'm sorry, but we can't hire you for security reasons. You look too similar to our head of IT.

Biometric data is authentication. One looks at their mother and says "hi mom" not "what's the passcode?". Your issue, I think, is that you don't trust the tools on the phone to read faces or fingerprints well enough to detect fraudulent login attempts.

Factors of authentication:

* What you know - things like passwords online that other people shouldn't know

* What you have - Two-factor tokens, certs (kind of "know" but used to supplement "have") that other people shouldn't have

* What you are - Biometrics like finger, face, or eye that are unique and difficult to duplicate or trick (ideally)

So the question becomes which and how many factors to require, and when, depending on the risk model.

What kind of analogy is that? I don't know what you were trying to say but you're way off on saying it. I think OP's point stands, biometrics: are not be relied upon for these matters.

What OP means is that at least theoretically faces contain enough information to uniquely and correctly identify someone, which is the reason why we identify someone by looking at their face. If iPhoneX was as good as a person in recognising faces then this discussion would be meaningless.

> Your issue, I think, is that you don't trust the tools on the phone to read faces or fingerprints

And/or, you don't want to give Apple your facial or fingerprint information.

How does that work? You put a piece of tape over the front-facing camera?

Unless you believe Apple is lying, that information is never sent to them. The hardware is designed such that, with TouchID at least, it's never even seen by the CPU on the phone.

If you do believe Apple is lying and is secretly phoning home with your personal information, then I think you'd have bigger problems than fingerprints; I would be more concerned about surveillance on everything you do with the phone.

Apple is speaking to a broad consumer audience, not just technical people. "Password" is a reasonable concept that will be easily understood by a lot of people. "Biometrics" is not.

I agree and I think most of the comments here cover why this should mostly be OK.

Another neat feature in iOS 11 is the ability to disable Touch ID quickly, but touching the lock button five times. I assume this works for Face ID as well – this would help those who have immediate concerns that they would be coerced into using biometric data to unlock their device.

edit: updated to five touches

Small nitpick, but it's 5 taps to disable Touch ID and Face ID.

A very reasonable nitpick! thanks :)

You've made an excellent point here.

Because people are lazy to remember passwords and or setting pin numbers on their phones.

FaceID and TouchID are compromises for an actual password or pin. Also, setting these things up force you to set a 8 digit pin.

Definitely this. When I was using an iPhone, it was for all intents and purposes locked behind my thumbprint (even though you could theoretically make a model thumb with my fingerprint and unlock it, it protects from everything other than highly skilled criminals/governments who very specifically target me). Now that I have a Galaxy S5, there's no way I'm writing in a passcode every time I unlock it (and that horrible "fingerprint scanner" is not a replacement for Touch ID), so it's just unlocked.

>biometric data is a username/id.

It's authentication. When it unlocks, it's authorization.

Who you are (authentication) and what you can do (authorization). But for iPhone they are effectively one and the same since there's only one account on the phone. You can only authenticate as the phone's primary user, after which point you have full authority.

When, Oh When!, will my kids get their own home screen and separate sandbox, limits, etc. when I hand them my phone?!

Your both right and both wrong. Biometric authentication is an identity scheme. The combination of username and password is also an identity scheme. A certificate chain is another identity scheme.

Identities both identify who you are and are, ideally, difficult to fake. Username password artificially handled those two concerns separately, but that doesn't mean that all identity schemes must do so. For them to say it's your password is wrong, but for you to say it's your username is also wrong. It can be thought of as both or neither but it isn't either one on its own.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't actually need passwords. If a machine can reliably tell that you are really you, then what's the point of passwords?

That actually works very well between humans; we let friends in our house without asking for passwords. Machines still have a bit of catching up to do, but Face ID is a step in the right direction.

Because it is safe enough for most people to keep their friends out of their phones, and faster+easier to use than typing in a passphrase.

It is also safer than not using a password, which I'm sure some people still do.

I agree, what about identical twins or a doppleganger?

I consider biometric data a keepalive, nothing more. Any biometric system that doesn't require a non biometric pass at some point after boot before the biometric becomes a means of device authentication is broken, to me.

In iOS you have to provide the passcode to change any settings related to payments and security (among other things.)

Anytime you go 24 hours without unlocking your phone you are also required to give the passcode.

Also have to give the passcode on boot to enable the biometric shortcuts.

I had face unlock maybe 2 Androids ago and it was disallowed by corporate IT policy. PINs only or you couldn't get company email.

Because you could unlock Androids with a photo — even a low resolution Facebook photo. A 3D scan of your face is a bit beyond the Android scheme.

If only we had high resolution 3d printers or people who can carve lifelike portrait replicas out of stone! Oh, wait, we do. A bit more complicated, but if you think this is not way to simple to fool, you're out of luck.

Blood vessel scanner, or get out, see http://nsmartphone.com/fujitsu-lifebook-u745-review/

If they can build a captcha that keeps out robots based on mouse movements, I'm pretty sure they can build a facial recognition system that can keep out prosthetics based on facial gestures.

Equifax has taught us that you'll be perfectly safe if you regularly change your address, date of birth and SSN.

Apple is just following suit with the trend.

Wow you sound like a real joy to work with. I don't think you've learned to step out of the shoes of an engineer and put yourself in the shoes of an average consumer or the company selling a new phone. The average consumer does not give a shit about the technical definition of a password.

Is your face scan really publicly available?

Isn't it though? It's the "password" to the secure enclave which then provides a "password" to the OS.

Edit: I agree with your statement that "a password is something i can change if it gets compromised. a password is secure from others." Which is why I like that there is a method for disabling TouchID/FaceID with iOS 11.

I unlock my phone in my pocket with Touch ID all the time - ready to go and on the home screen by the time I've flipped it around in my hand. Feels like a straight downgrade in usability.

also, some engineer at apple had to continuously grow a beard to test this

I think speed of the facial recognition will make or break this. If it takes less than 500ms of me staring at it to unlock it could feel fluid enough. Any longer and it'll be annoying every time.

500ms is a LOOONG time. That's about how long my S8 needs, and I always question whether it works this time. 100ms or so would be great.

I may be wrong, but I remember reading something that most humans can't notice any lag below 200ms.

You can notice sub-200ms lag, but for when you aren't specifically watching for lag or firing a series of rapid events one-after-another, sub-200ms seems to be roughly the point where it "feels instantaneous."

In my experience a little under 100ms "feels" instantaneous.

That's absolutely not true. I can tell the difference between 60 hz (16ms) and my 144 hz monitor. I can tell when my 144 hz monitor is accidentally running at a lower refresh rate, including 120, 100, 75, and 60.

200 ms is like a full react/response time for a human to take action in response to input, our actual sense of time is much finer than what our nervous system can make our muscles do.

Is that because of the faster refresh rate, or because none of those divide evenly into 144 and thus you're getting weird frame stretching?

Curious as I just got back into gaming after several years and everyone seems to love 144fps now, wondering if I should upgrade. I have a 1080Ti, so I could presumably render that

G-sync my dude. No frame stretching/sync tears.

Ah, I was just wondering if running a 144hz monitor at 60hz was like watching a 24fps movie at 30fps... if that makes sense? But the monitor can just switch its actual refresh rate.

Yeah, it'll really trick.

Upgraded to a 165hz G-Sync panel recently and it was a revelation after running at a v-synced 60hz for years and years.

Order the 1080TI about a week later as the 970 I had wasn't cutting it at 1440p.

If you've got a 1080TI you likely don't need gsync - it's only really useful when you're running slower than native refresh rate.

When native is 165hz...

I actually find most modern games run at about 90-110fps with what I would consider "good settings".

Even if you turn settings way down 165 is really hard to maintain.

That's not lag though, that's refresh rate.

The question is could you tell the difference between your 144hz monitor and your 144hz monitor with the signal delayed 100ms.

I think almost everyone playing games could.

Good monitor reviews include a test of the delay. 3 frames delay (<100 ms at 60hz) is absolutely atrocious and easily detected by players in games.

But of course, that's not the problem. It's ok that the phone doesn't unlock with out me noticing the delay. It just can't be so long that I start doubting whether it works.

I notice a 1 frame in 60hz delay (<17ms) when comparing vsync on vs. gsync @ 57 fps. I'm sure many other video gamers will as well.

Yes. You'd feel quite drunk even controlling the mouse pointer with 100ms lag. This was/is actually a problem with some LCDs (VA in particular) that cached a frame or two in order to "anticipate" future changes so that they could adjust the voltage and make the image transition faster.

This overdrive is probably also the cause of burn-in-effects that seems to be especially common in VA panels.

Definitely noticeable in gaming, 200ms is unplayable.

Depends on how the game is tuned to handle it. Somehow we all played Quake / UT back in the day with that kind of ping.

FaceID with lag compensation! As soon as it sees a face it starts to unlock based on a fast prediction, then if the authoritative secure side of the chip says "No, authentication actually failed" it rolls back the clock and relocks itself!

200ms can refer to network latency, input latency, frame render time, etc.

200ms is five frames/changes per second, and is definitely very noticeable. You may be thinking of a figure closer to about 12ms or so, which is the approximate threshold of perception for audio lag.

iPhone X's front camera shoots at 60fps

Looked like it was reasonably quick in the demo.

Agreed. If it's fast enough to unlock by the time my face is facing the iPhone, then I'm not losing any productivity there.

e: But watching the keynote, it's definitely doesn't seem that fast...

I disagree.

First off, as the person above said, you can start the unlocking process long before it's even facing with with touch-id, as you're taking it out of your pocket. With this, this "timer" starts only when it's fully out and facing you.

Next up, in this, it has to be facing you perfectly. You can't unlock it sneakily under the table, you can't do it while someone else is looking at your phone, etc.

Lastly, you still need to manually swipe to actually open the phone, so it's not like you're not using your finger either. If at least you could unlock it without using your hands that would be something.

At the end of the day, I still want to see properly reviews of what the actual successrate is too. It's not all about speed, if it fails 5% of the time, that's extremely annoying.

it looked pretty slow on the demo. In the order of 1500ms.

TouchID is much faster.

The unlock itself actually looked pretty fast... it just seemed a bit awkward that it had to be paired with a swipe to unlock.

True, it's three things:

- attention - faceid - swipe

And no cue to know if faceid worked before swiping. I couldn't see cues (maybe I missed them).

Except for that large padlock icon that shows the unlocked state when Face ID has identified you?

Aight, I failed, but it's really not how I like such information conveyed.

Agreed. I'd want the phone to look "more asleep" when locked, e.g. a dimmed or vignetted background photo which would pop to life when unlocked.

Something that "pop" yes. A border flash, a hint at the bottom that means "you can swipe now". The [un]lock icon can stay but it's to high focus to be a good UI.

To be honest, with the full glass, I expected something like.. a full screen fingerprint scanner (have no idea if it's feasible at all). I thing TouchID is the best biometric input for casual operation.

But then you'd never be able to look at your notifications without "unlocking" the phone. That doesn't seem too useful.

Adding a clearer visual cue for unlock would have no impact one way or the other here.

Sorry, I read your first response as the screen being dimmer, not the wallpaper. I was complaining that you wouldn't be able to read notifications if the screen was dimmed but that wasn't what you said. My bad!

A padlock icon in the corner unlocks when Face ID has authenticated.

top center of the lock screen

That matches what they did to touch ID in iOS 10: unlocking no longer actually took you to the home screen, just left you on the lock screen with your phone unlocked for... some... reason. There is a setting to change it, maybe there will be one for this as well.

Oh yeah, I forgot that I had to change that setting. I definitely hope it's the same with Face ID - I don't use home screen notifications for anything.

One of the reasons was that on newer phones (the 6S and the 7) Touch ID was so fast that it was hard to even see the lock screen. If you use the home button to wake up the phone then you would be authenticated and the screen would go away before you had a chance to see anything.

Their solution was to split it into two different steps.

You have the same issue with Face ID. If the "lock screen" went away as soon as you look at your phone you could never actually look at the notifications there.

Clearly they had to do something. Does this work well? I guess we'll find out when the reviews come out.

No, the issue is different. With FaceID, if there was no swipe, your phone would unlock all the time for no reason at all. For example while driving, or while having it flat on your desk and hovering near it, and so on.

I am very skeptical about FaceID. I actually love TouchID, can hardly imagine anything better, but Apple has surprised us before.

Yes! Imagine you just wanted to glance at your notifications. So you wake your phone and... it goes straight through to the home screen, darn it!

What about unlocking without looking at it ?

gone away.

I'm guessing you can tap on the padlock to enter your passcode.

that requires paying attention (and probably looking at it, even if you know the location, a screen is too flat), unlike the home button.

TouchID always takes a "slightly-perceptible" amount of time to work, so any improvement over that would be fine with me.

Especially if you have several banking or investment related apps that use touch-id.

That's probably why they make you swipe up. The gesture takes 500 ms at least, and it only has to unlock by the end of it.

Indeed especially when driving that millions of us shouldn't be doing but do anyway. Touch ID made it so easy to unlock ... can't imagine Face ID being a better in this scenario.

But the reason you unlock it is to look at the information on your phone, so it's not like you are using touch id without looking at your phone after that, no?

I keep "loaning" my finger to family members all the time, when I'm driving, watching TV, and they want to borrow my phone. Not really sure Apple thought through this from every angle...

They could just hold the phone up and you could look over for a fraction of a second. No different than if you were talking to them.

Oh boy, that's going to be awful fun for parents. Let the kid play with a game; they call your name while pointing the forward camera at you and you've just Face ID'ed some in-app purchase.

That's an interesting corner case. My phone has a setting that lets me turn off touch ID for App Store purchases (so I would have to use my passcode) so I guess you'd just have to use that if your kid kept tricking you and you couldn't stop them.

Then you get the bill in the mail a couple days later and then ground your kid.

In the mail? :-)

TouchID is great, but if I've been sweating or have some moisture on my hands for another reason (say I'm cooking and want to check the recipe) it fails horribly.

At one point (iOS 10?) iOS's quickness in falling back to the passcode prompt regressed greatly.

In the cooking use case you ought to be able to say "hey Siri, keep my phone unlocked", but she'd probably just search for that on Bing.

I usually say "hey Siri, open auto-lock settings" as I take my iPad into the kitchen.

It looks like they made a point in one of their promo ads that it also works at an angle and with weird lighting/obstructions (the video of the swimmer looking down at her phone that was flat against the edge of the pool).

This happens often to me when I used my phone as a sat nav, the phone was attached to the dash but would sometimes go to sleep if the battery went to 20%. I'd open it up again by just tapping the home.

But then you have to adjust your grip, at least for me when I unlock my iphone I am using a different grip then when I try to click an icon on a homescreen, so if I would use face ID - it will save me some time for adjusting grip, at least that's what I imagine, of course nobody have tries face ID yet.

So what I'm talking about is: I place my thumb on the home button and three fingers on the back of the phone, while grabbing it in my pocket. The fingers are initially pointed down, in the same direction of the phone. As I drag it out of my pocket, I click the home button and flip the phone around, so now my fingers are horizontal across the phone (standard phone-holding position basically). It's almost always unlocked by the time I can see anything on the screen.

This requires you to always orient the screen "inwards" (towards your leg).

I don't understand why having the fingerprint sensor in the back of the phone (Nexus, Pixel and some other android devices) never took off that much. Ever since I got it on my Nexus 5x I absolutely loved it (Pixel now, same thing). It's incredibly intuitive, works both right and left handed, doesn't take up screen space, and they've just added a "scrolling" feature to open your notifications by swiping it. Seems like a no-brainer, I can't see any fault in it, and yet very few phones have it.

For people using Apple Pay on the Oyster network in London, the speed of face recognition is absolutely gonna make or break this.

Just auth before you get to the turnstile.

you have to auth again when you use apple pay.

No you can pre auth. If you authing at the gate, then youre extremely annoying..

It's part of why I think it should be considered a breach of social etiquette to use your phone to pay on public transport.

Like the people who wait till they're at the gate before delving into their bottomless-bag-of-carrying for their oyster

This is incorrect. You can preauth even with the current touch id models.

Apologies but what do you need to do to preauth? Is this just the quick-double-pressing to open the Applet Pay wallet in advance? Do you still have to put your finger on it when making the actual payment?

Double press to bring up the wallet, then leave your finger on until the fingerprint changes to a phone with the message "Hold Near Reader to Pay". Then you don't need to leave your finger on when making the payment. Handy when you have to reach over a counter to "Tap" or need the payment to go through quickly (going through a payment barrier such as on the London underground). I assume FaceID will work the same.

Thanks!

It's having to look away from the primary activity of getting through the barrier that is the problem. Not sure how this will go down at 8am at Waterloo.

No different from now. Plenty of people have eyes down watching videos or reading while walking towards the barriers on both sides. Annoys the bejeezus out of me every single day.

I can barely get the damn thing to work reliably when I'm watching carefully where my thumb goes. I salute you.

Yeah, TouchID only gets me in like 50% of the time, usually with 2-3 attempts. And yes, I've re-done the prints a couple times.

All these people posting about consistently unlocking it without looking seem like they're from a different universe.

The 7 touchid is much, much better than previous versions. Near instant

It's better, but it still sucks for me.

My 6 worked so infrequently that i stopped bothering. At least with my 7 it works about half the time on the first attempt or two. I've put my prints in many times, I've even recorded my thumb from all sorts of angles as multiple fingers. Still no joy.

I know people with very dry hands who have this problem. Maybe due to cracked skin?

Wet hands also cause problems, but wet beyond sweaty.

Blisters are another deal breaker. As a new golfer I've been feeling this. I imagine people who work with their hands all day (e.g. construction) may have a similar issue.

For me this happens ONLY when my fingers are wet or oily. Otherwise it works 100% of the time.

It works pretty well on my oneplus 3t, so it's not impossible to get right.

Ok, the guy demoing the iPhone X just had to switch to the backup phone because the Face ID on the first one didn't work quite smoothly.

actually, the phone had been rebooted, so he needed to unlock with a pin to activate it.

Still, at least I didn't notice, and probably the average user didn't either, which makes it just look as a major blooper. I loved the phone though.

at least he knew the password and wasn't relying on the face recog to get into the phone, that could have been rough

IIRC he didn't use the passcode, they switched over to a backup phone.

For presentations like these you always have multiple devices standing by, ready to flip over to at a moment's notice.

I'm pretty sure the backup phone had an imitation of Face ID unlocking.

How are you "pretty sure" about that?

Actually, the message ("Your passcode is required to enable Face ID") was identical to the message when too many failed Touch ID attempts are made, not when a phone is rebooted ("Touch ID requires your passcode when iPhone restarts").

I had this feature on my 950 (Windows Phone). It was poor.

Slower and more error prone. Environmental changes such as extreme lighting (being outside) or wearing sunglasses stopped it from working.

Windows Hello and compatible webcams work really well in a stable desktop environment mind. I've just rolled them out across my firm.

Come on, your 950 didn't make a 3d dot-map of your face. This is very different.

Yes it did an infra-red dot map of the face.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-iris-scanner-lumia-950-an...

Amazing, -4 for mentioning this isn't a new feature. This is exactly how the kinect works, how windows hello enabled webcams work.

That article doesn't say anything about an infrared dot map of the face - just that "the infrared camera is first used to light up your eyes".

Additionally, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_recognition says "Iris recognition uses video camera technology with subtle near infrared illumination to acquire images of the detail-rich, intricate structures of the iris which are visible externally" which doesn't involve any kind of infrared dot map.

It didn't have face detection at all, it had an iris scanner. Where in that article does it say infra-red dot map of a face?

From https://www.petri.com/windows-10-tip-using-the-lumia-950-wit...:

>Let’s be clear about how Windows Hello works on the Lumia 950. It doesn’t use facial recognition, but instead relies on the front camera and a nearfield IR diode so that the camera can clearly see your iris. When you enable Windows Hello for the first time, your iris is scanned and a cryptographic hash is generated and stored securely on the phone. When you attempt to unlock the device using Windows Hello, a new hash is generated and compared with the original, and if the two match, access is granted.

>Facial recognition on the other hand, as used in some new notebooks designed for Windows 10 and Intel’s RealSense F200 camera, uses three different methods to recognize your face: infrared, a standard camera, and a 3D camera. This technology requires more space inside the device and as such isn’t suitable for use in phones, but unlike iris scanning works at a distance.

You didn't get downvoted for mentioning a feature already implemented elsewhere, you were downvoted by trying to claim a device did something it clearly didn't.

Do you not read your own sources?

I'm simply shocked that Microsoft would go first-to-market with an inferior product.

No, you didn't have Face ID on your 950, you had whatever you had.

It's Apple's speciality to take good ideas that were never implemented properly and do it properly.

Like Apple Maps?

The corollary to "tak[ing] good ideas that were never implemented properly and do it properly", clearly, is taking good ideas that were implemented properly and completely fucking them up.

Would you say that Google never implemented maps correctly?

If not then what the GP said doesn't apply.

Of course we could talk about the fact that Google was demanding all sorts of user data from Apple and wanted the ability to display ads on top of the maps… But people never talk about that. And Apple replace the head of the division that messed it up.

Just Apple is mean.

Is Apple maps better now? Friends of mine using iphone seems to use Google maps.

I've never really had an issue with it. The data is much better than a few years ago. I don't use Google maps (I'm happy with Apple and its integration).

I've heard (anecdotally on podcasts) they're roughly even.

The one thing I've heard in the past is it really depends on where you live. Google had better data in rural areas or other countries (they've been at it for what, almost 15 years?) so Apple Maps may not be an option for some.

In the US? I'm not sure there is a big difference for streets.

(Pretty sure Apple has slightly fewer points of interest like businesses, but it's rare I run into that).

Well Scott Forstall was fired for among other things Apple Maps.

And that said they have made decent improvements over the years.

And also to take good ideas and never implement them because somebody already did it before them.

Even if that idea was good.

Oh, you didn't have this Apple (TM) brand name feature, you just had the feature. I guess that makes it... better?

It's the Apple modus-operandi of late, take an existing technology and improve it to the point where the friction is non existent.

Sure, many devices had fingerprint scanners before Touch ID, but the Apple implementation was pretty damn impressive compared to what came before.

Still, I can't help but feel that Face ID is a fudge they resorted to because they couldn't get Touch ID working through the screen reliably.

Samsung also has facial recognition on the S8. You can bypass it by printing out a photo of the owner's face. But I would expect Apple's implementation to be more secure and more reliable than previous poor implementations, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.

What a load of bull. A simple photo doesn't work, there was a lot more work involved in subduing the facial recognition on S8.

Well, it happened:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/03/video-shows-galaxy-s...

Here's what Samsung has to say about the feature

>The Galaxy S8 provides various levels of biometric authentication, with the highest level of authentication from the iris scanner and fingerprint reader. In addition, the Galaxy S8 provides users with multiple options to unlock their phones through both biometric security options, and convenient options such as swipe and facial recognition. It is important to reiterate that facial recognition, while convenient, can only be used for opening your Galaxy S8 and currently cannot be used to authenticate access to Samsung Pay or Secure Folder.

Not exactly a vote of confidence from the manufacturer, is it?

This is not the first time Android has had face recognition to unlock phones. I remember the first time they tried, it was trivially easy to snap a picture of your colleague and open his phone.

Yes indeed. Face Unlock was apparently from Ice Cream Sandwich and fell for this back in 2011:

https://techcrunch.com/2011/11/11/android-facial-unlock-phot...

That's a beta version and I can't guarantee it was true of the release version, but since all they were working with was the normal front facing camera I doubt they were able to make this secure.

I alo had a lumia 950. It does not have face recognition, it has an iris scanner. An infrared light lights up your eyes and then the camera makes an IR picture where it analyzes your iris pattern. The reason it didn't work well is that your eyes had to be open (no squinting, like in bright light), close enough to capture a precise image and in exactly the right spot for the zoomed in camera. I eventually learned a gesture that unlocked it semi-reliably, but it was basically holding the phone right up to my face in the exact right spot.

Now that I see how apple is doing face id I think it will work more reliably ... eventually. I doubt they'll get it right on the first try because this is the kind of feature that has to bake in the real world (like apple maps). Still, they may surprise us like they did with the equally hard touch id feature.

So you can't unlock your phone after coming from a plastic surgery?

I always thought chances of finding facial-doppelgangers are higher than fingerprint ones. Is that really wrong?

You always have the password as backup to unlock. If your appearance were to suddenly change remarkably, such as via plastic surgery or a horrific accident, you would set your new face after unlocking with the password.

Based on their phrasing, I'm assuming the "adaptive" aspect means that slow changes, such as gaining or losing weight, will progressively train the existing face - without it ever failing to recognize you because you passed some weight threshold. Same would go for growing a mustache or beard. As to whether you can shave off a 5-year beard and have it still recognize you without manual intervention, that would depend on how much the algorithm cares about your chin and lip regions vs. the rest of your face. Based on the demo, the hair on top of your head is 100% ignored.

Apple claims that the odds of a random person's finger unlocking your iPhone with Touch ID is 1 in 50,000, and the odds of a random person's face unlocking Face ID is 1 in 1,000,000.

I wonder what the odds are of someone unlocking your phone with a picture of your face? I've heard lots of biometrics companies say that their system is immune to such simple hacks in the past, only to immediately fall to such simple hacks in testing.

This time they’ve got an infrared sensore, as well as two cameras with different focal lengths, so they should be fine.

I believe it uses an IR camera, or similar tech, defeat that, sensing depth. Kinect style. A photo won't defeat it.

That's interesting. I would think that identical twins would be very hard to distinguish... and those certainly have an almost 1:350 odds. Of course you're likely to know them, but still I'm not sure banks would be happy with that for FIDO.

They did say to not enable Face ID if you have an "evil" twin, which is pretty jokey, but probably 100% true.

A twin could walk into any bank with their sibling's passport and do anything they wanted.

Banks are all about risk management not necessarily avoiding and and all risks.

But a twin wouldn't be able to unlock my iPhone 7 with their finerprint.

You just disable FaceID in that scenario and go back to using a passcode.

But again if you can't trust your twin well then your phone is the last thing I would be worried about.

I think the number is if you choose another human at random, how likely is it that they'll be able to unlock your phone. Having a twin doesn't change that number much, since they're only one person out of 7+ billion. Of course, your threat model may be different from "pick a random human from anywhere on the planet."

> I would think that identical twins would be very hard to distinguish

Ask their mom. (Hint: They're not.)

The twin's mother is inside the phone telling it what to do? Or the person you replied to is talking about technology finding it difficult to distinguish, and not a close family member?

My point is that twins are only difficult to distinguish for people who do not know them. For family and friends it's easy, which means that there are substantial differences even for faces of twins. The face detection technology will be able to recognize those differences as good or better than the twins' family and friends. If it does not now, it will eventually.

If you want to teach Face ID to reject masks, you need to make some masks. Similarly, if it needs to be taught to reject a twin, you need dozens of twins. And if it starts labelling people incorrectly as their twins, is it worth it?

Perhaps they can sidestep this by offering a specific twin learning feature.

Twins are just examples of two people with very similar faces. If Apple are able to train Face ID to distinguish between 6 billion different faces they will also be able to distinguish faces of twins.

At least he didn't have to shave his beard off.

If this slows people down going through barriers on the tube there will be barely (but just) contained rage across London

I wonder if it works with scarves and hats covering everything but your eyes. It seems like an obvious oversight, but it's a Californian company that launched a maps app without any transit support...

their website shows people with cold weather gear

https://www.apple.com/iphone-x/

A scarf that's barely covering the bottom of the guy's face? They don't know true winter. (or, like, Muslims)

It's a tiny minority of Muslim women who cover their faces, just for the record. (I assume a head scarf wouldn't interfere.)

I'm curious: can you suggest a source for this statistic?

It's really not a controversial point. I don't know how one would get precise statistics on it, but see e.g. the Wikipedia article:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niqāb

It's not just the accuracy, but the context switch. Apple Pay only works because you don't need to look at your phone to make it work.

The keynote did say it works with hats, scarves, and glasses. It also works with face changes like growing out a beard.

It's starting to sound a lot like:

    if (true) {
      unlock_phone();
    }

How about a big helmet? I imagine snowboarders/alpine skiers/motorcyclist will have to take off the helmet to unlock. As someone who goes snowboarding in the winter, it sounds really annoying to not only have to remove a glove, but also the helmet, to unlock the phone (or unlock with a passcode, which is still a downgrade from using the fingerprint).

After spending a week in London this spring, my (already high) appreciation of my Apple Watch went way up. Paying for my tube rides using my watch - even through sleeves and jackets - was really like magic. Don't think I could live there without one...

It's funny how the acceptable level of comfort changes. Having an oyster card in your pocket wasn't a huge issue before. It's slightly less convenient, but not really life changing.

People can be having a 'bad face day' if the Face ID doesn't work fast enough.

More and more, these devices are getting less usable by non-human beings. First the Touch ID and now Face ID...

So much speciesism.

I mean, I know you're joking, but it's not really the case. Before Touch ID, you had to either leave your phone always unlocked, or have a pass code/word. Those options are still available, there's just two additional ways now with Touch/Face ID, so they haven't gotten less usable for non-humans, just more usable for humans.

> Feels like a straight downgrade in usability.

You know, it really depends how fast it is. You need attentiveness to use your phone, so requiring attentiveness to unlock it doesn't seem unreasonable, provided it happens in less time than it takes to move your thumb to the glass.

> You need attentiveness to use your phone

No, this is not true. I can log in and activate functions of my phone right now without looking at it.

If I have to look at my phone, there is a problem. If the phone merely needs to see my face, maybe it's less of one. The iPhone is already slow enough I find myself waiting on it, I don't want it to be any slower.

Im on a Nexus 5x, but I do the same thing, and had the same thought when I saw this in the keynote. I have my phone unlocked before I'm looking at it probably ~80% of the time.

How do you know the guy didn't just shave his beard? :)

Yet if your fingers have any moisture on them it fails to work. Nothings perfect.

I'm concerned that Face ID will suck more than Touch ID, too.

I do the pocket-unlock you describe often. At the same time, Touch ID has its own limitations. For instance, it doesn't work if you try to unlock after recently holding a cold beer (or have even slightly damp hands for any other reason).

Why add Touch ID to the laptop range which already had cameras when you're going to remove it from your next phone.

Could have just made the laptop camera up to scratch for this like Surface books are.

I feel we're being sold a compromise and until they failed to get a Touch ID sensor below that screen this was plan B.

It's not just a camera trick. They have additional sensors to make this work.

My comment obviously implied adding the sensors to make it work, Surface Laptops use IR as well as far as I know...

My point is more that why make a big deal about shipping dead tech to the laptop if this truly is what they consider the future and a better system.

My guess is Apple isn't worried about being consistent. They will provide the best solution according to the tech available at the time and the other constraints of the product.

You should look at the specs and how FaceID works. It's so much more than just a camera.

The iPhone X is currently the only device to support face detection. All other iPads, iPhones, and MacBook Pro range use TouchID. It was years before it was ever added to the Mac, it'll likely be years before FaceID arrives as well.

Yeah but this face thing will work fantastically while you are in handcuffs and the cop holds it up to you.

If you're already in handcuffs, can't they just as easily get your fingerprint?

FaceID won't work if you're not looking directly at it. They can't force your eyes to look at it.

Unless you close your eyes, or have remembered to hit the power button five times before they get the phone off you.

I remember when I first had this feature available on my android phone, like 2 or 3 phones ago, and quickly turned it off. Fingerprint FTW

The system Apple is using is leaps and bounds better than whatever 2d sensor was in that old Android phone

I'm sure it is, just as the one of my new Android is, but it wasn't about the speed or quality of the feature. I just didn't like it.

These keynotes were magical before leakers leaked everything. I'm wondering if Apple should scrap these and aim for smaller, unplanned releases instead.

As far as this phone goes, I am really excited to see how it stacks up to the Galaxy S8. Face ID is incredibly enticing, but Samsung Pay is much more universal. The only thing that is making me want to retreat back to an iPhone is its inferior Bluetooth audio quality.

Yeah the leaks gave this entire presentation away.

We are at peak Apple. If I may borrow a similar peak story I'd look at Microsoft and the release of Windows XP. Balmer banked on that cash cow for far too long.

Tim Cook is doing the same thing here.

They need to buy Tesla and put Musk in charge of Apple.

Everything they do these days is just another way to milk the money machine for them.

They need a world class micromanaging innovator at the helm.

The problem is that a bad release of a novel product will make them uncool and will crash them on the market.

Exactly!

Tim talked about Steve's legacy, but really, was SJ's dream to build a stale stagnating company? Did he prefer money over putting a dent in the universe?

Steve's Apple was just like Tim's Apple: all about incremental improvement.

Youngsters might not remember, but I've followed those keynotes and introductions since 2002 or so.

It took 4 years for the iPod to get a color screen -- and 8 years to get a video camera. Several years to get Wifi. The original iPhone wasn't 3G -- that was the next model. Those years we waited year over year for Jobs to announce some extremely incremental updates. And people cheered for them -- they were actually exciting, all the press was speculating and gushing, and it was e.g. just a few additional features on the iPod, like the touch wheel as opposed to the old click wheel.

New announcements like the iPhone and the iPad were rare under Jobs too. And those products were low hanging fruit for Apple themselves -- a mobile phone and a table. Quite basic stuff -- not some whole new product category like flying cars and whatever people expect to see.

Apple is not in the business of creating experimental stuff to dazzle geeks. It's in the business in incrementally improving mass market products.

Besides, what competitor exactly did introduce those mythical "Jobs-worthy" products that people ask from Apple to deliver? Google Glasses? Microsoft's laptop/tablet combo that failed to gain much traction and is returned like crazy? https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/14/16142490/microsoft-surfac...

What Apple did better, and affected the industry, was not innovation in the sense of some new BS product category that didn't exist ever, it was delivery. Better thought out, more polished, and with lots of innovation in the details. The kind of innovation that the iPhone models get incrementally but few can understand, but then you use a model from 2-3 years ago and it feels ancient after you've used the last one.

For such introductions of new products, the Apple Watch has been one such under Tim's, err, watch, and it does great in the market (in fact it's almost the only smartwatch people can actually see in the wild -- it outsold Samsung Galaxy watches so much in units it's not even funny).

I'm not more young now, I have see the evolution and never see any Apple Keynote or Steve speech because they talk for nothing wasting time , but I remember a things that every company still can't do now, reducing overwaste, improve autonomy. A single AAA battery did the job for a full week in my Rio MP3 Player. I don't care about fancy color screen, video camera? come on, wifi? useless. If the mp3 player isn't working for a full week the product wasn't better.

There was no improvement on the MP3 player, only the storage, but on crap Apple storage, you don't have choice to throw away a device that have slow memory 8GB? when you can buy a SD card? Too much innovation from Apple...

>A single AAA battery did the job for a full week in my Rio MP3 Player. I don't care about fancy color screen, video camera? come on, wifi? useless

Well, you might find yourself in the extreme minority on this.

It's not like non-color-screen, non wi-fi full-week-lasting mp3 players don't exist -- there are tons of such models.

It's just that the market has spoken, and most prefer to be able to also stream, plays apps, etc on their multi-purpose device than get one such.

>There was no improvement on the MP3 player, only the storage, but on crap Apple storage, you don't have choice to throw away a device that have slow memory 8GB? when you can buy a SD card?

Well, obviously companies like Apple don't cater to some small niche of music aficionados. Most people don't care for juggling cards and having different parts of their record collection on different SD cards or whatever -- they did it with CDs and such on 1999 out of necessity. Heck, most people will just stream today and be done with it.

Also not sure how "slow memory" means anything in the context of an mp3 player. Ever had problem reading mp3s from the memory quickly enough?

Ugh, no. Goodbye privacy and corporate ethics, hello creepy analytics.

Facial data is stored on device, just like touch id fingerprints were. ML happening on device instead of on the cloud. By all means, if you see privacy leaks point it out but I don't see any here.

The "creepy analytics" remark is obviously a response to "They need to buy Tesla and put Musk in charge of Apple". Apple has a very good privacy track record. Tesla is the one with creepy analytics, witnessed by how the company is seemingly eager to release every detail of what you and your Tesla vehicle did leading up to a collision.

I mean, I like quality hardware and as far as I can tell, Apple is the only one even remotely trying to protect privacy. Compared to Google, Samsung, etc. at least.

So which phone maker fits your level of privacy?

I don't think Musk would be enticed by the prospect of heading up a company that's focused on animating poop emojis. He's busy saving our species.

Really? Armageddon has been coming for centuries. There is not evidence that humanity is about to be wiped out. Solar panels and electric cars are saving our species? From what?

Musk is certainly an inportant innovator, but he’s not a Messiah.

> Solar panels and electric cars are saving our species? From what?

Global warming

We seem to be at peak Apple year after year, as it continues to inexplicably churn out new products and rake in money. Tim Cook somehow keeps popping up on stage with something new, devoid of vision and utterly oblivious he's standing on the precipice of catastrophic decline. Again.

Just gotta keep climbing this mountain, before we reach the cliff on the other side.

IMO it's purely because Android as OS has not tapped into the UX that most iPhone users enjoy. So when replacement time comes around every couple years, users think why not get the new iPhone even though it didn't change much from my old one. My thought is most iPhone users would and maybe have considered switching but really enjoy the UX familiarity/simplicity of iPhone.

This is actually a conversation I have over and over with friends, family and coworkers. The OS switching cost/risks are too high although most iPhone users know the top Android devices are typically better than the iPhone the risk of not liking the OS experience is too high compared to the reward of taking slightly better photos or bigger screen or whatever Android does now that iPhone won't until XI

> the top Android devices are typically better than the iPhone

In some ways (and on paper), you're right. Apple's stores are a huge advantage though. Any family member that asks me what they should buy is going to be told to get an iPhone. The Genius Bar might not be perfect, but it's better than calling Verizon or posting a message on the One Plus forums.

For many, the Genius Bar may be hours away. For me it is over 3 hours. A full day of driving to deal with a Genius? I'll take my chances with the forums - they have yet to let me down.

Ever wait on Verizon's phone help line? I've never had an issue resolved in under 3 hours.

Because random advice from internet armchair experts would have worked wonders for them in the past have they followed it. I mean they're only breaking record after record, poor them...

People don't care about Apple because of it's MarketCap.

No, but its Market Cap is what it is because people care about Apple.

Whereas if it was some geek factory making "wild bets" on not-ready-yet technologies, like the kind geeks ask to see, it would be liked by few, ignored by most (and for good reason).

If someone wants that, they can buy all those wonderful innovative products MS, Samsung and Google regularly put out... Rocking their Google Glass look and pioneering VR with their Rift.

I think what makes (or made) Apple what it is, is that it did wild-bets correctly. So that's what people are complaining about - the fact that they can't, or won't make wild bets that win.

Is that extremely hard? Yes of course, but doing that effectively is why Apple got the reputation it has.

Wild bets on what? That people would buy a good smartphone?

That's not exactly Tesla (the inventor, not the company) territory, bet-wise.

Phones were one of the hottest markets already -- and they would have only gotten smarter, iPhone or not. The iPhone just brought lots of smartness and polish in concentrated form all at once -- it took around 3 years for competitors to catch up (Android wasn't released for another full year), and I guess it would have taken them like 5-6 years or so to put it all together (or course with less panache) if they iPhone had not existed at all. But still it was no wild bet (except in daring to deal with the telcos -- that was a big bet and took balls).

So, in 2017, what exactly product would you think Apple should introduce as a bet?

AR Glasses

We don't have the battery life to make those meaningful yet (and for another 5 years at least except if there's a huge battery breakthrough).

Plus, people don't like strangers with always-on cameras on eye level eyeing them (Glass-holes).

And people who don't need actual glasses, won't go around wearing AR ones, except if they're geeks and do it for the novelty.

Combined this makes them a non-starter.

I won't argue this point by point besides saying that those are each overblown concerns.

The broader point here, and this makes the point, is that Apple should be taking on any and all major challenges to keep it as a breakthrough trailblazing company. They have the cash, talent and position to do it.

Perhaps Apple can be accused of trailblazing at times, but only when they think they're going to make sufficient money doing it. I say this as a long-time Apple fan: they've never been in the business of experimental moonshots. They have products that don't pan out, sure, but they don't bring anything to market with a "this is crazy, but let's throw it at the wall and see if it sticks" attitude. What they've always seemed to be best at is looking at other good ideas that aren't setting the world on fire and figuring out how to fix them. Arguably, they did that with the original GUI concepts from the Xerox Alto/Star line, and kept doing it, from MP3 players to smartphones to tablets to smartwatches.

"Any and all" major challenges strikes me as kind of a recipe for (slow) disaster, unless Apple decides to set up a quasi-independent Apple Research division dedicated to moonshots. That would be kind of cool, to be sure, but it strikes me as something that isn't really in line with the kind of company Apple's been the last ~19 years.

I mean we're at the point now that they wouldn't be throwing anything at the wall - they would be doing what they always do, like you point out, which is why it makes sense.

Hololens, all the Daqri products, Meta are all in the HMD space with products that are selling. The AR HMD space is WAY PAST where the mouse and GUI were when they introduced it on the Macintosh. They could even buy Magic Leap if they wanted but could probably do better themselves. I mean I live this stuff. If Apple wanted to do AR glasses right, they could.

And yet, all those spaces and companies are totally irrelevant in the sizes and markets Apple plays. The average Joe would have difficulty even telling what they do from their name. Their utility at the moment is even less.

>I mean I live this stuff.

That's the selection bias issue. Most people don't and don't care for these technologies.

Over the last 20 years Apple has had the same kind for advice to get in to all kinds of fads that never went anywhere and technologies that were way before their actual mass market stage.

all those spaces and companies are totally irrelevant in the sizes and markets Apple plays

Just like the mouse and smartphone markets didn't exist previously.

You do realize that all of the majors are focusing heavily on AR right? As in, most of WWDC was dedicated to ARKit, nearly the entire Zuck Keynote was about AR etc...?

I was asked for what the next revolutionary technology would be that Apple could break out with, I gave it. It's staring everyone in the face and has been desired for the better part of 60 years - through thousands of iterations that never worked because processing, integration etc... weren't there.

Miss it at your peril.

>I won't argue this point by point besides saying that those are each overblown concerns

Overblown concerns that all made the Google Glass a total non-starter failure.

>The broader point here, and this makes the point, is that Apple should be taking on any and all major challenges to keep it as a breakthrough trailblazing company.

Nope. Apple should focus on carefully selected markets that keep it as a consumer favorite, best experience, record-profitable company.

Trailblazing breakthroughs in various random "major challenges" can be left to those without commercial concerns, like Google Labs who mostly makes up for money spend in positive press PR for its non-marketable "innovations".

You guys have been saying it's peak Apple for almost a decade. I'm tired of waiting, when do we get to the other side?

I actually thought Tim Cook did a great job this time around. For the first time in a while, I got that "reality distortion field" feeling that I haven't had since Steve Jobs had been the presenter. I think these keynotes go a long way to sell the product. Admittedly, I haven't seen any of the leaks, so yeah I'm sure it's not as cool if you know what's coming, however I do remember from past leaks that they tend to leave out the narrative (just opting for raw features, photos, etc.) that don't really do justice to the product.

Within seconds, I really got the impression that he's been working on his presentation skills. I agree; much improved. The dramatic tension was noticeably better.

While I think Tim was much more expressive this time around, I still think he sounds too stiff and rehearsed. The one thing that Steve did incredibly well was make his keynotes sound improvised, even though they weren't. I'm not sure if Tim will ever get there, as it's kind of a character trait. Phil and Cue are better at it, IMO.

I think it's really hard for him to act that way. He's a proven logistical and managerial genius but those qualities don't directly map to stagecraft.

And frankly in terms of stagecraft Tim Cook has come on leaps and bounds from his first few conferences.

As someone who's quite withdrawn and reserved at work, I'd imagine it's quite a challenge to have to develop those skills.

One way he's made these keynotes his own is by the humanity he's injecting into them. I've noticed that whenever there's a big keynote after some big crisis or tragedy, he'll acknowledge them in a very sincere way. I'm still moved by his brief remarks and moment of silence after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.

Having worked at Apple, the company feels like complete stress apocalypse all around for the 2 months before the fall major releases. I'm pretty sure no one would fall for the unplanned release thing, and that leaks would still happen

If some leaks can reduce the reaction to a product from magical to meh, perhaps the reaction was engineered by hype and not actual quality or features of said product.

To be concise, if something is truly groundbreaking, leaks don't diminish their value.

It doesn't diminish their value, but it takes away from the magic and showmanship behind the whole event.

Exactly, I think you're just describing marketing, which some would view as a form of dishonesty or at least smoke and mirrors.

Honest marketing is explaining the value of a product. Marketing can be smoke and mirrors, but to deny its utility is shortsighted.

This is a fantastic point. Marketing isn't evil - it's just a tool. It gets you connected with things you want faster. And like anything it can be misused.

I think in most cases marketing deprives me of things I want faster being a resource hog.

That's advertising. Some consider it a subset of marketing. Some consider it an entirely separate area. I agree. Ads on web pages are resource hogs. ;)

In its purest form, marketing is any communication from a company. Without marketing you would not know about any products from any company. So some forms of marketing are very valuable to everyone. As with any discipline there are bad points as well.

I hate dishonest marketing as much as the next person but I don't think it's a stretch to say that there is nothing wrong with telling a good story about a product. And of course, telling that story means de-emphasizing unpleasant tradeoffs, and emphasizing pleasant ones. The ultimate concise version of this would be a list of features. That wouldn't be nearly as exciting or informative, would it? (I recognize that you did not personally advocate the position you relayed)

these events (and many other things like unboxing the product) are a big part of the experience that apple wants. not everyone like it, not everyone cares about that side of things (and that's ok!), but for those who like these experiences, a leak is just like someone spoiling what happens in a movie.

It's no different than show or movie spoilers. Do they make the show less enjoyable? Does that reflect on the production quality?

People enjoy the keynotes for the suspense and shared joy and excitement.

Leakers of movies, shows or new device features do take away some joy from some people. For me, the fact that 99% of the features are available in some form on another phone already (unlike early iPhones) is a bigger spoiler than the leaks.

I love seeing how Apple can take existing common features and take them to 11 and it's why I've come back to iPhone.

I'm not so sure about that. Even though the iPhone 4 got HARD leaked, it was still such a diverge from the competition when Steve and Co keynoted it.

All of the X leaks had me wondering "I hope they have more to this because this is effectively a S8;" the keynote didn't change my opinion.

Meh. This and any of the last few keynotes would have been magical if they'd shown something that actually did something new.

What they've shown is just fancy new technology to do the same old things - great, now I can lock my screen in a different way!

They were also magical when they were announcing new, incredible features instead of small iterative improvements.

The front-facing dot projector and dual cameras

What were the new incredible features that are missing now? Seems like the iPhone has been a pretty steady march forward in terms of processor, memory, storage, screen, camera, hardware features, and the software enabled by the hardware capabilities. Why is this release underwhelming?

Honestly, my wife and I had no previous exposure to leaks besides "there will be something expensive".

And then it felt like the real Apple magic. We sat there and at every product presented we said "Wow, we want this. NOW!". While the iPhone 8 still felt quite normal, the iPhone X absolutely killed it for us. And let's not begin with the eSim-Watch... which is so SciFi that I wanted it back in 1990 when I was still 8 years old. We have to appreciate that there is more to life than revolution, Apple "simple" does evolution at a very high level and in the end, they lead the competitors. Today, we could see the stuff that Samsung and others will get right in a year or two. When Apple already presents their next evolution... It is not about having the right specs, but the right concept. I already know the friend who will come to me tomorrow that his HTC has and 8 core processor while Apple has only six. The point is: it is all useless without the whole package being perfect. And while Apple is freaking expensive upfront, the peace of mind is worth it.

Similar watches with LTE have been available from Samsung and others for years. Objectively speaking, Apple's latest watch isn't anything special.

That's like saying the Model T was built a long time ago, so a new Ferrari isn't anything special.

It's special in that it makes lots of money unlike really just about every other smartwatch.

and the $60 xiaomi 4K TV box has been around for a year...

The same Xiaomi that snuck spyware onto their phones a year ago?

Objectively speaking, no other consumer tech company grooms and refines their products do much as Apple. (Only got my first iPhone last year after being so hackerish minded as to avoid ever using them... could not be happier)

You meant to say grooms their customers.

Lol, Samsung's watches still don't have the value and usability of the first Apple Watch.

But Samsung hasn't sold it anywhere near as well as Apple. Honestly, I don't care about watches all that much so I don't go out and look for smartwatch related news, but even as a bystander I can't help but to hear all about Apple's new watch whereas your comment is literally the first I've ever heard of Samsung having something similar.

I'm glad you enjoyed it but I should have you know that Apple is using a Samsung display and Samsung has been leading the pack in OLED display technology for at least the last 5 years. In fact, the S8 has a crisper screen than the X with its Super Retina display (570 ppi vs 471 ppi)

To quote the person you just replied to:

"I already know the friend who will come to me tomorrow that his HTC has and 8 core processor while Apple has only six. The point is: it is all useless without the whole package being perfect."

I'm an Android user for years now but I still find it embarrassing that it takes 8 cores to make an Android phone run smoothly.

It doesn't. I've been an Android user since the Nexus One. Android ran amazing on that phone, on pretty much every Nexus phone, and on my Pixel. It ran like crap on the LG G2x, a phone so flawed they lost a class action lawsuit about it. It ran mediocre on my Galaxy S2 and S4, but much better once I used Cyanogenmod. It ran beautifully on my Moto X Gen 1.

Android, just like iOS or any other OS, requires non-crap hardware (not amazing, just well designed) and an OEM that doesn't bloat it up with tons of crap. Newer versions of iOS run like crap on older iPhones, because the OS is designed for newer hardware. Android runs beautifully on well designed hardware, even inexpensive hardware like the Moto G. It runs great without bloated skins and shovelware that "adds value".

Being a long-time iPhone user and recently using Android for work (high-spec Nexus models) I can safely say that Android has a _long_ way to go both in terms of responsiveness and design.

It baffles me that Google are so bad at this.

I hear this from folks, and I must be missing something. My wife has an iphone as do many of my users/clients and so I use it a lot, and own an iPad myself. I really don't see a responsiveness difference. Design is more subjective.

Samsung has a Truetone display now? Don't think so. Samsung puts great components together in a good package then hobbles them with bad decisions, bloatware and incomplete features.

> Samsung has a Truetone display now? Don't think so.

Apparently it has, for a long time:

> The Adapt Display Mode provides real-time adaptive processing to dynamically adjust images and videos – for some applications it will vary the White Point, Color Gamut, and Color Saturation based on the image content and the color of the surrounding ambient lighting measured by the Galaxy S5 RGB Ambient Light Sensor (which measures color in addition to brightness).

http://www.displaymate.com/Galaxy_S5_ShootOut_1.htm

Yea, I meant one that actually works well.

So the 'true' in Truetone is actually a Scotsman?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

No one thinks Adapt actually works as well as Truetone.

Feeds and speeds, feeds and speeds.

I was an iPhone user from the 3GS until my 6+ finally bit the bullet, and refused to give up the headphone jack. I genuinely love the iPhone and MacBooks.

I've been using the Galaxy S8+ since launch. And the Note 8 is, by any definition, as good or better than the iPhone X.

If you haven't used a Samsung phone lately, go try an S8 or Note 8. They have "the package" down. It just works, and doesn't require a PC or iTunes. I don't care about speeds and feeds. I care about how the phone operates on a daily basis.

iPhone X has FaceID and pin# to login. Samsung has face, retina, touch and pin options.

The Note 8 is cheaper, with expandable storage, a higher density display (with the same white balance adjustment), stylus, side-by-side applications, a headphone jack, samsung pay, and NFC.

(There are probably many more, but these are things I use on a daily basis, or very frequently in the real world)

The iPhone has iMessage and Facetime.

Seriously, it's worth a sniff of the other side of the pond. It took me 2 hours to transfer everything - contacts, media, apps. And another day to get the UI sorted (there's even an "ios mode" for the launcher that acts almost exactly like the ios interface). I still use an iphone often for work and it's honestly painful going back to it, there are so many little annoying papercut experiences.

On the other side of the fence here. I've been on vanilla Google phones since the Android Nexus. I have a Nexus 6P now, which was the flagship of that generation.

Between Google knowing my porn fetishes and the increasing number of issues & bizarre bugs (severe battery degradation, performance issues during normal usage, random freezes, photos occasionally not saving properly and getting corrupted) plus no security updates after 2 years, I've just about had it.

I can confirm that Android has all these problems. I use both.

iOS is getting worse, but it's still an order of magnitude less buggy (in terms of crashes etc)

I had a 6p and ditched it for the S8+. Never looked back, it's a night and day difference.

Google/Huawei should be ashamed for the 6p.

Samsung face login was hacked with a static image of of a face on paper. Sure they are first to a lot of stuff, but if it's not right it doesn't matter

Do you how many I have triggered the hidden side bottom panels while browsing, scrolling. iOS is far from been perfect.

Funny, I could never trigger it when I wanted to. The method is simple though; start your swipe from below the edge of the screen. For you, maybe don't swipe from the bottom of the screen, that's what the scroll acceleration is for. ;D

I have triggered the side contact panels as well. Hidden panels would always have these. They should have added a navigation controls like Android.

I'm not normally a shit-on-Apple/Android-is-amazing guy, I'm actually typing this on a MacBook Pro right now. But let's reel it in for a moment. Edge to edge screen, Galaxy S8. Smart watch: Pebble, Galaxy Gear, ZenWatch, etc. SmartWatch with cell service that isn't huge: Galaxy Gear S2 3G (frankly, I think better looking than the Apple Watch). Wireless charging: YEARS go in dozens of Android phones. The only thing announced today that Apple very well may have done "right" is the face recognition. Nothing else today was new or r/evolutionary. Yes, Apple frequently does things right that other people have failed on. The iPhone truly revolutionized the smartphone, the iPad made the tablet a non-crap market, iPod was fantastic, but let's not pretend everything today was iPhone 1 level amazing.

> Yes, Apple frequently does things right that other people have failed on.

That is exactly what non tech people want. Things that just works. There is an enormous market of people that don't want cutting edge, but reliable and long lasting tech. Apple fits that way more than Android. That is their force. It is entirely within their philosophy to not include wireless charging unless it is their own they back for a long time, or a market standard emerges. Arguably since Ikea included Qi chargers in a lot of their affordable furniture, that made Qi chargers the emergent standard.

Then why are they still using Lightning instead of USB-C, when that's all they have on their new Macbooks?

Because of all the docks and alarm clocks that still only expose a lightning port.

It will be super easy to support the USB-C Macbooks out of box -- they just swap out the USB-A-to-lightning cable and charger in the box with a USB-C-to-lightning cable and charger.

That's not really a great reason - there were lots of alarm clocks and docks with the 30-pin connector (and still are if you go to a Hotel!). That said, I'm not sure why Apple went with Lightning for their mobile devices instead of USB-C - maybe timing?

Honestly, I like the lightning port and connector a lot more than USB-C, from a physical engineering standpoint. I think USB-C is really inferior.

They began using the Lightning connector 2 years before USB-C was a thing. They have a long term support philosophy and they stand by lightning. Perhaps in the future they deem the adoption rate of USB-C good enough to use that, but until then they'll keep using Lightning.

I'll admit that I had written off Apple in the last few years. Felt that they couldn't get their mojo back after Jobs' departure.

This felt very different. The iPhone X is the first iPhone I've seen in a while that I want.

Same for Apple Watch. I'd written it off but the eSim makes it a very alluring buy

> Apple is freaking expensive upfront, the peace of mind is worth it.

Carrying a device worth $1000 around with me all day would not give me peace of mind. Quite the opposite. I'd rather carry a battered hand me down and not feel sick in my stomach if it falls off arm of the couch

The leaks tend to be a consequence of their supply chain not being able to keep tight lips more than anything else. One approach to combat that would be to announce a product well in advance of production, but then you have announcements followed by six or more months of production ramp-up. Which is obviously awful.

Until Apple is able to bring much more in-house, which they can't realistically do in most cases involving manufacturing, the leaks are inevitable.

If you want to maintain the magic for yourself, though, that's simpler: don't look at Macrumors or what have you :)

I always thought that the leaks were deliberate to create media hype around the products.

Apple's (presumed) controlled leaks tend to be about setting expectations rather than "building hype": they're not going to deliberately spoil the reveals of their own press shows, but they may deliberately shoot down rumors about things their upcoming products don't have. Also, they tend to talk to established venues that don't have a reputation for rumor-mongering. If a "leak" appears on the WSJ, it's often presumed to be a tip from Apple itself; if it appears on 9to5Mac or MacRumors, it almost certainly is not Apple's own doing.

They also try and reveal controversial stuff early so the public can digest it before the event. And I'm sure they have a bunch of people working the social media trying to explain why them taking a feature away isn't such a bad thing leading up to the reveal event (I bet the removal of the headphone jack was deliberately leaked .

This latest keynote was pretty much completely spoiled due to a leak which came internally from Apple (URLs to golden master iphone firmware). I was really surprised that happened. I follow Macrumors pretty closely so I'm used to seeing a lot of hardware leaks over the years from manufacturing partners, but this fall's leaks were kind of insane.

Maybe they leaked on purpose to control expectations leading into the event. If there hadn't been any leaks, would you have been underwhelmed by the design of the iPhone 8? and/or confused by the introduction of another phone as a 'one more thing' device?

Idk, with all the energy and secrecy they put into these events, why would they spoil it? I think they know the magic of the event is not knowing that "one more thing." Sure, with apple's leaky supply chain we can expect hardware details to come out, but full software release with art assets and animations fans used to mock up the FaceID setup process a few days before the event? I can't imagine Apple wanting that stuff in the wild.

Yeah Apple reducing the grip on the GM before the keynote was not a good idea

There's been speculation (which makes a lot of sense to me) that they've always done it this way, and even though it may not be a good idea it was just "the process".

Now that it's a bit in them so bad they'll probably change the way they do it, which I'm guessing they haven't thought about in a long time.

Homepod firmware leaked via their website, then a GM of iOS11 leaked - that's why these leaks were so high confidence. Software is something they couldn't bring more in house, these leaks were on them.

I realize that, but, as I said, the leaks tend to come not from Apple but from their suppliers and partners. Much of the iPhone X was known prior to the GM leak, including its overall design, construction, display notch, camera and sensor systems, etc..

That's the thing though there were almost no supply-chain leaks this time. It wasn't a bunch of different cases and other parts that let us know what was going on.

It was leaks of software images, and those revealed WAY more than case leaks ever could have.

> These keynotes were magical before leakers leaked everything

Even without leaks, there's usually nothing really surprising in the keynotes. You get the usual hardware and software upgrade you would expect from a year to the next. Far from magical, I find these keynotes stereotypical. The fake enthusiasm, the marketing buzzwords and the endless flow of superlatives are sometimes painful to watch. I almost feel bad buying their products after seeing this (unfortunately they still make the best laptops!).

> (unfortunately they still make the best laptops!)

Are they still soldering hard drives and memory down? That pretty much permanently drove me away from their laptops.

Yes, but now everybody does it.

No, you still have choice. Not soldered memory is harder to find, but SSDs are replaceable in many models from multiple producers.

> The only thing that is making me want to retreat back to an iPhone is its inferior Bluetooth audio quality.

The S8 has AptX, which in my experience is really quite good. Once Android O drops for that phone you'll have AptX HD and LDAC as well. I've got a pair of Sony headphones. Running LDAC from my Pixel XL on Android O to them, sounds CD quality to me.

iOS has supported AAC over Bluetooth A2DP for years. For some reason, it's not as widely supported by headphone makers as aptX.

Why would you support anything but your proprietary codec in your bluetooth controller chips? CSR didnt know either, was rewarded with handsome ($2.4B) Qualcomm buyout.

Having done development with CSR chips, AAC (and also MP3) support is shipped with the SDKs just like aptX is. AAC patent licensing may be more complex though.

None of the headphones I use support AptX (Bragi Dash Pro, AirPods, Jaybird Freedoms); nor do any car audio receiver I know of.

The majority of these leaks came from Apple itself.

It would seem there are people ignorant on the subject. The majority of the leaks came from firmware prematurely release from Apple. A second leak was from iOS 11 GA download links.

Only apple fanboys checked out leaks. The average consumer did not look up leaks before the event.

FYI android oreo is getting high quality Bluetooth support.

Does Samsung Pay work with more banks where you live? In France there is no support for it (due to come this month but still no dice). I suppose that both can be used anywhere you could use a contactless credit card.

(Aside: in France you can use Apple Pay anywhere a bank card would work up to 20€ but in shops with explicit support there is no limit, few have it though)

You've been fooled. There was never magical, only a hype train.

Apple sell expansive product without argumentation about the technology. People who fall in this scheme are too easy tricked. I buy because of the technology, support not because I see a keynote. What a waste of time to see Apple Keynote and how they never had real innovation that increase the price by 2.

It's 2017, almost 2018 and Apple continue to over price the storage and you all support them?

It's just a phone, what do you want magic behind a phone?

I wonder if the tech team involved with Face ID factored the birthday paradox into their security factor. They touted a "1 in 1,000,000" chance that someone else's face unlocks one's iPhone X.

Well, with the birthday paradox, let's say there were, say, exactly 1179 people in the Steve Jobs Auditorium and they all had iPhone Xs. That's 694,431 unique pairs of people, and there would be roughly a 50% chance of two of the attendees faces unlocking the same phone.

That's not helpful for brute forcing a single phone, but it is mildly disconcerting that a security factor of only 1 in 1,000,000 is considered a "wow" factor.

Edit: Some people are asking, "But isn't that equivalent to a six digit pin?" Yes, of course. I am just opining on the marketing spiel for security not being nearly as impressive as it sounds. More boring features like the secure enclave play a much larger role in the security of the iPhone than the "1 in X" chance of a successful unlock.

...or, you know, if you steal someone's phone, you might as well flash it over the victim's eyes.

If they remember to look away, it won't unlock. Seems very unlikely to me.

or if it's confiscated and you're compelled to unlock it.

It seems like it'd be a lot easier to compel someone to unlock a phone using FaceID than TouchID and that scares me.

Ah, yeah, that's what I was trying to get across

Since it seems so much less invasive, I'd be worried the the arguments that you shouldn't need a warrant to do it will seem much more persuasive.

When you record your face for the unlock, strike a pose that is not your default expression. Put your hand on your face with the sherlockian "hmmm" expression.

Guards/police won't know, they'll just hold the phone up to your face and try to unlock it.

The names FaceID and TouchID are apt. They are IDs. Not passwords. You should unlock your phone by something in your memory. Unlock by face or fingerprint is an anti-feature for me.

Perhaps, but what if they ensured that FaceID only worked when you had both eyes open? It would then, be much easier to be non-compliant than it would with TouchID since it's harder to hold someone's eyes open without obscuring the face than it is to press the phone's home button against someone's finger.

Wink/Blink if you don't want to unlock your phone seems, to me, to give more consent to unlock than a fingerprint.

iOS 11 will force a PIN if you press the Home button five times (or, on the iPhone X, probably if you press the Siri button five times).

Isn't the chance for the pin code 1 in 10,000?

For a 4 digit pin, yes. I believe iPhone now defaults to a six digit pin (equivalent to the 1 in 1,000,000), and the enclave will delay and lock out repeated attempts. They didn't say, but I would hope a similar lockout is employed on the iPhone X.

I strongly suspect that the number 1,000,000 was chosen due to marketing, and that the actual strength of the security lies in the enclave preventing repeated failures and this feature that disables Face ID by repeatedly pressing the power button.

I don't think anyone's considering faceid a "wow" factor in terms of its high security (or lack thereof). It's hard to get the general public excited about levels of security. Face ID is pretty much a hack, one that's existed on android phones for many years, that Apple has to polish as best it can.

I didn't watch the keynote: do they have touch ID on the back?

There is no TouchID on the X

Yes, the "hack"-version existed in Androids. You know, the one that can be unlocked with any photo of your face.

This one goes a bit deeper with IR and depth mapping.

Nope, no Touch ID. The presenter also failed to unlock via Face ID several times in a row, prompting a "please enter your pin to unlock phone message". Worst time for it to happen.

You are seriously misrepresenting what happened. The display phone was showing the “passcode is required to unlock” screen that iPhones show when they are cold-booted.

Huge mistake, IMO. People really love touch id, and it would've essentially been 'free' had they just moved it to the back. I've been using Huawei's equivalent on the Nexus 6P for over a year now, and it works like a dream.

> People really love touch id

What? TouchID effectively hands your entire phone contents over to the Feds, as it's significantly easier to compel a fingerprint than a passcode.

There is absolutely nothing to "love" about TouchID, unless you work in law enforcement.

The same applies to facial recognition too.

For “several” = 1, unless i missed something...

You should watch the keynote then. Calling it "existed on android phones" is borderline incorrect as it uses infrared sensors to match 3D models of your face.

>> Face ID is pretty much a hack

>> I didn't watch the keynote

This is nothing like the version that's been available on Android for years. Read up on it or watch the keynote before jumping to wild conclusions.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it was "bad" when I said "hack". I meant that it was introduced in order to solve a problem introduced by another design change (i.e. the removal of touch ID).

Well they introduced completely new dedicated hardware components that I've never seen in a smartphone to enable this feature. For me "hack" doesn't do the feature justice.

If using a 30k dot projector, 2 cameras (one IR), and a neural network processor is your idea of a 'hack', I'd love to see what you think an elegantly designed solution is!

I'm not saying 1 in 1,000,000 is great, but I don't see how the birthday paradox applies. Assume that I want to analyse whether face unlock is secure enough for me -- why is the chance that anyone else's phone gets unlocked by someone else's face even relevant?

Because if you're an actor with a lot of faces (eg, state level actor with a face db) to feed it, and you're sweeping large numbers of phones rather than trying to hit one in particular, this suggests they'd have an easier time than it sounds like when you're considering it in the private use context.

I think it can be assumed that the facial recognition is rate-limited, just like PIN entries. Even if you had a million phones and a million faces in your database, you could only try perhaps 30 faces on each phone.

If you know generally what the owner looks like, I imagine you could cut down your data set significantly before using it to bruteforce a phone

If you have the kind of surveillance tech people are postulating here, you already have a high-res-enough scan of the actual face of the person you target in order to produce something to unlock their phone.

Not likely - they used professional hollywood mask makers to test against... Remember, this is infrared with a 30k dot projector - the most accurate 3d visual record you could make would appear to be insufficient.

You mean like Peter Sellers?

http://cinetropolis.net/the-many-faces-of-peter-sellers-part...

They'd have to be 3d faces. Not impossible. Maybe flexible displays will finally take off to facilitate hacking these things.

Choosing someone that looks like the owner would increase the odds greatly. You can't narrow down the search field like that with a PIN or a fingerprint.

Especially for groups of people who are less likely to be represented in the training data. Someone with the last name "Tillekeratne" for example is Sri Lankan, and Sri Lankans are probably underrepresented in Apple's training data. If you harvested images of Sri Lankans online you would probably need less than a million to get a false positive.

>If you harvested images of Sri Lankans online you would probably need less than a million to get a false positive.

Bearing in mind that FaceID uses a depth map of the face, you'll need more than photos harvested online. They also specifically said that they've tested against realistic masks to make sure they won't work, so I don't think it'll be quite as bad as you imagine!

> Choosing someone that looks like the owner would increase the odds greatly.

Yeah, like an identical twin, or family member.

One in a million, when the system ensures you only get 5 attempts (or whatever the true number ends up being), seems plenty for me.

I'm already comfortable using Touch ID and that number is much lower.

>> I'm already comfortable using Touch ID and that number is much lower.

Source? I was under the impression that fingerprint recognition was more secure than facial recognition.

More secure than 2D facial recognition or 3D facial recognition?

Apple says that Touch ID's false positive rate is about 1 in 50,000: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204587

This number was also mentioned during the presentation today when they were comparing the two.

In the keynote they've said that for Touch ID the error ratio was significantly lower, 1:50,000 to be exact.

It was stated in the keynote that the numbers are much better (an order of magnitude) for face versus fingerprint.

The difference is that if two people in e.g. a class have the same birthday then there will be a day when those two have birthdays, whereas if two people in the same auditorium have the same code, or face, then that has no implications. There is no process where all faces are cycled through and applied to all phones or similar.

So regardless of how many people in a room, or a country, have the same face you still need to bring your one phone up to 1 million people to unlock it.

More succinctly, there's only 365 possible birthdays while there's 1,000,000 possible "faces".

You missed the point. GP is describing a qualitative difference, not just a quantitative one.

I don't think that's what Grustaf is saying.

The thing is if two of you have the same birthday then it falls on the same day . But if two of you have the same face, that doesn't mean you have to use the same phone. So unlike the birthday paradox where your birthdays "clash", you'd still have to try everyone's face on everyone's phone.

An actual Birthday Paradox equivalent would be if you had 1,000,000 phones and the 1,179 people in the auditorium, and you assigned people to a phone based on their face recognition ID. Then you would get your high chance that not everyone would get a unique phone.

"There's a 50% chance that two people in this room have the same face" is not the same as "there's a 50% someone in this room has the same face as mine". The birthday paradox isn't really useful for conceptualizing FaceID's security.

It's interesting you're modelling the pairs as being unordered.

If person A's face unlocks person B's phone, does the reverse hold? I'd guess it's moderately likely, but not certain (e.g. the chance in the other direction becomes 1 in 1000 instead of the magical 1 in a million).

That's like saying "lightning is much more dangerous than thought, because what matters is not your risk of dying, but the risk of any one of 30,000 people dying".

If the risk is "1 in 1,000,000" that means it's 1 in 1,000,000. People understand that doesn't mean it never happens. But it's orders of magnitude lower than their risk of dying in any given year, so it's factually negligible.

I have a suspicion that removing the home button and relying on swipe-interactions might be a step back in usability for the non-tech savvy people who have made up a large share of iPhone users.

The presenter claims that once you've tried it for the first time you will realize that it was the best way. I agree with you and think that it's quite an assumption. Sure the homebutton may of created problems when it needed repair etc, but I really love having actual hardware buttons on a phone.

iPhone 7 solved the broken home button and to me it is perfect.

I had to disable double-tap for multitasking (and bunch of other gestures) on my family iPads because they caused a lot of issues with older users. I wonder if there's going to be an accessibility feature to make it more friendly to people who have issues differentiating between "swipe up", "swipe up from bottom", "swipe up from bottom and pause" and other overloaded gestures.

Under accessibility iOS already has a floating menu button, that a lot of people, especially outside the US, enable. It actually works very well, and I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing iPhones sold with it enabled.

Any idea why people outside the US use this feature more often?

It was discussed at length at the time on different podcasts such as ATP and The Talk Show, and I recall it was the case mostly in Asia.

It had to do with the perception of the physical button's flimsiness and unreliability. And was coupled with the far different experience in regards to Apple Repair centers (sometimes not even provided by Apple itself) which made the whole experience an ordeal. So, to preserve the value of the phone, they preferred the software button instead.

Others chimed in to say that, other than having to deal with repositioning the button from times to times because it obscures something below, it was actually a step up in usability as it offers more options (there is a whole user configurable menu there).

Why they continue to do it after the 7's fake hardware button? Probably because of the latter cause.

I don't think you'll see this be the default experience across Apple devices for quite some time. I don't think even the iPad Pro will have this edge-to-edge screen for at least a couple years – the home button is not dead.

I think you're right. Swipe up to go home is fine, but swipe up and pause for multitasking is going to be a pain to explain to my parents.

But swipe left/right on the bottom bar shouldn't be too hard for them to learn. This also switches between apps, and it was blazing fast in the demo.

It reminds me of Motorola's option to remove Android's black button bar and rely instead of swiping gestures over the fingerprint reader [1]. I tried it and, to their credit, it works very well. But it felt unnatural and my muscle memory didn't adjust quickly, so I disabled it.

[1] https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/inde...

My P2 does that, and I find it works well. It's implemented slightly differently- there's no swiping.

Touch button (without actually pressing it down)=back

Long touch button (still without pressing it)=recent apps

Physical press of button=home

I have it set up to wake&unlock with a touch instead of a press, so the only time I have to press the button is to go the homescreen.

The Palm Pre did something similar and going to Android with buttons felt like a step back

I gave it a try and I like it. I think it's better than to waste screen space.

In my experience, it works like a dream. The combined fingerprint reader / home / back / app list button on MG5+ is great. I think it took a few minutes to fully internalize it. Also "make a twisting motion to start camera" is incredibly handy. I don't use the "shake for flashlight", as I fear it will misfire and empty my battery.

Maybe I should give it a second chance, but I agree that the other gestures are great. You should try the flashlight one, I have it activated in my MG5+ and has never misfired, since you need a pretty vigourous shake to activate it.

might be a step back in usability for the non-tech savvy people who have made up a large share of iPhone users

"non-tech savvy"? I write software for the damned things, and my first thought was, "oh, great, more obscure swipe gestures to try and memorize." As an added bonus, the control center is now a swipe from the top, not the bottom like it's been for the last, what, five versions?

Actually, it's a swipe from top right. Top left is for Notification Center

That actually makes intuitive sense, now that there's a notch there dividing the clock—notifications are associated with time, so that's easy to remember—and the battery/wi-fi indicators, which are associated with the control center.

Jarring if you're used to swiping from the bottom, but it does make sense at least.

Don't most people (other than in the USA) already use an on-screen home button instead of the physical one?

I hadn't heard that. Why would they?

Apparently it's just Asia? https://www.quora.com/Why-do-iPhone-users-in-Asia-have-an-on...

I have the setting in my EU,NL version. Do not use it though.

For what it's worth, I really miss the gesture bar on the Palm Pre (and other Palm) phones.

It had a little button there too, but swapping the swipe up for this works fine imo. I think this is a great move forward, but will wait until I have to use it every day to decide.

Question regarding these new guestures: Are these a iPhone X only thing or they now supported on all IOS11 devices? I think from a hardware point of view it should be possible to let iphone 6/7/8 users to chose whether they now want to use the button or the guestures for this functionality.

I believe I've seen on Twitter that they are only on the new X model.

This made me curious, so I picked up my iPhone 7 Plus and tried it. Of course I got the control center because it's not an X, but it feels completely natural. I'll be perfectly happy when that gesture replaces the home button.

In fact, this actually improves the lock screen quite a bit now - no more accidentally missing my notifications because the home button that woke up my phone also unlocked it and took me away from the screen.

I agree! I don't know how many times Ive seen a notification that caught my eye and before I could recognize what app it was from or what it pertained to I'd already auth'd and missed it.

Indeed; one of the things that struck me about iOS devices versus anything else nowadays is the discoverability that the home button provides. The device is sitting on the table, and there is a single button to press. With a home button, it's obvious what to do.

That said, maybe the X branding is akin to 'Pro' and is not intended for the less tech-savvy

I can understand the compromise of the "notch" for the sensor bar in portrait-oriented UIs. Some thoughtful juggling of the status bar, some added interaction, and you're all set. A reasonable trade-off.

What I cannot understand at all is the compromise in landscape mode, for games and video. Rather than just black out the uneven area and limit the drawable area to the largest unbroken rectangle, everything Apple shows appears partially obscured by the notch. The AR game example literally has the notch starting to eat into the UI. In my book, this leaps from "acceptable trade-off" to "bizarre sacrifice." It's like living with a cracked corner of the screen, right out of the box.

Probably that's marketing I would expect game developers to rationally use the unobscured portion

But they will use the obscured portion irrationally.

I think it's good to leave that up to the app developer. They can choose to use the space around the notch or crop it.

It's not as significant as the notch, but the corners of the display area are also rounded off, so the screen has some fairly interesting effective geometry in terms of viewable pixels.

I wonder if the graphics and UI SDKs will have built-in functions to determine where these boundaries are (as they're likely to change in future models), or if developers will just be expected to work around them as best they can.

New metrics covered at https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/fall2017/801/

I imagine most developers won't want to design a tweaked layout specifically for the iPhone X. As a compromise, developers will probably just avoid putting important UI elements near the horizontal edges, similar to what console developers used to do to accommodate older TVs [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_area_(television)

Apple is asking devs not to crop it.

"Don't mask or call special attention to key display features. Don't attempt to hide the device's rounded corners, sensor housing, or indicator for accessing the Home screen by placing black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Don't use visual adornments like brackets, bezels, shapes, or instructional text to call special attention to these areas either."

https://developer.apple.com/ios/human-interface-guidelines/o...

That's one interpretation. Cropping video content doesn't necessarily fall into that, yet I can see how some other designs would and why they would want developers to avoid that. Besides, there's also:

> Be mindful of aspect ratio differences when reusing existing artwork. iPhone X has a different aspect ratio than 4.7" iPhones. As a result, full-screen 4.7" iPhone artwork appears cropped or letterboxed when displayed full-screen on iPhone X. Likewise, full-screen iPhone X artwork appears cropped or pillarboxed when displayed full-screen on a 4.7" iPhone. Make sure that important visual content remains in view on both display sizes.

Emphasis mine.

EDIT: Also here [1]:

> Adhere to the safe area and layout margins defined by UIKit. These layout guides ensure appropriate insetting based on the device and context. The safe area also prevents content from underlapping the status bar, navigation bar, toolbar, and tab bar. Standard system-provided views automatically adopt a safe area layout guide.

The diagram shown suggests a "safe area" even inset a little from the notch.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/ios/human-interface-guidelines/v...

I think they got their aspect ratio statement backwards. Surely 16:9 (iPhone 7) content appears pillarboxed on the 19.5:9 screen (iPhone X) and iPhone X content appears letterboxed on the iPhone 7?

Same guidelines also specify the safe area to put actual content, which excludes that area. In addition they suggest not hiding the status bar, which generally would push your content below it anyway.

> Inset essential content to prevent clipping. In general, content should be centered and symmetrically inset so it looks great in any orientation and isn't clipped by corners or the device's sensor housing, or obscured by the indicator for accessing the Home screen

...and...

> If your app currently hides the status bar, reconsider that decision on iPhone X. The display height on iPhone provides more vertical space for content than the displays of 4.7" iPhones, and the status bar occupies an area of the screen your app probably won't fully utilize.

[emphases mine]

My take is they don't want you putting a black background up there to mask it (unless all of your background is black, presumably) but you don't have to lay out around it either. For videos and photos in particular, since black is the normal background for outside the image I doubt there'll be an issue using it at the ends.

My take on this is that they're aiming to have people experiment with the two little areas rather than have everyone immediately "letterbox" it away. (Although to be honest it's a little baffling since I think it detracts from the phone, especially when playing games or watching videos).

Probably, yeah. I think the proof will be in how they deal with HUD-less full screen games like Infinity Blade--will they expect an animated background to draw around the notch, will they be OK with a 16:9 crop to normalize between phones, or what?

I had a similar though about video playback shown. Given it's OLED it seems like leaving it black should work OK in landscape

Here we go...

"Placing black bars makes your app feel cramped"

Screenshot from Apple design video: https://twitter.com/SteveMoser/status/907686208154816515

It's good the screen extends around the sensors. People will figure out better way to use it, or you might say, work around it.

Same feeling I get when websites have sticky headers – just like the one on apple.com

Yep, Apple doesn't want devs to blackbar it.

https://developer.apple.com/ios/human-interface-guidelines/o...

"Don't hide it because there's nothing wrong with it... but don't draw any extra attention to it either."

It's like the way people talk about moles or scars.

Any reasonable developer will likely just use the safe area (which excludes the notch) to display video, photos or games.

Is Apple a reasonable developer for the built-in media apps and Safari full screen video?

The aspect ratio of the screen is wider than 16:9, so full-screen 16:9 video will be boxed in on the other dimension first.

Apple specifically says not to do this in their updated Human Interface Guidelines.

Just when I thought we had finally kissed "Title-Safe Area" goodbye...

If you use Safari to view a web page in landscape mode, is the majority of the left edge of the page just chopped off?

Or did they make an exception for that, since most webpages are not specially designed for each and every device that Apple makes?

This is a weird UI problem and I'm looking forward to seeing how Apple addresses it in each of the built-in apps.

No, the text stays in the center portion only. The guidelines say that content covers the screen in landscape unless it’s text, in which case it’s inset.

So those stupid share icons on the side of news sites are going to be completely inaccessible?

It looks like this: http://i.imgur.com/yXA0Reg.png

Done. I’m out. I’ve bought every top level upgrade for the last 10 years of upgrade cycles. But now I am out. No new “rose gold” status for me. :(

Wow that's messed up. I didn't realize it extended beyond video.

On the plus side it's only gonna be an easy software upgrade to fox this for video and the web although it remains to be seen whether apple will accept they're wrong.

Apple is the worst about not following their own Human Interface Guidelines.

Do you have an example of where they don’t follow their guidelines? In my experience they’re pretty good about it; it’s Google that can’t get it together and follow Material Design or whatever their new guide is.

The iTunes app is a notorious example.

What part of the guidelines are you referring to? [1] says "Adhere to the safe area and layout margins defined by UIKit", and the graphics show a "safe area" which excludes the notch at the top.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/ios/human-interface-guidelines/v...

It’s part of the new WWDC videos they posted today. Let me see if I can find a link to them.

Good luck getting your app rejected.

Which begs the question:

Would Jobs have delivered this?

note: I personally say no. The form factor is, with all it's curves, a failure for creating UI/UX that feels complete. It's going to force more people to go Android first with their software development. When Android starts getting newer and better software more frequently the sea change will continue to widen and even long lasting fans will want to try something else.

It only begs the question because you decided to bring it up.

Probably not, but trying to run the company by the philosophy of "Would Jobs have done this" is impossible, since if emulating Steve Jobs' brain was possible, he wouldn't have been a unique talent.

Eh. The ethos died, too.

The protruding camera on the back of recent models would be considered unacceptable.

https://begthequestion.info

On what authority does the author of this site tell me what things mean in my own native language?

The author did not lay claim to authority but they did give a reason for taking the time to tell you what things mean in probably their own native language; that reason was laid out in the second paragraph of the section with the heading 'What it is not'

Well, "beg the question" is a translation from latin - petitio principii - so pedants could say it isn't from your native language (unless you meant latin).

Language evolves - things that start out as misunderstandings or errors become informal usage, then dominant usage, then the correct way.

Others stay misunderstandings or errors.

It pays to learn the correct way so you sound educated as you speak, and so other educated people don't automatically discount what you say, but there's little benefit in attempting to correct others.

That said, mis-using erudite words or phrases spoils the effect.

You are allowed to use the same words as an idiom while not using that idiom. The words make sense as a non-idiom. It is not a misuse to do this.

>Language evolves - things that start out as misunderstandings or errors become informal usage, then dominant usage, then the correct way.

Yes, language does evolve. For example, American English has evolved in such a way that "beg the question" now means "raise the question" to the vast majority of people in the year 2017.

Forgive me, but I think you're in the minority of people who bristle at the contemporary usage of this phrase, which makes you come off as incredibly pedantic.

Please note that I responded to the "by what authority" comment, not the "begs the question" comment... The reason to care about official meanings is to avoid sounding uneducated.

I literally could care less about "begs the question". The formal use can be depreciated - we're not likely to staunch that floe. But irregardless of my feelings, people who flaunt the official meaning and right "begs the question" in the increasingly common usage have the wrong affect - they sound like they're putting on heirs - "raises" or "brings up" each sound more naturist.

(Yes, that was fun. I hope you like it, too!)

Top notch response! :)

> Language evolves - things that start out as misunderstandings or errors become informal usage, then dominant usage, then the correct way.

Kind of like how "I could care less" actually means you don't care at all, despite the literal interpretation of the sentence meaning that you're capable of caring less, which means you DO care.

You can mean what you want, but in this case you're using an important idiom from philosophy to mean something else. People will pick you up on it. Best to say "raises the question" if that's what you mean.

We lost this fight a while ago. I see and hear "begs the question" to mean "raise the question" from all sorts of media.

And people don't pick up after their dogs.

Oh, I do say "raises the question", because I'm aware of this debate and I want to head off language pedantry. That doesn't mean I don't disagree with said pedantry.

I've literally never seen a usage of "begs the question" that couldn't be immediately disambiguated by context.

None. I just imagine it's useful that other people understand you.

But hey, if you want to use the wrong words, phrases, etc, then it's your right to do so. ...

Well I am glad you cast it in terms of people understanding one another, because everyone understands the (scare quotes:) "wrong" version of "begs the question" perfectly.

Words mean things, but what they mean is a social phenomenon, not handed down from some authority.

> if you want to use the wrong words

You say while advocating for a mistranslation.

Perhaps I misunderstand you - what am I advocating for? I thought I was advocating to keep everyone on the same page?

Should I start randomly using your and you're? If you can figure it out, what's the point of using the "correct" one?

> what am I advocating for?

Aren't you advocating for the "correct" use of "begging the question"? I'm just pointing out that such a use is also wrong.

> I thought I was advocating to keep everyone on the same page?

As if it actually confuses anyone.

> If you can figure it out, what's the point of using the "correct" one?

Because misspellings slow down comprehension. Using words in a different manner that both people understand doesn't.

Language is such a messy affair lol.

I can see where you're coming from. It just sucks that this argument seems to be, "there is no right, get used to wrong shit". And I know, I know, you're debating whether it's wrong at all - but I can't help but feel when people say the exact opposite words than what they mean, it feels wrong. For example, "I could give a damn" vs "I couldn't give a damn" _(and variations of it)_. It's an almost hilariously opposite meaning to what the user intended, yet.. it's going to become the "right" meaning.

Is there no end in your eyes? When does this just start becoming broken English?

> "I could give a damn" vs "I couldn't give a damn"

That's more understandable to object to because the words in a literal context are being misused. This is the creation of an idiom because of people misremembering the phrase. It's probably too late to stop, but idioms aren't created at a very rapid pace.

Begging the question is nearly the opposite situation. There exists an idiom where the words as taken literally are a mess, and people are using the same words, basically-correctly, to not mean that idiom.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master-that's all."

I don't understand what point you're making.

The point is that you don't get to mean what you want to mean. That's childish. You mean what others understand you to mean.

Relevant xkcd - https://xkcd.com/1860/

I read this comment and thought "oh I have a friend that would love this guy."

This isn't reddit.

People go iOS first because iOS has a much better market for paid apps - if Objective C wasn't enough to discourage this approach, I doubt a notch in the UI will be.

> It's going to force more people to go Android first with their software development.

I don't understand this comment. What do "all its curves", as you say, have to do with iOS developers suddenly preferring Android? The iOS App Store has approximately a 7x revenue potential vs. Android's store, why would a developer abandon that just because of a new phone's form factor? There have been many new form factors in iOS devices over the last years, and that hasn't swayed anyone.

I don't think "beg the question" means what you think it means. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

Here is another explanation http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/begs-the-...

Not only does it (descriptively by usage, whatever pedants might prefer) mean exactly what it was used upthread to mean, that usage is structurally distinct from an impossible to confuse with the usage pedants prefer (and helps the pedant-preferred version make sense.)

That's the TL;DR version, the full rant is available at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13708712

It's even on the linked wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question#Modern_us...

All that post says is that it is common to use it incorrectly, which it is, but we should not encourage bad habits.

> All that post says is that it is common to use it incorrectly

I'm not sure if “that post” refers to the grandparent or the one linked from it, but in either case you are incorrect. There are several other things addressed beyond frequency of usage.

OK if that's as much sense as an anti-pedant can make, I'm gonna side with the pedants.

> I can understand the compromise of the "notch" for the sensor bar in portrait-oriented UIs.

Me too. Still, it'll be nice if there's an option to disable the notch and just use a slightly shorter display. There are no doubt Apple engineers out there who want this, so I hope it's a hidden accessibility setting :)

Maybe that's where you're supposed to put your thumb.

I already find watching video on a phone annoying because my fingers get in the way. I'd think it would be worse on this device.

I agree, when they first demoed it I was pretty shocked. For games, I can kind of understand, they can likely work around it...but for video? No videos are recorded with the thought of the left side of the screen being cut off.

Not necessarily true. There's still quite large amount of video (or film) content adapted from wider aspect ratios that has been thoughtfully framed with the expectation that it will eventually be squeezed into a consumer device-friendly 16:9 aspect ratio.

I don't expect the area encompassed by the notch to be meaningful to a lot of video content (possibly most). I think there are scenarios where it would be a minor problem, though.

Pretty much all professionally recorded content pays attention to safe zones, and has done so since the CRT days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_area_(television)

Phones historically have been weird for not cutting off part of the image that CRTs and even flat screen TVs have been known to do.

Annoyingly, my TV won't let you turn it /off/. Not only that, but it won't accept it's own panel's native resolution of 1366x768, only 1280x720 which it then scales up to crop off a bunch of pixels. It's like they were dedicated to making a 720p television look like blurry bigfoot butt.

I was pissed off at my projector doing that (same problem with a different native resolution), but then it was a $90 projector. Sorry for your TV.

And this is the true irony of the persistence of title-safe areas: Broadcast switched over to digital nearly a decade ago, analog set-top boxes haven't been produced in large quantities in years, and thus the concept of overscan should be completely dead by now.

Yet TV manufacturers, for some reason I cannot wrap my mind around, continue to implement it, often by default (or in the extreme case, as you mention, with no way to disable it). And so title-safe areas continue to be an issue long after the obsolescence of the technology they were invented to work within.

Tvs historically have been criticized by filmmakers for cutting off part of the image. Safe zones are only useful when using analog film cameras and movie projectors, not with digital video. Of course, you will never place the face of an actor on the edge of the frame, but that doesn't mean that space is useless for the director or the cinematographer. Every filmmaker has a rectangular frame in mind when composing.

And even if you don't care about watching the film in the right conditions, isn't it annoying to know there's something you're missing behind that notch? It's like having somebody's head in front of you when you go to the movies. Also, there are many films that have a 2.35 aspect ratio, which is wider than 19.5/9.

Sure most of the videos are not films and you wouldn't use a phone to watch films in the first place, but for that price I expect those little details that make the difference. I think Apple has lost that in the recent years.

Honestly the video producers are already used to this bullshit, and have recorded expecting it already. Why? Tube TV. Just when I thought we were going to be able to kiss overscan-safe area goodbye (I mean it's 2017 come /on/), we now have to keep it. Maybe it'll be called "funky phone safe area" now.

I've also heard the screen itself is slightly wider than 16:9, though in which direction I don't know. Hopefully, wide enough for native 16:9 to naturally black bar the notch

This phone has a 19.5:9 screen so 16:9 videos will have vertical black bars on either side that are thick enough to envelop the notch. You can see that in this [1] hands-on video.

[1] https://youtu.be/OzTLlolkXxU?t=4m22s

Let me guess - it uses 19.5:9 because 18.5:9 and 18:9 were taken already and Apple can't really use a "used" concept? :)

I'd imagine they used that ratio because it allows (fairly standard) 16:9 videos to be displayed without the notch eating into them.

Said another way, why didn't they adjust the notch or other dimensions to support the nearest wider standard like 18.5:9?

These go to 19.5:9

Is 18.5:9 really a standard? And does it matter? They will sell a hundred million of these things and it will this become a standard size.

When I saw them rotate and play the video I exclaimed "what in the unholy f_ck" and an entire Starbucks looked at me like I am the crazy one.

Thats one of the most awkward things Ive seen on an tech gadget that wasn't made by Doc Johnson.

you're shouting "what the holy fuck" in a starbucks becauseIOS didn't black out the screen near the notch.

You earned those looks.

I assume they were kidding.

To be fair, "what the unholy fuck."

Well I guess that's a matter of theology.

Not so much that they didn't black it out, that the notch was a notch in the first place.

I get having a screen to the edge of the phone is "cool" there is a half inch of black on the top of the iPhone 7, cutting it down to a 1/4 of an inch or whatever it is on the X and not going to the edge would have been perfectly sane... right?!

Edit: It wasn't a shout, so much as a dumbfounded exclamation. In retrospect, I should have table flipped and yelled "Im switching to a Nokia!"

I'd like the notch more if it were less than half the width of the screen

Also, AND THIS MAY BE CONTROVERSIAL, but I don't need to take a selfie. Its cool, I'm fine. No one needs to see what I look like with my seat belt on.

I get that there is the FaceID, etc in there, but if they could reduce the size and focus on things that are necessary instead of narcissistic that'd be the bees knees.

Things that are in that cutout:

    - IR camera
    - IR illuminator
    - Proximity sensor
    - Ambient light sensor
    - Speaker
    - Microphone
    - Front camera
    - IR dot projector

Taking the selfie camera out doesn't let you make it significantly smaller, and FaceID probably uses that anyway (in addition to the IR camera).

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Scree...

Yeah FaceTime to talk to your family is totally narcissistic.

Oh yeah, forgot about FaceTime. I've only used it like 3 times since it came out, but valid.

You may also want to recall that you are not the sole user of iPhones. Selfies are a valid use case even if you personally aren't a fan.

WHAT?

I've never used a tampon. Why do they sell them?

I'd venture say a tampon is not a narcissistic product.

That's a bizarre reaction to a little black bar. 'Meh' or 'Bleh' seem more appropriate.

I'm an emotional being what can I say?

sounds like you experienced a 0th world problem

The notch doesn't bother me that much. If anything, it adds character in a world where phone designs are getting more generic and less distinguishable.

The lack of a headphone jack (and no valid replacement, such as USB-C) gets me way more annoyed!

Wireless headphones are the future.

Weird annoying notches in your screen better not be the future.

You don't get to decide the future! Apple gets to decide the future. Notches and dongles for you.

Well, yeah. They're the ones putting in the graft. So it makes sense they're the ones who get to decide the future.

Wireless earbuds are yet another thing you have to remember to charge every night, easier to lose or break, expensive, and nonstandard. What's the point?

In the abstract, not having wires is clearly better in almost all situations - the only catch being, it doesn't take away features that wired tech have (lower latency, higher reliability/bandwidth, etc). Hopefully Apple's decision will spur some innovation in wireless charging/battery tech for headphones. Sometimes even if the decision is dumb, given the existing state of tech, it forces the industry to change, because of the market pressure that Apple exerts.

Except for musicians, who need a latency-free audio path that won't degrade depending on distance or saturation of the wireless spectrum. Given the amount of music apps in Apple's ecosystem, I'm pretty surprised they removed the one jack that made their device compatible with literally every musical instrument and mixing board out there. They're gutting a huge market.

Jesus. The adapter is like $7. Just leave it attached to your musical instruments and mixing boards.

...and charge it how? If it's in active use recording there's a decent chance it would be nice to charge and record at the same time.

Ditto. It's imperative to be able to charge while you're playing, since music apps along with the screen being on all the time really eats the battery quickly.

The iPhone was never a good choice to produce professional music anyway. An OS running garbage collected apps, running on a hardware platform that suffers from thermal throttling is a bad combination to begin with.

>They're gutting a huge market.

How big is this market of people using iphones to produce music?

Have you ever even used a music app on an iPhone? They do not suffer from performance issues, even with several running at the same time. And Objective-C is not even garbage collected; it's reference counted, so I have no idea what point you're trying to make.

Having attended and played hundreds of rock shows throughout the world, I've seen many musicians use iPads as synthesizers, loopers, effects pedals, and DAW recording studios. I and all of my professional musician friends use it in performances for both audio and visuals. The audio latency and MIDI support of iOS is legendary among musicians, and is why they dominate the musical app market compared to Android with its unusable 20-300ms audio latency.

> expensive

To be fair, OK-ish quality wireless earbuds are now available for ~$30.

You can get voice quality ones for less than $20.

Charging is annoying though. :(

To be fair, I think the wireless charging pad will help a ton here

I've very glad they went with a current standard like Qi instead of inventing their own.

It's hard to express the convenience and ease-of-use in wireless earbuds until one tries them. If you hate wires, then these are straight up revolutionary

What are they if you love wires?

I totally get wireless headphones. The problem is, not every device I listen to music on has Bluetooth. I don't take my phone on runs and I'm not buying two sets of headphones. Not to mention, even when I'm not running, I listen to music on my iPod classic and only use my phone for podcasts.

The Nintendo Switch is a good example - it has a headphone jack but no bluetooth headphone support.

It has Bluetooth comms to up to 8 Joycons and a general purpose operating system, so the limitation is probably a lacking audio implementation, not physical impossibility.

Good news... Apple has the device for you! (the Apple Watch)

Don't worry just make sure you plug in your families 4 laptops, 4 sets of wireless headphones, 4 phones, 2 tablets, 2 ereaders. If you arrange it right you could have an entire shrine to technology.

with inductive charging, this could be as simple as setting all of your devices on a table with a large enough mat (one day.. since obviously not all of those devices support it today).

Every night? You either don't have AirPods or you do and you use them a lot.

i probably charge mine every two weeks. amazing product.

Used to think like that. Bought a pair. Am 100% converted.

Wired earphones are cumbersome and don't really offer any significant audio advantages.

I have a pair of studio headphones for listening to music when I'm at home. But when I'm out in the gym or heading to work on the metro, wireless earphones are 200% more convenient.

Remembering to charge them is easy. I reach my office and plug the charger right next to my laptop charger. Impossible for forget it

Notches will disappear when we’ll be able to put all those sensors under the screen. Until then I think of them as “more” screen rather than less. However cutting into videos/photos taken on the phone is wrong.

It's amazing they can make screens that are non-rectangular. Are there any details on the manufacturing of them?

The actual tech challenges aren't that bad, it's more just supply/demand. Check out below for more info.

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/102540/why-t...

The idea is that you don't break things that work fine and then replace it with a proprietary island solution that isn't even supported by your non ipad/iphone devices. If I buy lightning headphones can I use them on my macbook? No.

I haven't used wireless headphones yet but I will continue to hesitate until they have fixed the audio quality and pairing issues for good.

Try Airpods. They are amazing and the audio quality and pairing are stellar if you can deal with their fit/shape. It's been about 5% of people that I've had try them where they just don't fit or sit right in their ears.

> the audio quality and pairing are stellar if you can deal with their fit/shape

Wait, you mean for music? I've tried them once and I felt as soon as there's more than 5-6 instruments the expression goes way down, it becomes basically impossible to even identify all the strands. Would not recommend - you can get something like AKG k702's for cheaper and get better sound.

I've got a pair of Grado headphones and a set of those exact AKG phones and I test a few different songs with each pair of anytime I'm assessing a new set of headphones. I test "Fame" by David Bowie, "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen, and "Paranoid Android" by Radiohead. The Airpods sounded great for in-ear headphones but they did have a significant break in period of almost 2 weeks. In addition to the fit, ease of pairing, and the overall experience, I can still wholeheartedly recommend them. The AKG's are great but they're not for the same target. I'm not going to go running or working out in my AKG's or my Grado's.

Fair enough. I could see myself wanting wireless headphones for physical exercise, because cable noise is annoying. Thanks for the break in info, it does explain quite a bit!

I've heard they are not better than ear-pods sound-wise

They may not be but I even the EarPods sound good to me and have good range once they're broken in. If you only ever put them in your ears for 1 song and decided they were no good, you're not going to get the best or most objective sound.

Have you tried Shures, or any other decent pair of in ear monitors? If you haven't, you should.

I have. None are wireless and offer the same ease and consistency with as good of sound as the Airpods.

A headphone jack doesn't stop you from using wireless headphones.

That's true, but it's not a sufficient argument. An integrated MiniDisc player would also not stop you from playing music from files stored on the phone, but it wouldn't be a strong argument for including an integrated MiniDisc player.

I want this.

Maybe use it as product placement in the movie 'Last Action Hero 2'?

The real argument is that having a wired option is not a money maker for apple. Apple wants YOU to buy accessories, which are the meat of their business with ridiculous margins. That's just selling to users something they don't need in the first place and making them pay premium for it.

> Apple wants YOU to buy accessories, which are the meat of their business with ridiculous margins.

This is laughably false. Accessories are a tiny percentage of Apple's revenue.

Apple will likely sell tens of millions of AirPods this year. At $159 each, and presumably at very healthy margins.

This is no small business, even by Apple's standards!

Removing the headphone jack was a marketing-driven decision. AirPods are a cool product, but wouldn't have sold anywhere near as well without the forcing effect of the jack removal.

This guy managed to install a fully-functioning jack back into an iPhone 7:

https://strangeparts.com/bringing-back-the-iphone-headphone-...

I never said that accessories don't make Apple money, but that money is a tiny percentage of the amount brought in by devices.

How many fewer AirPods do you think they would sell of the iPhone 7 still had a headphone jack? Given that every iphone 7 came with lightning EarPods and a lightning to headphone jack adapter, I would guess that AirPods sales would barely have been affected.

What is that an argument for? It seems like you should be arguing why removing the jack is a bad idea, but plenty of good ideas could also be implemented purely to make money.

Maybe they're the future, but they're still much crappier than a pair of wired Shures, by a long shot. When that changes, then wireless headphones will be the present. Until then, leaving off a headphone jack is an idiotic omission.

Agreed, I like the notch. Mind you, I don't even own an iPhone, but I also like the Essential (Android Phone) notch. The Android phone's notch was less wide, sure, but I'm not sure it matters.

By all means, if you're displaying UI stuff there then great, don't obscure your buttons with the notch. However I love seeing images/etc with all possible screen visible. I've been wanting a head/chin-less phone for years now.

From the looks of it, I love both of them. The Android and iPhone version.

For all the things Essential Phone didn't do well, it actually did do this part correctly and letterboxed videos & games to avoid the camera cutting into the content.

> What I cannot understand at all is the compromise in landscape mode, for games and video.

I find that an odd glass-half-empty view. Since the screen has more pixels than earlier phones, instead of worrying about some being "taken away" by the notch, consider it as Apple adding some space for status info and the like to dead space that was previously bezel.

> instead of worrying about some being "taken away" by the notch, consider it as Apple adding some space for status info and the like to dead space that was previously bezel.

But my bezel didn't literally cover parts of videos or fullscreen app UIs.

I don't really get your point. Sure, overall you get more pixels but the screen still gets covered partially and you're not allowed to fill in the left and right of it with a black bar to make your content look not overlapped.

> I don't really get your point. Sure, overall you get more pixels but the screen still gets covered partially and you're not allowed to fill in the left and right of it with a black bar to make your content look not overlapped.

Plenty of content will use a black bar, especially 16:9 video.

For non-video content you could put info there that previously would have covered other content. (Plus I think the non-pixel notch area would be a perfect place for Safari to banish those stupid floating "share" buttons).

Instead of getting hung up on the camera zone and what it "takes away", think of the phone as having a large rectangular screen plus a pair of small rectangular additional screens, like ears. Even if those little regions were always black you'd still have more pixels than Apple's previous phones.

> Plenty of content will use a black bar, especially 16:9 video.

Huh? I'm not sure I follow. By default video playback does not unless you manually resize it. Apple's updated language means you can't explicitly do this to cover those gaps with a black bar, either.

It's not exactly the best user experience if I have to manually resize videos smaller to fit the screen properly.

> Even if those little regions were always black you'd still have more pixels than Apple's previous phones.

That would be great but Apple does not approve of that as per their updated language in their ToS for developers. You can't just fill it in with black bars (otherwise I would agree with you though I would argue Apple should have ways to automatically handle that).

The iPhone X display is 19:9. You cannot display video without either cropping or letterboxing, i.e. black bars.

And I don't know what you mean by apple doesn't approve of that: their own Human Interface Guidelines for the iPhone X ( https://developer.apple.com/ios/human-interface-guidelines/o... ) read: "Inset essential content to prevent clipping. In general, content should be centered and symmetrically inset so it looks great in any orientation and isn't clipped by corners or the device's sensor housing, or obscured by the indicator for accessing the Home screen. " They also include a picture showing precisely that.

Also just above that they read, "When designing for iPhone X, you must ensure that layouts fill the screen and aren't obscured by the device's rounded corners, sensor housing, or the indicator for accessing the Home screen." I.e. don't use a square element part of which would lie off-screen, do try to light up in a practical way all the pixels.

But regardless of what apple says, feel free to be unhappy about this if that makes you happy.

> The iPhone X display is 19:9. You cannot display video without either cropping or letterboxing, i.e. black bars.

So it looks like they do, in fact, black bar it by default. If you double tab it will zoom in which causes the video to be clipped by the notch. https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/90778373980314828...

> And I don't know what you mean by apple doesn't approve of that

Nothing what you posted is relevant to what I was discussing. In fact it was completely differently.

What I was discussing was having games / apps fill in the rest of the bar so it looks like a flat bar (so it won't look odd with partial content above and below the notch). Many iOS developers have been chatting about this over twitter and other forums and the language being pointed out seems to prevent deliberate obscuring / hiding of the notch itself. https://twitter.com/cabel/status/907684825376595968

> But regardless of what apple says, feel free to be unhappy about this if that makes you happy.

I don't follow; I originally replied to offer a correction to a statement you initially made. I never even stated that I am unhappy with the notch. I'm not a fan right now but it would likely grow on me and I was thinking about getting a new phone later this year.

There are some UX concerns that I think are legit to discuss. I don't see why that would make me someone who is happy to be unhappy.

Whatever. He and others quoted the same sections I did, and in fact made the comments in regards to video having to be letterboxed.

Sure, if you zoom in part will be lost but then again if you zoom in, because of the different aspect ratio other parts of the video will be cropped too.

I guess we simply disagree that this is a big deal.

The problem is not the notch but the rounded corners.

I think they wanted to show how "cool" is the whole edge-to-edge screen with all the four rounded borders. If you black out the notch and keep that side square, then you must do the same on the other side and the screen will just look like the old rectangular display.

While I'm sure there will be some option to do this, at least for video, for me, a square shaped phone would have made sense.

Oh man that notch bothers me. I suppose maybe I'll get used to it, but is making such a drastic design decision really worth the extra few millimetres of pixels on each side of it? It just bothers me aesthetically looking at images of it.

Laziness

Well I think the notch at top of iPhone X is to make it a top notch phone.

Collect your last cheque from the front desk and get out

*sighs, looks down, shakes head

iPhone X fails to unlock and asks for PIN?

Thanks for the laugh. That said, I am concerned that HN is becoming more and more like reddit. No offense, but the reason I come to HN is for serious informative discussion, not puns and jokes. I realize this is an asshole thing to say but I just had to let this out.

Aah I agree. I do resist most of the time. But this 'HN is becoming Reddit' is itself a cliche repeated here far more often than I like. A direct "Please no joke' would be just fine.

Did anyone else notice the false/misleading images in their promotional media?

https://images.apple.com/media/us/iphone-x/2017/01df5b43-28e...

There is no camera bulge there... they just deleted it. This is not something I expect from Apple.

The camera is on the far (under)side of the phone, which isn't even shown in this clip.

From the shot it looks like it's a complete side view so should be visible.

In reality it's probably that the camera is positioned just right so that it's obscured.

They did the same thing when they made the iMacs skinny, just show them at the exact angle to hide the giant butt on them and make them look razor thin.

I think we can chalk up this sort of thing happening once in, what, a decade(?) to an honest mistake.

No! It turns out this is something they have a history of doing!

https://www.theverge.com/2014/9/16/6209759/apple-has-an-emba...

In the exact same way! I'm very surprised, I did not think Apple of all companies would deliberately do such a thing.

I hope other manufacturers pick up on this and just make their devices thick enough overall to match the camera bulge, with a huge bonus in battery capacity.

Phone cases fix the bulge.

And, isn't it true that phone cases are pretty much a necessity? I remember I took my iphone case off a few a months ago... and just a week or two in, the screen shattered when I dropped it on the concrete floor outside as I was stepping outside the car.

Phone cases have a certain thickness (which is more or less equal to the thickness of bulge). In all likelihood, you'll have the case, so the bulge is perhaps not really a problem.

I hate cases, is like people covering their car seats.

I like using them the way they were designed.

>There is no camera bulge there... they just deleted it. This is not something I expect from Apple.

I would expect it from Apple these days. That bulge is the number one reason I will never buy a 7/8/X. Steve Jobs must have been rolling in his grave when they first showed that off.

This is something that can be largely fixed by the software, but it requires 3rd part developer coordination, that honestly only Apple can pull off. In iOS11 there is a concept of a safe area that UI should respect. With constraint based layout you can have a single layout that moved critical UI components outside of the notch area if its present.

The problem is that the AR game was most likely built with Unity, which has its own 4-5 different UI systems, and my guess none of them are aware of a safe area.

The problem is fixable, but why did Apple allow demo that was not polished enough to work well with their flagship phone?

Do you think phones are a "done" thing? I mean what we are seeing these days is more of an evolution than revolution. With iPhone X I think we know what the phone industry will move towards for next 4 years.

All these features are cool and somewhat exciting but nothing groundbreaking that will change computing/communications forever.

VR was supposed to be the game changer but it appears that it will also take around 4-5 years at least to be mainstream.

What do you think will bring the next revolution in personal computing and communications?

Glasses that make you see the interface as good as a monitor would be a huge step forward.

It's awesome that now we have a supercomputer in our pocket that is stuffed with sensors, needs no cables and is always connected to the internet. But looking at it is still cumbersome.

I really wish a phone company would just make a "macbook pro" of the phone world. Something where the hardware and battery can keep up with the OS for the next 4 years. Something where every new OS release isn't destroying my performance, and maybe even MAKING my performance better.

We are getting all this new tech in the phone space, faster processors, more ram, etc. But prices keep going up for "premium" experiences. Seems backwards to me

> Something where the hardware and battery can keep up with the OS for the next 4 years.

I'm still using a 6 year old iPhone on the current OS without problems. And battery is working fine too.

> 6 year old iPhone on the current OS

You might be stretching it a bit there, but otherwise this point stands.

I am using an iphone 5s, 64 gb version - it's been my daily phone for since it was released. I've had no issues, other than finally replacing the battery this last year for $30.

Admittedly, I'm upgrading this cycle, but I'm super impressed by how long this phone has lasted. I bought a Nexus 4 (9 months older phone), and it's been complete shit for the past 1.5 years.

iPhone 5S came out in 2013.

I know! September 20, 2013!

My Xiaomi Mi5 costed 200 dollars , shipping included, it's much better than iPhone 5s and battery last 36 hours

Only real problem is the glass A 5 dollar protection fixed the problem

fixed typo: 120 dollars was really 200.

That's great - but the Mi5 came out in February 2016. I'm not sure why you can compare it to a phone that was release in October 2013. I would hope that the Mi5 would be better than the 5s!

The Mi4 was still better than an iPhone 5s

Apple ecosystem has no escape routes, either you take it all or you don't.

Anyway when the iPhone 5s came out it costed 800 euros in Europe and still costs around 250 euros on Amazon.

The iPhone's price makes no f*ing sense

I can understand rich people wanting it, I don't get why regular folks spend so much money for so little real value.

I am not stretching it. I run the current iOS version on a 4s purchased in 2011. Battery is still working pretty good too. Not as good as when it was new, but the whole thing still works as my only phone without much issue.

The current iOS version is iOS 10, and in a week it will be iOS 11. iPhone 4S only goes up to iOS 9.

You're right, I'm runnin 9.3.5, just checked. I thought I was running 10. Regardless, the 4S has been a true workhorse and I don't think Apple makes them this robust any more (obviously, Apple lost money on me by making such a reliable phone that I didn't need to replace it!).

You just described iphone....seriously, my iphone 5 still works great, as does my 2012 macbook pro (admittedly, i swapped in a ssd + ram)

But not my MacBook Pro retina from 2014, ram is soldered onto the motherboard so I cannot upgrade

That's why many feels Apple is going backwards

And that's why many like me are not buying their new products

They're simply not a good value for money anymore

My next laptop is a Dell XPS

My phone's are Xiaomis as well as all my "smart home" gadgets

At least if they break I have better guarantees from a company that's not trying to sell me support as a religion that you have to go to the temple and/or they are much cheaper

Faceid is not worth a thousand dollars

It's a joke for rich spoiled people

My iPhone 6 is from 2014, next year it'll still run a supported OS that seems to be about as snappy as the previous version. Assuming a yearly iOS release that's 4 years next year (assuming they stop supporting iPhone 6 in iOS 12).

I think prices have stayed pretty much the same or become lower over the years. You can get a 64GB iPhone 8 this year for $699, vs $749 for the iPhone 6 in 2014. I think the iPhone 8 is still a pretty "premium" experience, even if Apple now has a more fancy and more expensive model.

I think they'll be supporting older devices with iOS updates even longer going forward. The 32 vs 64-bit CPU was the line in the sand this year. And the iPhone SE has the same CPU as the 6 but is still considered a current model.

> the iPhone SE has the same CPU as the 6

The SE uses Apple A9 CPU from the 6S.

It does too. My bad.

> Do you think phones are a "done" thing? I mean what we are seeing these days is more of an evolution than revolution.

It's always been an evolution. What we're seeing now is a trend towards cellular everywhere, and device-agnostic services (same phone number on your Apple Watch as your iPhone). The next shift seems like it will be greater situational awareness in your devices -- your device can understand its surroundings (ARKit), and what you look like (Face ID).

So phones as a category may lose their uniqueness, in that other devices can fill the same roll, but I think we'll always see an evolution of a phone -- that is, a pocketable connected computing device.

It wasn't always an evolution. Despite all the apple "oh we changed everything look at us" they really did. And for the first few years after that everything was changing so fast it was a revolution. But it has since slowly died out and I guess new technologies with faster innovation will become the new iphone revolution

True, but capacitive multi-touch hasn't been the only innovation in the iPhone over the years. We forget just how limited the original iPhone was (no 3G, slow CPU -- it took ages to render a webpage, even though it was a huge step up over its contemporaries, it was still barely fit for purpose, no App Store either).

I think the slides in the keynote were actually on-point for this, there've been multiple innovations (multi-touch, high-DPI screens, Touch ID, their shift to in-house processors, computational photography), and it's really the aggregate that's lead to a great device. But break it down and it is an iterative, evolutionary process. That's why so many people often seem disappointed after every keynote!

That said, maybe the original iPhone really was a bit special :-)

I'm not sure if it neccesarily that the first iPhone was special in an of itself, but that the shift to mobile was special, and was largely enabled by the iPhone. Subsequent models aren't tied to a once-in-a-generation shift in technology, and so they feel more like iterative improvements.

You are looking from a "groundbreaking" and "refreshing" point of view. Everything is an evolution. Is going from hand textile to mechanical textile a revolution (happened in a period known as "Industrial Revolution")? I still think that's an evolution. The reason Industrial Revolution is coined revolution is the "break the norm" mentality. But the inventions and the transition from hand textile to mechanical textile industry was an evolution itself. We don't call human evolution "human revolution" because we broke the norm of other mammals' biological evolutions.

You are just taking the literal meaning of the words not what they are actually being used for. In this case, evolution means the type of small incremental updates that we have been slowly getting disappointed by for the past few years. Yea literally evolution includes revolution but saying that doesn't add anything to the discussion.

From Google search:

    "a dramatic and wide-reaching change in the way something works or is organized or in people's ideas about it."

I didn't deny the actual definition of revolution and I recognized it. I am merely expressing my view on the following comments, which are what being discussed here.

First comment:

    Do you think phones are a "done" thing? I mean what we are seeing these days is more of an evolution than revolution.
    It's always been an evolution.

Your comment:

    It wasn't always an evolution.
    And for the first few years after that everything was changing so fast it was a revolution.

Breaking norm is a revolution, but the steps are evolution. Everything is evolution.

The iPhone from 5 years ago will look as limited to you as the 2007 phones did compared to the iPhone.

It's just that the iPhone appeared all at once, whereas you have 5 keynotes to go from 2012's iPhone (the iPhone 4S) to the iPhone 7.

Since then we've got: 4G (LTE), Touch ID, dual-LED flash, NFC and Apple Pay, motion co-processor, 802.11ac, Lightning, Bluetooth 5.0, phase detection autofocus, 4K video and slo-mo 1080p, 3D Touch, haptic feedback, water resistance, wide color gamut, brightness increases, and several times faster CPUs and GPUs (allowing for far more demanding apps).

Do you mean AR? I am not sure how VR is going to change the phone/mobile industry. You need to wear some kind of glasses to actually experience VR. I think you are referring to augmented reality, but correct me if I am wrong.

When it comes to AR, I am not interested in those "look at the pokemon on the street" kind of AR. I'd like projection on the street from the device. I want the Apple Watch to show me a hologram like in Star War. That's the kind of real AR I want to see. I will enjoy driving if map can be projected like hologram on the car windshield so I don't have to check the app on the side.

I think the next breakthrough is just happening now: all cashless transactions. This is already happening in China, India, and some country in Europe (I forgot which one, but over there even newspaper street vendors accept credit cards). US is way behind. Also, chip in human will eventually take off. So just wait for more human-wearable integrations (and this is depressing and dangerous, see my comment below). I bet in no more than 10 years.

Pokemon on the street was a great way to introduce the public to the concept of AR, but you're right- that's not how it's going to work. As long as our phones are the "lens" into the augmented reality, it will stay out of the mainstream.

We need Google Glass, Spectacles, or some equivalent AR device. All of that stuff you're talking about- projecting onto the street, onto the windshield, etc... that's setting the bar very low. We'll be able to do all of that on a per-user basis once we have AR glasses.

And those are hard problems to solve- projecting holograms into daylight without a surface? Good luck outshining the sun without overheating your tiny pocket projector. They all require unique solutions tailored to the problem and the environment they'll be used in. Why bother with that, when you can either work on AR glasses, or wait until AR glasses are readily available, which is pretty much an inevitability.

I wear glasses, so I am used to wearing glasses at all time, but sometimes I can't (running or swimming or tired), let alone we have people that do not wear glasses at all. Perhaps eventually all humans are going to wear glasses (or have contacts) BECAUSE they HAVE to in order to "enjoy" life (which sounds depressing just think about what that means to human free wills and uniqueness). This is what I was referring in another comment: human wearable integration is going to be a huge thing in the upcoming years. No doubt.

Otherwise, there is no way for AR to really take off as a general use. It would be nice to watch your baseball game from a AR+VR (watching from the "eyes" of the players) views.

Why can't you wear glasses running? I'd fall over myself if I tried to do that. (Maybe shouldn't do the trails then, hey?)

But on the larger point, I'm not sure how it's depressing. We mostly all live in similar houses and buy similar consumer products, and we have interests, work, families and hobbies that look similar to other peoples.

Maybe along the same lines of how everyone just has their face buried in a phone these days? Disconnecting from "glasses" (or eventually smart contact lenses or brain-interface) will be much the same.

I run in different kinds of terrains (park, street, hiking trail, bridge, treadmill, track field) despite my vision on both eyes are close to 900 now.

It's really a personal choice. I swear a lot, and I don't like glasses hanging on my nose. Also, I like to relax and practice mindfulness during my run so without glasses I am not distracted by the details of my surroundings (the same reason i think people like filming black/white monochrome). I do recommend without glasses if you can try.

I just feel we are slowly reaching to a point where we can't be free from "vendor lock-in" even in our lives. Perhaps one day there is no physical device you need to carry around except a pair of glasses or wearing a pair of contacts.

Of course these are just my wild speculations.

I meant VR only. But I was referring to it from a personal computing perspective - How it can change learning and training experience.

However after reading your comment and the one below which mentions quality AR glasses which can replace a monitor will be really revolutionary on how we approach computing.

Yes, cashless is something truly revolutionary. Being in India I am personally experiencing the change that it is brining in.

I want one computing device, or an iPhone that can run OSX (or some future OS thats a blended version of IOS and OSX). Like a Switch that I can take me, or plug in at home and get more power/features.

yes, That will be great. There are some Android players trying to do it. I think Samsung also tried it but it was premature. And no big player is really pushing it. If Apple pulls it off with their eco-system of apps and quality hardware, it can be a big shift in personal computing.

Been saying this forever -- this is the next HUGE leap that I see. Steve Jobs wanted the iPad to be a small Mac rather than a big iPhone. For someone like me, there are still critical things missing from the iPhone for it to be my primary computing device.

Yes for example IOS is terrible for photo editing or any kind of media production. It can work in a pinch but not useful for daily workflows.

It would literally have to break out into a jailed macOS session when docked for it to be at all practical for me, honestly.

The average user could no doubt make due with a minimal multi-window iOS interface. I have no idea how people work with an iPad in any serious capacity when you are restricted to a full screen interface.

Placing my phone next to my 30" monitor and bluetooth keyboard/mouse should make the macOS VM running on my iPhone X resume from hibernate and just start running.

The more interesting thing is how tightly connected the macOS VM could be with the iOS VM (I use the term VM here loosly, they could easily be containers living side-by-side and not within a literal hypervisor).

For example, are there two processes running 'Mail' and two copies of every message so that iOS and macOS Mail apps are both working? Do I have to configure them both separately to connect to my accounts? That would be quite silly.

If you can get the two OSs sharing resources but still effectively providing desktop sized vs phone sized user interfaces that could be something quite powerful.

I wonder if doing it app by app makes more sense than splitting the OS. So an app can be phone aware and desktop aware and so on.

This already sort of happens with some web apps.

Though it didn't run iOS (and the little detail that it never came out) the "single computing device" model was one of my favorite selling points of the Ubuntu Edge [1]:

"From mobile... to desktop. Yes, it’s the full Ubuntu desktop OS used by millions on a daily basis -- and it runs directly from the phone, so you’ll be able to move seamlessly from one environment to the other with no file syncing or transfers required. The core OS and applications are fully integrated with their smartphone equivalents, so you can even make and receive calls from the desktop while you work."

[1] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge#/

Several implementations of such a concept have been done, one being Microsoft's Continuum [1]. If there is a future Windows 10 "mobile device" running Windows 10 ARM with x86 emulation, as has been rumored, it will likely use CShell [2], their new adaptable/responsive UI model.

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/Continuum

[2] https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-cshell

> Do you think phones are a "done" thing?

The basic pattern of mobile phone design was more or less settled in the 80's with the DynaTac, and the phones leading up to (but not including) the original iPhone were all refinements of that same original pattern. The same thing happened with smart phones: the original iPhone set the pattern and then there've been a number of refinements ever since.

I'm not saying the refinements aren't huge improvements (particularly when viewed collectively over a period of 10 years), but just that the basic pattern is relatively fixed most of the time.

> All these features are cool and somewhat exciting but nothing groundbreaking that will change computing/communications forever.

Personally, I'm not that excited about a world where there are are continual 'groundbreaking changes that will change computing/communications forever'. There's a lot to be said for consolidating the gains made in these periodic steps up in functionality, and taking the time to understand the new capabilities offered by each.

The iPhone was not a total revolution in phones the way you describe. They did not invent the touchscreen phone nor the smartphone. They improved them.

There were many not a few touchscreen phones before the iPhone, no multi-touch ones, and many crappy resistive screen phones that needed a sharp pointy thing to be kind of responsive.

Smartphones were just a niche before 2007 made them mainstream. The iPhone did to smartphones what the iPod did to digital music players, turning niche into norm.

Many phones at the time had web browsers, games, bluetooth support, played MP3s, et cetera. Look at the Motorola Razr as an example. They were smartphones.

This is just proof that a litany of features doesn't make a product.

Sure. Just very few people used them. Also, I know WAP looked great then, but today it looks kind of crappy.

> I know WAP looked great then,

You sure about that? I don't really have fond memories of WAP...

> The iPhone was not a total revolution in phones the way you describe.

It was a revolution because it actually sold and was relevant to more than just a handful of high-end users. (I had phones with e-mail, web, and app capabilities prior to an iPhone, but those features were all just sideshows until the iPhone made them useful. The only use I can remember having for J2ME apps was to play Yahtzee on a Sanyo 4900.)

> mobile phone design was more or less settled in the 80's with the DynaTac

The Star Trek communicator nailed the flip-phone design in 1966. The StarTac in 1996 was able to realize this: a quite different design from the DynaTac brick and its candy bar descendents.

> The StarTac in 1996 was able to realize this: a quite different design from the DynaTac brick and its candy bar descendents.

Having used both, the StarTac was pretty clearly an evolution of the DynaTac, in particular as far as the functionality goes. (But I tend to discount the significance of the flip phone physical design as any kind of major step forward. Which is borne out by the fact that it's so uncommon these days.)

I think in the future, we'll see the iPhone A.

A solid, feature-less block of aluminum.

With chamfered edges!

The past as the future:

http://pretotyping.blogspot.com/2010/08/one-of-my-favorite-p...

the HTC Vive.

I believe we are already living it. It is happening right now after the introduction of services like Whatsapp and WeChat. And all due to their simplicity and user friendliness. They just work for 99% of most modern world daily tasks, and solve a whole bunch of problems one way or the other. So maybe the real challenge for personal computing is connecting these wonder tools to everything else in world that is still complicated or hard to use, making them easy to use or accessible.

That you don't have a revolution like the first iPhone doesn't mean it's ever "done". When you sum up all the boring, evolutionary changes over the last 10 years you end up with something pretty outstanding. Especially if you compare it to the previous 10 years before that (back when operators more or less decided the feature set of the phones they would sell).

I doubt there will be another big revolution in personal computing until you have direct brain communication (implants or sensors/transmitters that look unobtrusive).

A cell phone iWatch could change its usecase quite substantially, but whether it'll find new uses remains to be seen.

These aren't phones anymore anyway. More portable data with communication.

More and more people don't own computers any more. They just use their phone for everything.

Yes, I meant these aren't designed as phones, so the question is a bit blurry.

I say that because I consider them completely different from late 90s cellphones. Design, interaction etc.

What we call a phone will evolve. Some great communication device or method will come about.

Pocket computers are pretty handy though. Maybe it will evolve into wrist computers or necklaces or something. The smart watches are coming along, but they all have the problem of screen real estate.

To be fair, phones have it too, but with the various zoom features and "readability" modes, they work around it.

I think we'll have something akin to the smartphones (whether or not they include a phone feature) until we have portable, practical, hands-free displays.

It will probably be a fashion accessory that rasters directly on the retina.

I don't have much to add, only to say that I generally agree.

I first started creating custom roms for the Sprint HTC Hero when it came out in 2009. It was my first Android phone and I was in love with everything about it. I was obsessed with getting the next new phone with new features every time a new one came out. I made pretty good money and saved most of it; buying new phones was the one thing I would splurge on.

Now it's 2017 and I have had the same phone for just under 2 years. Previously I wouldn't go 6 months without buying a new phone, so having the same one for 2 years seems like a lifetime. But I just don't feel like I have a reason to get a new one.

It feels like the same thing over and over again.

I've felt the same way. I went from crappy low-end Android devices when I had no money in school to a Nexus 4 and I haven't seen reason to upgrade since. The only reasons I've done so have been because I cracked a screen and because I wanted to hand down a device to someone else. Been sitting on my OnePlus One for a few years - looking at the market now and not seeing any reason to upgrade still.

Worse, I get worried about some newer devices which may make me less free - the Pixel has a very locked down boot process and the Magisk developer has been struggling to support it. I currently use Android Pay on my rooted device and I'm definitely not willing to pay to lose that freedom.

The N4 was the first phone I sat on for longer than a few months; it was such an amazing phone. The N5 was the next phone I bought and I kept that until my Xperia Z5 because I was not a fan of the N6. I was completely sold on the Nexus line until then.

I completely agree with you on newer devices being worse in some aspects, especially when it comes to rooting.

I always feel like around the 2 year mark my phone feels very different compared to when I bought it. Battery feels worse, everything feels slower, and crashes start to accumulate. Are you not running into this?

I have experienced that as well, but I feel it can usually be remedied by doing a factory reset. I also typically never do in-place upgrades for Android updates. I will download the full OS images (or the RUU/whatever updater is required for that brand phone) and do a full reset and restore. I will say for some reason this seems to be less of a problem on Sony Xperias that I have owned versus LG, HTC, Motorola, and others. But I for sure know what you're talking about.

>Do you think phones are a "done" thing? I mean what we are seeing these days is more of an evolution than revolution.

Evolution is how we got from primitive sea creatures to man.

>What do you think will bring the next revolution in personal computing and communications?

I think that there have not been many revolutions in personal computing and communications. It's all incremental evolution. The only actual big revolution was the invention of the digital computer and of networking.

Beyond that, well:

There were computers at homes before everybody got one.

There were mobile phones, even touch phones, before the iPhone and mp3 players before the iPod.

There were tablets before the iPad.

There was "internet" and "www" (ARPAnet, minitel etc) before the internet and the world wide web.

There were social networks before Facebook.

Heck, there were actually newspaper columns chronicling a person's opinions and everyday life before blogs.

I think phones are "done" in the same way laptops are "done" -- the form factor is established, and now it's about incremental improvements like better screens, better cameras, faster processors, AR, etc.

Unless someone invents a phone screen that can roll up like a piece of paper, I think phones are going to look the same for a long time.

Yet Apple has, for the first time in years IMHO, just delivered something worth discussing and mildly tempting.

What do you consider new, novel or innovative?

Face ID has been done, no home button has been done, big screen to the edges has been done. That notch thing is new, but ... doesn't seem interesting (it just obscures part of the screen).

It's certainly a leap for the iPhone for having amoled alone (having it on my old Samsung for years now but still). The notch thingy is important as a design element, showing us Apple's main product's full redesign with their new signature solution to the design trade-offs for an all-screen phone with front-facing camera, finger/bio scanner, etc.

> I sense something. A presence I've not felt since...

Phones are far from being done.

See for example this foldable paper computer concept: https://youtu.be/F3i7KBPAx4A?t=66

I love the idea of docking a phone to use the data/apps thereon, but with a larger display, ethernet, mouse, etc. I wrote an article about the concept back in 2005, and yet still, I wait.

Can the new camera technology be used to map spaces as big as rooms?

If so, this could be game changing for allowing the creation of VR spaces quickly and inexpensively. E.g., play a VR game in your real house after mapping it with your iPhone X. Or better, do a detailed remodel in VR before doing it in real life.

A lot of commercial uses of VR technology (e.g., construction, industrial design, etc.) can benefit from inexpensive, and accurate mapping. Today, the alternative is to get an architect to build a model of your house, to build a crude version yourself, have a Hololens/Tango phone/or other nascent and expensive technology.

If not, what truly is the game changing aspect of these cameras + specialized compute for machine learning/neural nets? They have to have thought through dozens of use cases beyond photos, animated emojis, and other trivial entertainment... right?

I doubt they expose an API since it's part of the security feature.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/arkit/arpointcloud

They are going to expose some of this functionality as part of their AR libraries. We know this from their Snapchat demo, as well as the gaming demo (though that used the rear camera, not front one).

So... yes, developers will be able to get their hands on some of this tech, but how much can we do with it?

If room mapping was truly possible, I would imagine they would have done more in their demo with this, e.g. see the Hololens game where robots come flying out of walls, and hide behind your couch. That demo was more substantial than seeing a flat tabletop with a projected 3d game, or a projected 3d robots standing on a flat basketball court.

I think you guys are talking about two different sensors. The 3-D sensor (the one that works like Kinect) is only on the front of the phone and I assume only for short range. That's the one the Snapchat demo used in the one that Face ID uses.

The AR demos of games use the normal cameras on the back of the device. That stuff will be available to any device 6S and up.

Someone has already built a measuring tape app out of this thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQpEWv9_6Cg. Not exactly mapping as you're describing, but it's an interesting use case.

Interesting - thanks for sharing.

I actually thought the trajectory app was pretty cool.

actually question - that video shows an ipad - does that mean you don't need the fancy new camera to do that?

I can't believe that video plays "under" the notch. I would have bet money that they would have blacked out the status bar during video playback.

I wouldn't be surprised if you could double-tap to zoom out, like when watching 4:3 videos on the current iPhone.

They do that—there's a video in this thread somewhere that shows it.

Yeah, some bizarre asymmetry there. I'd have preferred they just shrink the top/bottom bezels, similar to the Galaxy S8 or LG's V30. I can't see "the cutout" aging gracefully.

Charitably, I assume if you’re holding the phone with no bezel, your thumb has to cover up part of the screen anyway. So it’ll cover that space.

Otherwise that’s the dumbest design decision I’ve ever seen them make on the iPhone hardware. It’s worse than the protruding camera that they STILL have.

I never hold my phone with my thumb on the top... I have it cupped into my palm and if I really need to "hold" it I grasp the sides. Why is your thumb on the front?

Watch for the inevitable explosion of videos with important content (like "Apple sucks") placed in such a way that it will be hidden behind the notch.

They've designed it with maximum meme potential.

I'm sure they're going to let you make the status bar black to make the notch seamless.

That notch is definitely bizarre, It makes all the apps look weird.

That's what I assumed was going to happen, but nowhere in the keynote was it black.

It was black in Apple Music (now playing view).

They said that you CAN do that, the screen is wider than 16:9 so normal content will already be presented with black bars on the side anyway and you never have the notch covering content .

$1000 for higher fidelity snapchat features.

I love my iphone camera, and if the upgrade program isn't too terrible, I will get the iPhoneX, but call me underwhelmed.

The implementation of faceID seems really poorly thought out. I can unlock my phone, and navigate it before focusing my attention on it. I feel like "attention to unlock" is going to cause an increase in distracted driver related incidents.

Bet the chip that allow those snapchat feautures could be used for on-device machine learning, that'll open up really interesting app.

"This is an image straight out of the camera, with no post processing. All we've done is apply a Portrait Filter to fade out the background."

Uhhh, I guess that doesn't count as post processing, then.

These days, after the rise of dSLRs, post-processing is something that occurs after the image is saved to memory.

Raw sensor data to JPEG undergoes incamera processing. Cameras typically only allow small oversight of that process, so many photographers prefer to shoot RAW, and do 100% of the processing via post-processing.

That's apologist at best. I'm not disputing the feature is cool, or whatever. But what they're doing is unabashedly post processing. Come on, in most of the examples there were sliders to choose the effect, the intensity thereof.

To claim "well, it's not really post processing because you're doing it before 'saving'" (also doubtful because if it's an extension of what is currently possible with editing on the iPhone, it's an edit to a saved original) is grasping at a straws, as is comparing it to "raw-to-JPEG". This is 'straight out of Aperture/Lightroom' style editing, aka post processing.

If I remember right from the keynote, "no post processing" wasn't mentioned on the photos that had the new lighting feature. Even if it were, however, I'd still call it true; I would consider post processing something that you do outside of the Camera app (e.g. even editing it Photos to adjust lighting, black point, saturation). Something you do in the Camera app, even if it does some fancy "magic", I would argue falls outside of the post-processing realm.

You're certainly entitled to that opinion, as is Apple, but it basically flies against the definition of anything else in photography. "Straight Out Of Camera" is about taking the time and effort to nail something so that when you hit the shutter button, exposure, focus, composition are all "as the camera saw it", not "as the camera saw it and then image manipulation software found the subject, and applied a mask to the image to burn out the non-subjective areas while keeping the exposure of the subject as-is, if not enhanced".

Edit: Hell, even Apple's own iPhone X page up now says this:

"A new feature in Portrait mode, Portrait Lighting produces impressive studio‑quality lighting effects."

"Create beautiful selfies with sharp foregrounds and artfully blurred backgrounds."

Somehow, these are "effects" which don't fall under the umbrella of post-processing.

But this is a nitpick, admittedly. Nothing wrong with the feature or whatever, but it amused me to hear "No processing. Just [applied post processing]."

I wouldn't consider it post-processing because it's using data that's only available live. Making a live 3D mapping of a face and applying lighting effects to it will give you much better quality than applying lighting effects after the image has been saved.

"Create beautiful selfies with sharp foregrounds and artfully blurred backgrounds."

This occurs optically, by choosing the proper depth of field, and an appropriate focus point. The blurring of the background is "bokeh" and used in portraits, none of which is considered "post processing."

Clearly the iphone guts aren't nearly as capable as my 5D2, but my opinion is that if it's software that can produce a reasonable approximation of something that can be done optically (or in the case of studio lighting with a pair of strobes), it's fine to not be pedantic.

Unless I misread you, this is not what is happening here. That tiny camera/sensor combo is unable to do that narrow of a depth of field. There's a blur, but nowhere near that extent.

The “bokeh” here is completely software generated, and made quite the buzz last year. I remember reading a technical post by an Apple engineer explaining how they reinvented a way to do lens blur instantaneously on the phone.

How is it post-processing when it is happening automatically when you click? It's not something YOU have to do or take a creative call on.

The main point they were trying to make is that nobody cares, disciplined elitists are irrelevant, and everyone can realize their creative vision now. Thats what matters right?

Thats why the elitists originally got into the craft right?

FYI, iOS 11 no longer stores images in JPEG, but HEIF instead.

I believe they meant that in the sense that they didn't modify it in anyway on the computer, it's exactly what would show up on your photo roll on the device after you press the shutter button.

My understanding is that the iPhone applys GOBS of processing to reduce noise and do other things to make such beautiful looking photos from such a pathetically tiny sensor. I assume other phones do as well.

Very important point. With the current iPhone, by the time you have brought the phone up to look at it, it's already unlocked by Touch ID. It was very clear from the demonstration that there was a delay and he had to look directly at the phone. The phone did not even wake until he looked directly at it.

> I feel like "attention to unlock" is going to cause an increase in distracted driver related incidents.

Aren't you not supposed to use your phone when driving, and it is specifically against the law to do so in a lot of places? In any case, it's as distracting as using your phone currently because it seems that it doesn't have to be pointed directly in front of your face, as long as it gets a decent look at it.

>Aren't you not supposed to use your phone when driving

I know that when driving if we need something on my phone, my girlfriend uses it and I just put my finger out to unlock with my attention still solidly on the road

Couldn't you just tell her your passcode? That seems safer.

Not if you don't want the court to have access to your phone. Your wife can legally stay silent on your behave in the US. Girlfriend, not so much.

I have a general aversion to giving anyone enduring access to my accounts, but I don't have a problem giving people I trust temporary access.

Regarding safety, I don't think it's unsafe but would be happy to have my mind changed if you have more experience with the relative risks of driver distraction: my hand is on the wheel with a finger held out and she positions the touch id button under the finger, so I've still got both hands on the wheel & have full control in the event I need to steer out of the way of a hazard. I'd only do it on a straight stretch of road with no obvious hazards (and on top of that it's rare that it's needed, usually just if we need a contact number that was sent only to me).

I'd definitely not use FaceID while driving because I'd be uncomfortable taking my attention away from the road to look at a phone screen (even if it's just a glance just like checking the speedometer)

I feel the same way. Usually after I have given out the unlock code to my wife for one time use, I'll rotate it.

My wife tells me the unlock code for her phone occasionally, and I never have bothered to commit it to memory.

My toddler son watches me unlock the ipad for him, in a few weeks or so, he'll be able to unlock it himself.

> Aren't you not supposed to use your phone when driving

Yes, but while laws say one thing; 80% of your users say a different thing.

Unless Apple is being purposeful to work to reduce texting while driving.

You can text with Siri and there is a new Do Not Disturb mode while driving in a car.

This.

There are multiple scenarios where not looking directly at the phone comes handy. You mentioned the driver scenario, but there's more.

E.g before bed, I don't wanna look directly to my phone as it's annoyingly bright.

Or sometimes I want to use the phone while it's still in my pocket (for example, click Next Song ...).

I agree with the sentiment, but what did you plan to do after unlocking the phone in bed, with touch-id

"Hey Siri, turn the brightness all the way down."

Works for me for the first one. Don't pause after hey Siri; just make it one smooth utterance.

For the second one, not sure how you do that even with today's phones.

iOS 11 has a specific feature to deter people using the phone while driving: https://www.macrumors.com/2017/06/30/ios-11-do-not-disturb-w...

Wonder what the liability of that will be?

In WA, it's now illegal (a primary reason for a stop) to use the cellphone when you are in your car, unless you are in a parkinglot, pulled over.

Say with this new feature, you disable it, and you are found to cause an accident while being distracted, are you in more trouble because you knowningly disabled the phones safety features?

Also, I commute by bus everyday, so I will definitely be disabling the "are you sure you're not driving" warning.

The law didn't really change. It was already a primary offense to be using the phone. Before that, there were already distracted driving laws on the books. The only real difference now is that it can all be reported to your insurance company.

I don't see how this changes anything really. How are you going to be in more trouble? I don't think there are any laws regarding bypassing safety features of the phone. If it's not explicitly illegal to bypass the safety features, it's technically legal isn't it?

Texting was Illegal, as was holding the phone.

The new law Driving While Under the Influence of Electronics codifies this even more clearly. No more using phones, unless it's mounted on the dash, and you use minimal interaction (such as starting an app)

Same here, a tiny bit underwhelmed, not underwhelmed enough to get a Google Pixel successor for Daydream. If my cellular provider gives a decent upgrade and monthly payment plan, then I won't mind that it costs the same as an entry level macbook.

I'm glad the Iphone X is smaller than the Plus line, and has a more advanced dual camera system with the addition of a fast point cloud. That's good enough for me, I skipped the 7 because the smaller model didn't have the depth camera, and the bigger model was too big.

Face ID is marginally interesting, would like to use the API for more. I mean A FREAKING POINT CLOUD IN YOUR PHONE! Good bye Kinect! I can't wait to hover my hand over the screen for gestures, please open up the APIs.

Could we have a modicum of skepticism in repeating press releases?

>Thanks to this new design, the iPhone X is sealed for water and dust resistance.

So the iPhone 7, which does not use this design, was not water and dust resistant? I know this is a meta point, but it's annoying. Apple can say whatever they like in their releases, but it would be nice to have people familiar with the domain do a smell test on the content.

I don't think they said that it wasn't.

I think he's saying that because the iPhone 7 was also water resistant, it cannot be that the new one is so due to the new design, given the old one allowed for it too.

I've accepted that the headphone jack is never coming back no matter how much I'd like it to. I still can't accept that a company that is so focused on design has accepted the ever-growing camera protrusion in order to make the phone "thinner".

My 6s has a scuffed camera ring, and rattles when used on a table, due to its inability to lay flat.

I guess they've also have accepted that people are going to use a cover anyway, so they don't bother.

> My 6s has a scuffed camera ring, and rattles when used on a table, due to its inability to lay flat.

Exactly. This was my first impression when I saw that protruded camera on iPhone 6.

I don't know if this differs from country to country, but the vast majority of iPhones I observe are not in a case — probably at least 90%. The design is a major selling point, so I'm not surprised most people don't want to use a case.

Most iPhones I see around are in a case. I personally don't like that, but if you're going to type on a flat table, you'd better use a case to flatten the back of the iPhone, avoiding those rattlings.

I observe the reverse - 90% in a case. But then again, I'm in an older, wiser demographic.

The phone before that, where the camera was flat, is the one where everyone's pictures got foggy after a while. It's because the little lens cover would get scratched over time, since it sat flush. The protrusion is intentional to ensure the outer ring is scratched, instead of the lens cover. That's a feature.

I cannot get around the missing headphone jack. My headphones cost more than this new iPhone :(

ditto - I'm fearing dongles in all of our futures.

They're clearly banking on wireless chargers becoming mainstream and ubiquitous, leaving the lightning connector for headphones. The dongle madness seems less mad if you can charge all your doodads with the one watchacallit.

> They're clearly banking on wireless chargers becoming mainstream and ubiquitous, leaving the lightning connector for headphones.

Well, true, but they're also banking on wireless headphones.

Have you tried AirPods? Or the Beats headphones that have the same wireless chip?

I think they might be right. I never cared about wireless headphones until I tried AirPods and there're so incredibly convenient that I use them all the time now.

Now I understand why so many people said wireless headphones were amazing.

> Have you tried AirPods? Or the Beats headphones that have the same wireless chip?

I have not. I like the design, and hate cables, they're just a bit more money than I'd like to spend on headphones right now. When the price drops, I'll check them out.

Is the sound quality of the lightning to headphone jack adapter inferior to the built-in DAC of previous models?

I’d think the problem is in having to carry an adapter with you all the time, which is easy to forget.

I just left mine plugged into the headphone connector on the headphones. I briefly considered keeping a rubber band on them to tie to adapter to on the rare occasions when I needed to plug it into something else, but it wasn't actually a big issue for me.

Alternatively, they also have bluetooth transmitters that plug into the jack on your headphones now that you can use. But I don't know what the battery life of UI convenience is on those. I switched to the Beats X for listening on my iPhone and have never been happier. The occasional frustration of not charging my headphones pales in comparison to the everyday frustrations of untangling wires all the time.

Disclaimer: I do not own, or use, i Devices, and refuse to buy any laptop > 700€, or phone > 250€.

I personally use my Sennheiser headphones on the PC, but also on the phone, and elsewhere. I got them from my parents when I was young, and, just like my parents used their top-of-the-line sennheiser headphones their entire life, I plan on using mine for the next 60 years, and I’ve got one single set of them.

So leaving an adapter plugged in isn’t optimal, nor is buying new headphones. Because, who are we kidding, in 60 years lightning and USB will be long gone, but 3.5mm Klincke will still exist.

Why don't you just get a set of headphones (https://www.sony.com/electronics/headband-headphones/mdr-1ad...) with a lightning connector and a built in DAC?

Maybe they don't want to spend $400 for specialty headphones that pretty much only work with the iPhone.

Because wireless headphones work with all BT devices and cost hundreds of dollars less.

They are also convenient to use while commuting and while working out, which is basically 95% of my time using headphones with my phone. Ambient noise while walking, riding a bus, or being in a gym is generally too noisy to prioritize audio fidelity anyway. That's not what listening to music on my portable phone is for. I have better headphones for my desk.

It's not even that it's easy to forget, it's that it's annoying. More bulk in my pocket, and now if I want to switch from my phone to my computer I've got to unplug two things instead of one.

No, I don't consider bluetooth to be a great solution, either. I've got more than enough individual things to worry about keeping charged already. It's like the electrical outlet is trying to give birth to a damn squid every evening.

Nope. According to this guy, it's actually slightly better.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-qua...

Is the DAC even good enough in the iPhone at that point? Even if you had a straight jack audiophile headphones are probably not getting much benefit over, say, Bose headphones are they?

The internal DAC is good enough when I am on my feet. Its more about stability and convenience than sound quality in this situation. Its inconvenient to carry an additional adapter which gets accidently disconnected more easily than a jack.

I use an external DAC (Beyerdynamic A200p) when I use my notebook or my iPhone stationary.

Edit: I use Shure SE846 as headphones.

Does a DAC even matter? Would love to see blind test showing they make a difference.

Do you know what a DAC is? They "make a difference" by allowing you to analog headphones. So more so "required"...

Yes thread is about quality of DAC not if a DAC is required.

Do headphones even matter after a certain price point? http://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/1.4984044

Headphones sound different. Open air ones, closed, planar etc. Don't all DACs sound the same like amplifiers(unless its a tube)?

Apple's DACs are excellent. Here's an analysis of the Lightning adapter, for instance:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-qua...

It wasn't the only reason I switched to a Pixel after 10 iPhone years, but it probably was what made the decision so easy.

Rumors say that Pixel 2 is dropping the jack as well, so it looks like many manufacturers are following suit.

I'd be okay if they removed the headphone jack if the box came with 2x USB-C headphone jack converters (for when I naturally lose the first one). And they sell them everywhere for $5-10 at most.

If I had to go to an Apple store every time I lost my headphones and had to pay $20 for a new converter I'd go crazy. And I heard they don't even come with a free one with new iPhone's? (I could be wrong here)

This is the real core of the problem to me... they have to make legacy support extremely seamless after making an extreme early adopter product transition to wireless headphone tech. At least with the lighting chargers they are everywhere and cheap.

iPhone 7 comes with a pair of Lightning EarPhones and a Lightning to 3.5 mm jack adapter.

Are those the "earpods" or whatever? Since they started making those, I have thought of them as absolute garbage. The sound quality is terrible, they don't block any external audio, they constantly fall out.

Maybe I just have stupid shaped ears or something, but I have always thought as apple-brand "earpods" as gilded shit.

Apologies for the rough language, I just cannot express strongly enough how much I despise those "earbuds."

No, these are the wired headphones with an updated Lightning connector.

> The sound quality is terrible, they don't block any external audio, they constantly fall out.

I think the first two problems stem from the third, namely, they don't fit your ears.

> Maybe I just have stupid shaped ears or something

Yes, that is one issue with these headphones is that they don't seem to fit in everyone's ears. I'm not sure if there's an easy fix for this.

I'm pretty sure some people sell little silicone covers for them, but I can't help but think that just buying headphones that fit would work much better.

Ah, good, found out from the person they got the phone through a third-party and didn't get either of those with it (and didn't know they should have).

Lightning jacks get accidently disconnected more often than 3.5 jacks when I move around. Also the Lightning connector wears out faster because of the stress a cable imposes on it. For instance, the Lightning connector on my iPhone 6S suffers from a defective contact already. The 3.5 headphone connector is fine, even when I use it much more.

I mean, 1) The Apple adapter is $9 and 2) it's not just Apple that sells them. I'm sure they're sold in just as many places, if not more, than would sell a USB-C adapter.

Well, I said I would be okay with it given those conditions... Like any new tech there will always be a transition period where it's more expensive and less accessible, but there are ways to help mitigate that pain which I've seen vendors neglect in the past, so these concerns are not entirely unfounded.

I personally have not used an iPhone recently to have an opinion on how well Apple currently does it.

Plus the 7 came with one in a box, and it seems the 8 and X will also come with one in the box.

I'm still looking for a place to plug in my expensive 5mb SCSI drive.

The difference, of course, is that while a SCSI drive is out-of-date, a headphone jack is not; it is, in fact, superior in every way to a Bluetooth audio connexion.

The headphone jack isn't superior in the requires-plugging-in-way. It's also analog and therefore lossy.

Audio going to the wireless earbuds will require another round of lossy compression and decompression. And I'm sure we all remember what they said about doing lossy compression and decompression multiple times...

That's going to require a few adapters.

I'm sorry, but if you have headphones of such grade why are you sticking them into phones in the first place? As opposed to something like Astell and Kern offerings?

External DACs are inconvenient when I just walk around. Also the iPhone DACs are good enough when I am mobile. There is almost always noise around me anyway, even if the IEMs are good at isolation.

The reason to buy these expensive headphones is not only sound quality, but build quality. Before I bought better IEMs, normal / cheap in-ear headphones lasted like 3 to 6 months.

You should definitely look into Astell and Kern then. They are mp3 players with their own music service with audiophile-grade outputs.

I think there is already a case you can buy for the previous iPhone which has a headphone jack included.

How's that floppy drive working out for ya?

It seems like iPhone X would have been the perfect candidate to switch to USB-C. I had thought this would have been a long time coming given the USB-C only approach on MacBooks, yet it remains curiously absent. I really don't understand the fracture in the Apple ecosystem in regards to connectivity here.

Can anyone enlighten me as to why Apple are still using the Lightening connector here?

Honestly, when Tim said "one more thing", I thought they're going to introduce a whole new line of products, like the Surface Phone we've heard rumors of. A device that only looks like a phone, but is in fact, a whole PC. iPhone X proved to be just another iPhone, nothing more.

There's a surprising amount of people who don't own a computer and use their phone as their only device.

Yeah me too. He raised his voice and I was really expecting something significant.

Some AR glasses? Self driving car?

Oh, another iPhone.

They make money on every product that wants to connect to Lightning.

Ah I hadn't thought about inoperability with peripherals from other manufacturers. I was focused on the need for adapters within the apple ecosystem (e.g. charging an iPhone from a MacBook). This still seems very inelegant but perhaps the Apple we have today has a beauty that is only surface deep.

If you switch to usb-c without a headphone port, then you've got to come out with two lines of headphones (actually, three, since they still make regular headphones). Also you ditch a whole ecosystem of peripherals, like the Square dongle, that are built around lightning. I dunno. It's something apple might do, but there are tradeoffs. I wish they would switch to usb-c so I could connect my iphone to my mbp without an adapter, but alas.

Probably not a good sign that FaceID failed on stage for Craig on his first try (had to use a passcode to log in) during the demo.

Nah, he used his backup iPhone and it worked!

I hope they include a backup iPhone with every purchase.

I saw that- I am very curious how this will pan out as its released. I am wondering how well it will really adjust to your face changing(for instance a significant weight loss/gain, or injury)

It looked like he had a backup phone for that. For the fingertip version every once in a while you have to put in the passcode. I assume that's what happened in his case as well...

Me (as he gets ready to unlock): "Well, it's Apple, so it's got to work better than that horrendous alpha version of facial recognition on that POS Samsung Note...oops, guess not."

I don't think it failed, it just said you had to use passcode on first login after restart, just like the touchID

It totally failed, those guys repeat those demos for months and there is absolutely no way the phone was in such a state.

It looks like it unexpectedly rebooted prior to the demo as the message on the screen was something like "You must enter your passcode before using Face ID".

Something similar comes up on reboot for touch ID users. You have to enter your passcode once on startup to decrypt the storage where the fingerprint data is stored.

Should be pretty easy to find out in a replay or screenshot. If it was indeed after restart it’s not failed but a deliberate design decision.

He went to the backup phone after and said as much, it clearly failed. No way that was intended behavior.

what does your touch id do if you have doritos on your thumb, or your phone in the shower too long?

(it asks for your pin)

The message during the demo said "Your passcode is required to enable Face ID"

This indicates an error. When you have too many failed Touch ID attempts, the iPhone says "Your passcode is required to enable Touch ID"

After you restart your phone, the message is "Touch ID requires your passcode when iPhone restarts"

Bill Gates got a BSOD during a big demo. Shit happens.

This is also a classic worth watching: https://youtu.be/2Y_Jp6PxsSQ?t=31s

Double the...

This. https://youtu.be/IW7Rqwwth84

They put that stupid black thing at the top of the phone...

Unsure why this was downvoted, but that black bar at the top really ruins the "full screen" effect.

They just showed a full screen video and the black bar was blocking part of the video. This looks really bad while demoing with views animated in real time.

The Essential phone has a dot in the middle but The Verge review said that you get used to it and it becomes invisible essentially.

Why would you want to get used to missing a part of the content displayed in full screen?

Content doesn't go missing that's why. When you are watching a video that part of the screen is not used on Android. The area would be a black bar at the top/side and Android doesn't put anything in that part of the screen(middle) when in an app or homescreen

I would have nothing against it if that's the case, but that's not what they showed in the demo.

I hope by the time I upgrade they figure out how to get the screen overtop all the cameras. The black section looks horrible.

I think the original rumors said they were trying to make the cameras work beyond the glass/display but winded up not quite getting it to work, so they winded up with the notch this time.

The plan is to remove that next year and sell it as iPhone X1. You want to this milk this for profit every year.

"Our vision has always been to create an iPhone that is entirely screen." so they failed thus far

It looks ok on the homescreen but they should disable the corners for videos.

just looking at their own website it becomes so glaring on any screen where the background isn't black. for me it actually looks worse than keeping a border area.

I agree; the cutout steals my attention each time I see it since it's so stark when the background isn't black. I would have rather it just have a small forehead.

No. What Ive means by that is they were bound by the constraints in technology so far so they could not achieve this vision so far.

This is similar to what James Cameron said after filming 'Avatar' that his vision was to create such a film for more than a decade but slow technology advancement was the reason he could not make this film sooner.

Yes, they have failed so far. It's not all screen. It's got a small bezel and the sensor notch at the top. They will need to develop different materials to support a strong bezel-free phone and sensors that sit inside/behind the screen. They are not there yet.

The line wasn't that they succeeded in the vision. He was laying out what the vision was.

>"Our vision has always been to create an iPhone that is entirely screen." so they failed thus far

This mentality is why our political system is so disfunctional.

> This mentality is why our political system is so disfunctional.

Is it? I thought it was simply a tongue in cheek response. Didn't seem entirely seriously to me.

And are still failing.

There is a difference between goals and vision.

Ugh. So wireless charging is great. I really wanted that because having tried some Qi cases and charging gear, it is pretty magical. And the decision to use a glass back makes sense there.

However, Apple seems to just forget that people use their damn phones in cars. Waze is my GPS because no matter how much my car's built in GPS tries, it's not going to be as good as a thing connected to the internet. And in the car I hate to use the damn charger, so yay wireless charging right? Not so fast. Your choices are limited to a big clunky clamp style holder, or a little tiny magnetic holder that usually goes over one of the vents. Guess what? Magnetic holders don't work with wireless charging. Or rather they could, but the ones I've tried (available on Amazon) were complete shit that broke almost immediately.

There are several options to fix this problem:

a. Car manufacturers could include some kind of standard solution to this. At the least they could make a spot to easily mount a phone and make sure it doesn't obscure the driver's view too much while still being visible. Instead they keep insisting on adding bigger and bigger screens. Sometimes they'll go as far as adding a touch screen (looking at you Tesla) for no goddamn reason. Just give me a nice place to put an aftermarket phone cradle. Or at least don't add a 22" monitor where I want to put one.

b. Apple and/or Samsung could lead the industry in making wirelessly charging magnetic car mounts. It's not impossible to do, and magnets would actually help align the phone so charging is efficient wrt the induction coil used. Sure it has a nice glass back, but who gives a crap if I now need to add an ugly rubber case with a 2.5" steel washer to it just to get it mounted?

I get that Apple thinks CarPlay is their long term solution to this. But I think universal adoption by car manufacturers on that one is probably at least 5 years away. And even so, lifetime of older cars is like what 15-20 years?

This is why we can't have nice things.

BMW (at least, I can't speak for other car manufacturers) do have a wireless charging pad type thing inside the centre console.

You do realise the phone can still be charged with a cable, right?

I know BMW has that. The point of their thing is that you can't use the phone while it's in there. They have "apps" that connect to their display. It's complete crap.

Of course you can charge with a cable. But you shouldn't. Wireless only charging would be fantastic. They already got rid of the headphone jack. Why do we need a data port?

Also, having a dedicated spot on the dashboard would mean not having to run dangling cables all over the place.

Couple of issues here, speaking as a facial recognition developer, of arguably one of the leaders in the industry.

1) The use of 3D data is a step in the right direction, but to use it reliably it has to constantly re-calibrate to the individual(s) it is supposed to pass. This is very important and a constant issue if using a person's 3D depth data as their face for authentication. My employer pioneered the use of 3D data for facial recognition, via 3D reconstruction, before scanning and depth cameras were feasible. In doing so, we became aware of the significant variation an individual's 3D facial form undergoes during any time period: different times of the day, yes, significant 3D facial form transformation; different days, definitely. Females significantly more, as they experience 3D form transformations simply from their menstrual cycle. Men who drink, less so than women, also gain significant facial form transformations on a weekly basis. Over the course of a season, everyone undergoes significant 3D form transitions, to the degree authentication is not reliable unless constant re-calibration occurs. Which introduces issues of system failure after indeterminate lapses of use, or sudden physical transformation - such as an accident, where your face is swollen. A person could be attacked, and their face altered to the degree their phone no longer authenticates. A person could fast for 2 days, not use their phone, and it will no longer pass.

2) They should be using multiple biometrics for authentication. The facial image in combination with the depth information, if treated separately with completely separate verification trained algorithms, only counts as two biometrics. Reliable authentication of a device attached to one's credit cards and finances requires a MINIMUM of 3 biometrics. They could solve that with the addition of Touch-ID or the addition of a pass code in addition to the face image and the face 3D depth data. But that borders on 'inconvenience', and I feel consumer pleasing stupidity. Sometimes being safe should require an extra step, simply so the consumer has the assurance their data is safe. It's like hearing the click as the lock on your door seals. Too automatic, and it's insecure because one never knows if it is active.

However, ignoring the face as authentication, the iPhone just became a very slick 3D avatar creator.

Ad 1): They briefly mentioned in the keynote that Face ID does indeed adapts to gradual changes like growing a beard. So, that form of recalibration seems to be part of the concept.

It has to be.

Do you have reason to doubt that Apple did not do all of this or even more? In the end we’ll see but one indicator is that the banks at least let them use Apple Pay with FaceId. I am guessing here but I suppose they will still get the “card present” tarifs and if I recall correctly that was tied to the fact that banks deemed TouchId a sufficient form of authentication.

Not hating on your points, because they're valid, but the sudden transformation part of #1 strikes me as similar to when your hands are wet and you're trying to use TouchID. The phone will shake the passcode prompt a few times and eventually give up and ask you for your passcode.

I don't really see a problem with this. Apple has done a good job of making it known their biometrics aren't perfect, and will err on the side of caution when tested with strange inputs. You're not allowed to setup the phone without a passcode, and it serves as the final barrier to access if biometrics fail.

Face ID. I'd swear this was satire if I wasn't watching it with my own eyes.

CCC hack of face id arriving in 5..4..3...

Face data is never sent to server, stored on device.

True, but your face data is also saved on any photo anybody might have of you. It's not that hard to generate a 3d model from that.

"not that hard" to whom? A state operator doing a targeted attack, most likely not.

Local police? No fucking way. Random phone thief? Don't make me laugh.

And people seem to actively "forget" that this is a learning model, getting better with every unlock. Just like TouchID, but better.

They talked about how masks can't fool it, so I'd expect that a 3D model won't either.

They (ok, a different they) also said that the iris scan can not be fooled, and how long did that last?

the hack will be to unlock the i-phone with a photo or some probe. i'd guess starbuck will need less than 5 days.

Of course it's easy. But it's a severe threat model. Targeted physical attacks aren't really on the list of concerns for most people. And if you are worried about it, you shouldn't be using touch or voice unlock either.

Targeted physical attacks are a bigger concern than people often assume - think abusive relationships.

It sounds like this in some ways is a step forward from touch id in that regard, but we'll have to see.

Presumable the IR sensor will know that your photo or replica is not body temperature. That said, maybe heating up your fake with a hair dryer will work?

Why the downvote? All of these system have been proved easy to trick. Do you really think depth perception is a real hurdle? 3d printers do exist. It is based on IR detection of projected points, so you might even be able to fake it with a specially prepared photo (for example with holes for the ir points) and an ir source behind it.

You could be right, but it seems to me there is a lot of data going into that thing, if it is designed to not just check the data for matches, but also self-consistency across inputs it could be a pretty high bar... I imagine it does depth, IR temp checking (nose colder than face, etc.), image, and maybe even a couple ms of time monitoring to make sure the face is pliable and maybe even has realistic deformability.

I didn't hear the live stream audio. Did they announce anything in that direction?

Just a guess from the types of sensors and the custom ASIC that was designed to integrate them... at 600 billion operations per second it certainly seems like it would be capable of real-time integration and validation of all those things.

I wonder if the ir camera could be used for other purposes. If it can actually read the temperature, that's a neat trick. Probably can't though (see prices of flir lepton), I'd guess it is a b/w camera sensitive in the 700-800 nm range.

But still, with the dot projector, and that kind of processing power, they should be able to detect 3d gestures, similar to leap motion.

Can't speak for anyone else, but you are making the tiresome and fundamental mistake of arguing about a security system without actually considering economics, usage, and threat scenarios, which are key things that define security.

>All of these system have been proved easy to trick.

By what standard, and in comparison to what? Even ignoring that implementations vary dramatically and importantly in inherent hardness [1], even what you're describing is already significant effort. In terms of security categorization, what you're describing ("3d prints", "specially prepared photo", whatever) all fall into the fundamental form of a targeted physical attack. But once we're into targeted physical attacks everything becomes much harder. Passcode? We live in a world where cameras are everywhere already and becoming more ubiquitous still, along with drones. Even simple shoulder surfing is a thing, but when you're out in public and need to unlock your phone how certain are you really that there is not a single camera, anywhere, pointed in your direction? Even if it's not directly down at the screen merely seeing your finger/thumb movements may be enough. How much work are users in general actually willing to go through to unlock something they use constantly for often very short bursts of immediately desired information? Because if your system isn't actually something people will use and has a good work/value tradeoff, it's worthless. It's not the people who are wrong, it's the system.

This is why threat scenarios are vital in security evaluations, always. In general, there is a big topological difference between scalable attacks and targeted attacks, and with remote vs physical presence requirements. Coming up with convoluted attacks and scenarios quite literally misses the entire point. You need to consider what a system is trying to do, how well it does it, what it is trying to defend under what circumstances, the value therein, the audience targets, etc etc. You didn't do any of that, and on HN people really should know better.

FWIW, I do have significant concerns about Face ID, both in terms of implementation in practice, and in terms of how amenable it is to some real practical security practices I'd like to see like coercion code/variable unlock for example. But my list of concerns do not include anything that relates to a targeted physical attack unless it proves trivially scalable in the real world, as that's outside the core scope.

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1. Seriously, it's immensely irritating how many tech people think ideas, theory and so forth have much of any value whatsoever vs real world implementations, or think they can always talk broad categories rather then specific implementations.

I can change my passcode from time to time. I don't want to change my face.

Same with all biometric information, there are tradeoffs to every security measure.

Someone running around with a perfect 3D model of your face isn't an every day occurrence, though.

If a common thief needs to go through the trouble of buying a 3d printer, etc., then I don't think it's as big a deal.

Sure, when it comes to more organized crime or the government they'd be more capable. But at that point if you really want to protect your data then I don't think an iPhone is where you want to be putting that data in the first place..

Or I'm wrong.

Probably right, depends on how much value you can extract from the phone. Just to resell it, probably not. Use the apple wallet from some rich guy, maybe. Getting nude photos of some celeb off a phone you stole is worth a 3d printer easily.

And people faces are 3D scanned every time they have a flight...

Windows says hello. I imagine in an non-fixed setting like an mobile phone, trying to peek at your phone while not drawing attention to it (meeting or otherwise) will probably be somewhat of a challenge

Windows Hello is pretty good for fixed or semi-fixed devices (e.g. Surfaces, Laptops, desktops) but really not great for mobile.

Hats/sunglasses/rain/lighting all cause problems for mobile devices and face recognition.

It'll be interesting to see if/how Apple overcome those problems

They worked with Hollywood mask makers. On the keynote they said it still knows you if you're wearing a scarf, sunglasses, grow a beard...

Touch ID: 1:50,000

Face ID: 1:1,000,000

Well everyone will need to wait for real-world tests to be sure, but I'd be quite surprised if they've got it good enough to work when someone is wearing a hat and sunglasses and yet still be secure enough to have a very low false-positive rate.

They generate a depth-map of the face with a pattern projector and IR-camera. Facial bone structure will be unaffected by superficial changes. I suspect things that obscure large portions of the face, like large glasses or a sudden thick beard will give it some difficulties.

That's what the marketing material says. I'd like to wait for some real world tests to determine if this works anywhere near as well as they say it does. My intuition says not, but I'd like to be surprised.

Those numbers don't mean shit if you don't say how you got to them.

Windows Hello was one of the first things I disabled on my surface. When I was working with someone, it annoyed the shit out of me to have to turn the laptop real quick to log back in, etc. Sometimes I just wanna activate it without looking, and it had to "wait" a couple seconds to realize I wasn't looking and wanted to just spend .3 microseconds to throw my PIN in.

Much easier to just 100% of the time splat out 4 numbers.

I find I type my PIN faster than Windows Hello works, more often than not, and yeah it is easier to surreptitiously punch a pin under a table than bring your phone to face distance.

A little surprising given all of their previous talk about "Leading innovation in security" to pick a technology that is inherently insecure

Unsure about the downvotes, do you really buy Apples 1 in a million numbers here? Really? This tech has proven to be unreliable before and is nothing more than security theater and for a minor convenience

Proven how? You mean when people like Samsung or HP just do a very simple photo match where you can hold up a literal picture and it gets recognized?

Apple is using 3-D scan data as well as infrared reflectivity and for all we know temperature sensing. You can't compare the two.

Did you have something that's a closer comparison?

"Face data"

what if it is dark? this guy even had issues just using it on stage

It probably uses an IR light source to illuminate your face invisibly. Trouble on stage may have been from stage lighting drowning out the IR, though that parts just speculation. I didn't watch

It definitely uses IR, they said so. The failed attempt was caused by a rebooted phone, it wanted the passcode even before it saw his face.

Right, but I was saying it probably uses an IR _source_ to illuminate your face in the dark. Then again, humans probably just emit enough IR without it.

It uses an infrared camera, dot projector, and floodlight. It doesn’t appear to rely on ambient lighting.

But the guy did have issues on stage...

Pre-production phone. Beta software. Mistakes happen.

The issues were because the phone had just been restarted, which disables Face ID.

Projector-based 3D face recognition. Nifty. Shines an IR dot pattern onto the face, recognizes with that, works in the dark. Seems on continuously, wonder how much power draw.

I'd bet ~30 days with this in the public's hands we will see headlines like "How to beat iPhone's facial recognition with X". There are some crafty folks out there--

They look like they worked hard to cover that, even training the network to reject 3D face models done up by Hollywood makeup artists. It's hard to see how you'd spoof it better than that.

This is a fundamental issue with developing secure software/tech in a private. You have to hope you are the smartest team in the world and that you thought of everything. It's you vs everyone else.

Doesn't really have to look like a hollywood mask though, fooling neural networks is a growing area of research these days: http://www.evolvingai.org/fooling

There are probably many redundancies in face ID, but I wouldn't be surprised if some interesting techniques for fooling it show up.

These approaches assume you have access to the trained neural network weights, i.e. that it's a "white box".

Since it's based on neural nets, I think there might be ways, but they will likely not work consistently.. they will only work in certain conditions. Also note that they also track head position (must face camera) and check the eyes (must be open and look at the camera).. this will be hard to get right all at once.

Sunglasses?

I'll be surprised if this works for me as a blind person. There's no way I could directly look at the camera. I don't need the iPhone X since I don't care about camera quality, but if touch id starts being removed from all new iphones I will be giving Android a long hard look.

Is Android support for visually impaired users still as spotty as it used to be?

I'm not sure. It was truly bad in the Android 2.3 days. I own a Moto E since it was cheep and I was curious if Android had improved. Running 5.1 was pretty accessible, but was slow which is expected since it's a low end phone. Android apps on a chromebook work pretty well, but who knows how that will translate to a modern mid range Android phone.

Apple's pretty good at accessibility, they may have thought of that with one of their settings.

They seem to work so hard at making sure all their products work well for people various levels of vision problems I have to believe they would've done something. After all even the Apple TV has support for people with total vision loss. I don't see why they'd break their flagship product.

If it's true that touch id was expected to ship until a couple months ago they may not have found an alternative. If they are expecting touch id to be in next years model I could see them not making face unlock accessible since you can still get new iPhones with touch id. Remember Apple did not make the iPhone accessible until the 3gs, so there's no guarantee that new features will be accessible.

I wasn't aware that the 3G didn't have accessibility, but they've trumpeted it a lot over the last few years so I have a hard time thinking they would just give it up.

I mean you could just make a setting that ignores whether someone is "looking" at the phone. It would make it a little less secure but at least it would still work.

I have a very hard time believing the rumors that they took touch ID out at the last moment. Maybe when people do teardowns will see some empty space but I figured that something they would've had to lock down early in the year.

I've got to admit I'll miss touch ID. I wonder if it'll ever come back if they figure out a way to get that sensor-under-the-screen thing going, or at this point do they just decide Face ID is good enough and go forward with it alone?

Update: an article I read this morning says you can choose to disable the attention checking.

Also, what happens when I shave my big beard off? :( Or grow it bushier?

They had that as a test case in the video and said that the phone will learn that.

As long as you keep unlocking your phone while your beard grows, it'll learn your new face.

Fine, but how can it possibly learn while I shave the beard off?

I think it depends on the amount of beard you shave off.

Worst case is that you have to use the passcode and it'll relearn your beardless face.

Yeah I'm not sure if that's new or not but it's the first I've heard of it. That seems like a really cool idea.

It’s technically an older concept, and has been used previously for other kinds of 3D scanning of people, but this seems to be the first mainstream miniaturized version of this.

Isn't this what the Kinect does to determine who you are and sign you on for the Xbox? I think that's been around for 4-5 years. Impressive they can do it all on the phone.

It is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTKlNGSH9Po

They bought the company Primsense that did the original Kinect in 2013, seems obvious now why.

Apple actually bought company (PrimeSense) that was responsible for Kinect sensor and it seems to work the same way. It's just impressive that they manage to fit it inside these size phone. Google tango devices are bigger.

Not unique, but fitting that hardware on a phone is pretty incredible.

Likely only on when the screen is on, and the device is locked. So maybe a total of 5 minutes a day?

I'm not a camera hardware expert, but my understanding is that (like most things), the booting process uses up more power than the same duration of time in a steady state. So the "five minutes" number is misleading; if that 5 minutes is broken up into hundreds of discrete startup cycles (which is not at all unrealistic - people instinctively check their phone a lot more often than they think – and there's no way for the phone to tell whether you're turning it on to glance at the clock or to unlock it until after it's turned the camera on), then it's a significant amount of power draw.

There were indications during the presentation that it actually runs face recognition often, including as a power-saving technique (sounded like it would turn screen off when you weren't looking at it, back on when you do).

It probably activates when the phone is raised or held at certain angles. They're pretty smart at recognising the ways devices are held and moved, such as with the watch activating when you raise and turn your wrist to check the time.

Also when Craig demonstrated it, he raised the phone, looked at it and also swiped up from the bottom. If that's how it works, they might activate the sensors at the beginning of the swipe gesture.

Regardless, they said the phone gets 2 hours better battery life. That's pretty remarkable.

Fantastic for when I'm skiing or in bed with half my face stuck in a pillow.

Maybe turn your face 45 degrees for a second?

Or just use the passcode if you're unable to do that for some reason.

When you're skiing you're also unlikely to use touch id.

This is a very fair point.

Can be used by police to unlock your phone by pointing it at your face.

THIS is all I could think since the rumors started. If someone wants to steal your phone can't they just hold you for 1 second and point the phone to your face to unlock it?

iCloud Activation Lock still applies unlocked or not, you need to enter passcode to disable it.

Also if you close your eyes or look away it wont unlock, arguably harder to force than putting someones finger on the phone

Sure, but it might be stronger than fingerprints. If your eyes look away it won't unlock.

Also, there's a "cop button", in iOS 11 you can disable touch/face id by pressing the power button quickly 5 times.

They should have an option to lock your phone, disabling face recognition, on voice command.

How is that any different than them forcing your finger onto a TouchID sensor?

It's not. Anybody who uses iPhone authentication methods other than a random six digit passcode with a ten-attempt wipe is asking for trouble.

Can't help wondering what the next model will be called given what a dead end "X" is.

After OS X they never went to 11. They codenamed the 10.N versions but it doesn't seem likely with a "iPhone X 10.2 mushroom badger"-type name.

Best guess: they'll just call it the iPhone next year. Like some other products they'll just use the model year to distinguish. Guessing we won't even see the "iPhone XS", it'll just be "iPhone (2018)".

My question is: What are they going to call the normal iPhone after iPhone 9? iPhone 10?

My guess is that next year they drop the numbers and it just becomes the iPhone, the iPhone plus, and the iPhone X (or something similar).

We have iOS 11 which I think is a good indication that Apple isn’t avoiding the number 11. They’ve officially broken the ‘s’ pattern by skipping the 7s and going right to 8, so I’d say the most likely name for the next iPhone is iPhone 11.

Is it just me or does the big fat shiny frame on the iPhone 10 completely destroy it's aesthetic appeal and kills the 'infinity' effect?

It looks really clunky to me.

"Looks clunky" and you've only seen some rendered images of it on screen :D

it has pretty thick bezel. I think the overall design is evocative of the original iphone with metal wraparound molding, but I think Apple compromised aesthetics in exchange for better drop test durability. From head one, it's definitely not an attractive phone, far from it.

I'm bothered by the move to TouchID and now FaceID from a "the government can make you unlock your phone" standpoint. Legally, the precedent is that the government can force you to use "something you are" like your face or fingerprint to unlock your phone. Currently there is at least some ambiguity to the precedents that say they can't require you to unlock your phone with "something you know" like a pin or password because of that could be construed as self-incrimination and forbidden by the bill of rights.

If you're worried about law enforcement requiring you to unlock your phone DO NOT USE TOUCHID OR FACEID.

I'm pretty sure turning the device off and on requires a passcode.

Not always possible if law enforcement is breathing down your neck.

New iOS feature: tap the side button 5 times to disable biometrics until a passcode is entered again.

I saw that. Could still imagine not being able to do it in time.

True but at that point I think you'd have the same problems with touch ID.

This really seems like the argument to not use biometrics at all, not a specific issue with Face ID.

Agreed. I don't use it yet myself, so I'm good to go if I get tackled by security at the airport. ;)

Yeah, this feature was accidentally shown in the keynote.

I thought they added a feature just for this. You can press the power button 5 times to force it to require a passcode.

Doesn't work if they are holding your device and they point it at your face to unlock it.

One of the most distinguishing features of the phone is the vertical orientation of the backside cameras --- anyone else realize this is likely because their forward facing sensor bar is likely in the way if the backside cameras were horizontal?

A few other quick notes:

1) Those short x-ray shots of the iPhone camera assembly look impressive. I wonder how many components and extremely-fine-scale positioning have to go into the lens system (especially since they have to move! =) )

2) The lack of TouchID seems like a hardware regression to me, but I'd feel more or less confident in that based on the actual experience of FaceID vs TouchID. On a separate note: the engineers working on that must be paid boatloads given how valuable they must be to the company, combining both machine learning + security knowledge. (Not easy to find people like that.)

3) The screen is nice. I don't understand why people are complaining about the screen extending "behind" the front-facing sensorbar, to be honest --- seems like a tiny, fixable detail in the scheme of things

4) I really think people will buy this phone for the camera, and not for many of the other features that were advertised. (not AR, not awesome graphics, not amazing aluminum and glass, etc.)

5) Anyone know what usage has been like for Force Touch? I always was under the impression that it wasn't that popular, but kudos to Apple for not dropping it and still believing in it.

I can only speak of my own usage, but I use Force Touch a fair bit. The first use case that comes to mind (and one I use fairly often) is changing the torch brightness but the app shortcuts are handy too (also force push on a folder with notifications for quick access to the apps with notifications within it).

I wasn't really excited about AI and ML until I saw this iPhone X and the stuff they were doing with the Animojis and the Facial Recognition Tech. Whew! I may have to study AI/ML

You say that, but when WW3 is prevented by Xi Jinping using a russian model Animoji to negotiate a peace treaty with Trump, you'll be less sarcastic

I think we're going to look back on that "animoji" bit as a turning point in modern entertainment. It's a silly, even dumb little feature, but look at what's really going on there: realtime near-Pixar-grade facial expressions.

Someone's going to build a toolkit that lets kids make their own CG movies with friends acting out all the roles. That's gonna be nuts and is just the start.

It's a great achievement, and from the demo it looks like they're almost there (the framerate looked a little low and the characters were missing some subtleties of facial expression). I'll make a wild guess and say that in three years it's going to be nearly seamless.

I just thought what could be done with animojies + ar... my head started spinning :) role-playing, avatars, you name it

Bitmoji is about to get a major boost. I love that app. Imagine what you could do with that using the AI/AR/ML stuff...

> Implying all those things need AI/ML

Sometimes i wonder if the people in the valley are so dumb or just so far ahead of the pack that foresaw a future were you can make a beautiful lie just to the take money from the big fish on the pond. // offtopic

Suddenly a 128gb iPhone 6s for $549 sounds like a heck of a deal...

I actually think I might pick one up. In fact I may look for a 2 for 1 deal on the 6s.

I'm headed back to Apple after having an Android ever since my IPhone 4, I'm just done with Android. I love my 6s work phone.

I think I'll just be choosing between the 6s and a 7.

Can I ask what your frustrations are with Android? I was actually thinking about going to the Google Pixel, but it's been a while since I've used an Android phone as my day-to-day device.

I just switched from an iPhone 6 to a Nexus 6P earlier this year and am extremely happy to be free of Apple and onto an OS which is far less hostile to users, imho.

Also, another nice thing is that the Android app sizes seem to be about 1/10th the size of comparable iPhone apps.

I'll toss in my experience:

Started with the original iPhone, to iPhone 3, to iPhone 4, switched to Android for a few years and the last one I had was the LG G5. The customizability is awesome in Android and I made use of 3rd party launchers to great effect. To me, Android's strength is the ability to get the information you want fast.

I'm still frustrated by this aspect with iOS (I have an iPhone 7 Plus now). Android OS UX is streamlined -- I feel like I have to fumble a bit to get to the app / information that I want in iOS.

But I went back to iPhone because the interop is better (I use an MBP daily for work/personal), apps are better, battery life is better, camera is better, phone is better, etc. It's just better hardware ... at least compared to my experience with HTC and LG phones.

Here are the reasons I use my iPhone as my main device although I also own a Nexus.

1) Scroll to the top of the page https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvJDXTNblbQ

2) Hold home button to activate Siri without unlocking phone. There is no Google Assintant button on most Android devices except the Samsung S8. I want to be able to activate with headphones on while in my pocket without having to count on Ok Google.

3) Album covers are displayed like this on Android. https://img.gadgethacks.com/img/25/61/63562663618448/0/disab... While on my iPhone it looks like this http://community.oppo.com/en/forum.php?mod=oppo_attachment_x... I want to see the entire album cover.

4) The battery life is better on my iPhone especially when listening to music.

The apps are slighty better in my experience. Want an example? Spotify allows reordering of songs on iPhones but not Androids.

I've been considering making the switch as well, can you comment on a few things for me?

1. "Play album x____" used to work in google uh... assistant? Now? Whatever it's called now. Now it doesn't. I remember it working on my iPhone 3gs waaaaay back. Does it still? How about "next song" and etc?

2. How is Google app integration? Even if I make the switch, I'm not going to be using apple suite of calendars and whatnot, my company uses google suite, and I do not like spotify and will continue to prefer Google Play Music. Do those apps work well? (Calendar, Google Play Music, Inbox)

3. You ever hear of someone with a google voice number successfully using an iphone for SMS? I have to use the Google Voice (good) or Hangouts (shit) app for texting, and I need a data connection to do it. I have my reasons for this, is it possible on an iphone ?

1. Play album "blank" works on my Nexus with 7.1 and iPhone but it isn't consistent(on the Nexus). If you the word has special characters like dashes or & it appears to play something that appears to be a radio.

2. The Google Suite works well enough for me on both the iPhone and Nexus. To be fair I actually use Gmail and Google Calendar on my iPhone so there really isn't much of a switch. Google Play Music seems to work just as well on my Nexus as the iPhone in fact I sometimes play music off it in the car because it has a headphone jack. I have not encountered any Google Apps that work better on the Nexus vs iPhone except probably Google Photos because it won't sync in the background for the iPhone.

3. The apps last time I used them were identical. I have had connectivity issues/dropped calls when using G Voice years ago.

Just an FYI on 3, if this was before hangouts, they abandoned Google voice as the texting app for "voice" customers, forcing us to use Hangouts. A couple months ago, they released a revamped "Voice" app to encourage Google voice users to switch to that over hangouts. Hangouts no longer supports non voice sms, and it's performance is absolute garbage compared to the vastly improved Voice app.

Just switched to a 6s from an LG G4. I still have my headphone jack and the whole experience is so much better. Only thing I miss are my homescreen widgets.

Check out the price of the SE.

It now starts at $349 for those wondering.

Sorry. I should have said, and thank you for adding it.

I wonder how well Face ID works with dark skinned people. Dead serious. Historically facial recognition has had a tough time with dark skinned folks. The inclusion of an IR camera should mitigate, if not solve this, but I'm curious to the accuracy in practice.

It uses an IR camera, so it wouldn't matter the skin color. Also people's skin color changes over time so that wouldn't be a reliable system anyways

I'm aware that it uses an IR camera. What I'm curious about is what the accuracy rates are in practice for light vs dark skinned people for Face ID in general. There's more to Face ID than just the type of camera they're using, I imagine. Also, what do you mean by that wouldn't be.... What is "that?"

They have 2D faces?

Given that they say it works in the dark, I'd guess dark skin works equally well. They also use a black guy in their marketing material, where he's wearing a winter hat, scarf, and grows a beard

Not sure why I'm getting down voted. Here's a link to the marketing material where a dark-skinned guy is wearing a hat, scarf, and grows a beard: https://www.apple.com/iphone-x/#face-id

My understanding is that the issue with people with dark skin is that the camera has less to go off of because there's less light reflection. Face ID shouldn't suffer from that problem since it uses an IR camera.

All this time I'm wondering... Why should I buy this phone? Honestly, there's noting convincing in it.

You shouldn't. But millions and millions will.

It's all about your priorities.

For me? Having a phone is basically the same size but with a bigger screen is a great win, as is the improved contrast and visual quality.

I can tell you TrueTone fantastic from using it on my iPad.

I've wanted the camera system from the plus size phones but again I didn't want to phone that large. So to be able to get an improved version of that in a phone that's almost the same size? That's another big win.

The rest is just bonus.

Initial demo for Face ID failed -- Obviously less than ideal when trying to convince your audience that "it just works".

It was because the phone had been rebooted, and iOS requires a passcode after a reboot.

Still a PR fail though

These things happen in live demos.

That's true but they don't usually happen to apple's. Apple takes great pride for their flawless presentations.

$1320 CAD + tax for a phone. MacBook Air is cheaper than this.

edit: meant CAD.

Where do you see $1320 + tax? The highest I can get it is $1,149.00 + tax for the 256GB version.

i'm in Canada, should edit my comment.

To be fair, the MB Air is fairly old in comparison. Also, the display is far better on the iPhone X and last time iPhone 7 was compared, it faired better than many notebooks in CPU tests as well. It only got better since then.

A macbook also lasts much much longer than an iPhone

As usual it's even worse in europe. In germany it's 1149EUR for the 64gb model, 1319 for the 256gb one (all including taxes). The latter one is pretty close to what I paid for my 256gb macbook pro 13" 2 years ago (the newer pros are however also more expensive).

isn't that about right given a 19% sales tax? if not, what would be an identical EUR price for the $999 phone (tax not included)?

> isn't that about right given a 19% sales tax?

If we purely compare prices without tax then 999$ are currently 835€, compared to 965€ (1149/1.19) on the german side. Or as the original post was about CAD, the 1320 CAD are 905€, which is somewhere in between. Which means before taxes the phone gets already more expensive here, and after taxes even more. But this is nothing new for the iphone X and also not limited to phones. Electronics are usually more expensive here.

> if not, what would be an identical EUR price for the $999 phone (tax not included)?

The question is what is an identical price? Based on end-user price and actual exchange rates? Maybe 920€, since that should be what is costs in the US after tax. Based on the average disposable income in the target markets? Don't know. Based on what people are willing to pay in each market? Or based on what the phone manufacturer simply wants it to be priced in each marked?

I was trying to get a sense for pre-tax price difference. Sounds like it's 130€.

> Based on what people are willing to pay in each market?

I'd expect it's largely based on that, and that Apple has put a good deal of thought into what they can get out of you guys.

And our dollar is up right now.

This is almost like airline industry. Ticket prices will go up because oil prices are up. But they never go back down.

Given leaked benchmarks for the new A11 chip this phone may be faster than a MacBook Air.

I'm pretty sure the 10.5 inch iPad Pro already is.

I find it fascinating how hard Apple make it to find the battery capacity (mAh or Wh) for iPhones.

My understanding is that they do not want people to make a direct mAh capacity comparison to competing phones on the basis that iPhone can "squeeze out" more out of the smaller battery thanks to optimisations.

Yeah I noticed that... But I don't think that worked out too well for the new mac book with much smaller battery.

Why are people comfortable carrying a $1000 piece of equipment that can be dropped or stolen in an instant in their pocket? My Nexus6p takes great pictures, runs everything smoothly, and I don't have to freak out as much if the $350 suddenly vanishes.

Not thinking about it, or status seeking, or a weighted combination of both.

People also drive around in expensive cars on open roads with a lot distracted drivers. You an also get hit in an instant by one person not paying attention. You just have insurance for that, just like you have Apple Care or a similar insurance in case it happens.

I also wonder about, for example, the Maserati I sometime see parked just on the street in Daly City.

I have a shitty car and a relatively cheap motorcycle exactly so I can confidently leave them in the city without worrying too much.

Apple Care doesn't help if the phone is lost or stolen. However, I'm quite sure that the risk of damaging or losing a phone is much greater than the risk of crashing a car (at least in the UK and Western Europe). Hence, the price of phone insurance against the price of the phone is so much worse than the price of car insurance against the price of the car.

Then, does someone become lower risk the more time and experience with a phone, like no claims, age and sex profiling on car insurance, or is the price of insurance the same whether the customer is a 25 or 50 adult male.

well, i'm a successful professional that's been working nearly every day for over 20 years, so... if i lost my phone i would simply buy another one.

is this a trick question or something? i'm not going to jump into a swimming pool on purpose, but losing my phone isn't something that concerns me.

Yes, it’s a trick to find entitled consumers who would really benefit from an all-inclusive no-questions instant replacement device protection plan! Just $9.99 per week will give you the piece of mind that you’ve been missing!

Just put your phone number, address, and credit card details on your HN bio and one of our prestigious client grooming agents will be personally in touch with you at your earliest convenience…

> I'm not going to jump into a swimming pool on purpose

New models are waterproof, dive in ;)

Is there any way to actually steal an iPhone any more? I think they're just bricks.

But, I completely agree with you otherwise. This thing is just too nice to keep in my pocket all day. Plus, I'm too spoiled to appreciate it. It's like the most awesome, user friendly camera known to man, with an onboard computer and phone -- and I'm not sure I care enough to use it.

It's scary at first but I haven't lost or broken mine so far. Fingers crossed.

My phone is the piece of equipment that gets the most use throughout the day so having every creature comfort & feature when using it makes sense to me. I'm not sold on the X but the price has almost no impact on my decision to purchase when it comes to phones.

I use my phone for enough hours per day that I'm willing to spend quite a lot to get something that might be a little better.

My point exactly, if you use the phone for just 1 hour a day and keep it for 2 years then you pay ~$1.36 a day for the hardware. I use my phone for 2-3 hours a day so the cost is probably closer to $0.45/day. It makes perfect sense, even if you tack on Apple care it's still a good value (for me).

Well, for starters, to some people $1000 is nothing. After all, there is a watch store down the street from me and all the watches start at $50,000. Some are a quarter million.

But there are other reasons too.

That's a great question.

Given that I have a pile of four generations of smartphones sitting on my desk waiting to be recycled, it's also easy to visualize that brand new $1,000 iPhone X sitting in that pile in a few years time. The new phone looks great, but the marginal improvement over my existing phone doesn't look like it's worth $1,000. (Particularly in light of the opportunity costs involved.)

For some it is a status symbol. Ask any teenager how make/model of the smartphone designates their social status at school... It is similar with other items. You can buy (second hand) jeans for $10 and you can buy designer jeans for $1000. Both are suitable to wear in most situations. Some people have no choice. Some don't mind spending (wasting?) $1000 on the high-end version. The features are not always the reason people buy things and this nowadays includes smartphones.

Most people don't pay anywhere near to the unlocked retail price of the phone (so they don't consider it to be a $1,000 device), and many have insurance. If I drop my iPhone (which I paid about $100 for out of pocket after rebates/incentives/trade-in/etc), it's a $99 deductible.

Insurance?

I carry my iPhone, iPad, MacBook, Apple Watch, $300 headphones and $200 sunglasses with me everywhere. What's the big deal?

I've owned every iPhone from day one and use them without a case and without insurance. I've never had anything broken. I've never had anything stolen either.

Oh, no man. Now you jinxed it...

Haha, everyone always says that. Ever since the first iPhone and first MacBook Pro...11 years and not a damn thing. Superstitions are really dumb.

I used to be like this until I went through 2 iPhone 7s in the span of a month (dropped both of them). Now I've accepted my fate as a loser case-using pleb for my phone :(. Props to you for fighting the good fight, though!

Word from the hands-on area is that they've fixed the ultra slipperiness issues in the 8 and X aren't nearly as bad.

There is a vast spectrum of personal situations where people can easily afford a $1000 phone every month to people who's monthly wage is less than the price of a $100 phone.

Different companies target different demographics who have varied preferences and utility functions.

You are carrying a time bomb, that phone (Nexus 6P) came with so many manufacturing issues that android 8.0 has added a special feature just to allow you to reset your phone in case of bootloop problems.

Yeah, the 6P has a famously bad battery lifecycle. Many people's moderately aged phones just start shutting off even though it reports 30%+ battery remaining. Google has been pretty good about replacing them if you bought directly from them though and they recently just started giving people brand new Pixel XLs.

I assume they are doing this mostly because of an inventory surplus combined with "Pixel 2" less than a month away but it's still nice of them to do it even though these phones are a year out of warranty for a lot of people getting these replacements. Even with the Pixel 2 out they could likely sell the older Pixels for a few hundred bucks.

Plenty of people wear watches/jewelry that are worth more than this. My wallet, sans cash, is arguably worth more than $1000 to me if I had to replace everything in it. The value extracted from carrying the thing around is obviously worth more than the risk.

For same reason why people comfortable to pay for their car maintenance might be? There is always hidden cost of owning something and everyone can decide whatever they want to take a risk or not. Many of us here buy high-end PC hardware even if we know in 2 years it's price will likely drop up to 2-3 times so I don't see why phones are any different.

Also personally over last 10 years I lived in different parts of the world including Europe and Asian countries and worse and none of my devices or personal things were ever stolen and I only break few devices. So might be it's just less of problem for some especially considering many people rarely go outside of their usual home / office or travel to countries with high risk of theft.

I've traveled a lot too, and haven't ever had things stolen. But I know people who have. One of my friends had his iphone in a waterproof protector strapped around his neck for Songkram in Bangkok, and someone in the crowd walked right up behind him with a scissors and cut the string and ran off . He had a second phone stolen shortly after. Luckily he works in travel insurance and was a big believer, so everything was fully insured! Maybe the bad stories just stick out and are the exception not the rule.

I personally don't think it's healthy to operate under the assumption that my belongings will get damaged, lost, or stolen.

For many, that's the point: to show others(inc. the opposite sex) that you are carrying a $1000 piece of equipment. But people prefer to invent other reasons.

Do you use a laptop at a coffee shop occasionally?

Yep, but laptops are treated with way more caution and attention. Phones are constantly whipped in and out, left on tables or benches, used around kitchens, toilets, swimming pools...

Many people (particularly women) wear wedding rings worth more than this all the time.

Rings are not likely to slip off and break, though.

>Why are people comfortable carrying a $1000 piece of equipment that can be dropped or stolen in an instant in their pocket? My Nexus6p takes great pictures, runs everything smoothly, and I don't have to freak out as much if the $350 suddenly vanishes.

I think AppleCare+ insurance is a good deal here. I use the phone wherever/whenever and never sweat smashing it to bits. It also means I never both with screen protectors or cases (except for ones that add grip or just look interesting).

If I drop it, It doesn't cost $1000 it costs $100 (at least before this screen type). It won't be stolen as long as it's either in my hand or my front pocket all day (unless I'm mugged). But I have insurance for that. Basically I don't consider it a risk of a sudden loss of $1000.

Just parking my car is a risk of a sudden $1000 loss, even with insurance.

Actually it could easily be stolen out of your hand by someone on a bike.

My $20 flip phone survived falling 7 feet onto concrete without suffering a scratch without any type of case.

I never understood why vendors keep mentioning "thin" and "sleek" in the marketing, when most people end up getting a case which in turn makes it thicker than a 10 year old flip phone.

My god that is the longest product advertising page I have ever seen, and that includes those long form ads selling those gimmicky products.

I usually enjoy scrolling through Apple's product pages, they're often quite interesting design-wise. This one is way overdone.

The page is so long that I didn't realize it existed. I saw the big "X" logo and assumed the page was still a "coming soon" teaser, so I closed the tab. Only after reading your comment did I realize I needed to scroll to see the content below the fold. :)

~15mb !

And about 50% of that is just about the camera. Do phone manufacturers still see the camera as the most important thing in their phone? I'd have thought that years of over-promising lowered the customers expectations anyways.

Its detection of how far I'd scrolled down was also off; the images kept "popping in" at higher and higher levels on the screen until by half-way down the page they were presumably entirely off-screen because I couldn't see anything else at all. Extremely unpleasant reading experience.

Woah, they skipped 9 just like Windows!

* Flip industry on their heads

* 9 is 6 flipped

* QED Microsoft + Apple are Satan.

Not necessarily, X will likely be a sub-line for iPhone like "Air" was for Macbook. See: OSX

I'd agree with you if they called it "Ex", but they're calling it "ten"

its called o s ten not o s ecs

Well, but Mac OS X (then OS X, now macOS) was called "Mac OS Ten" and it actually followed Mac OS 9.

Does the iPhone X Super Retina Display lack the 120hz refresh rate of the iPad Pro ProMotion Display? I hoped that 120hz would be the future because I really enjoy it and feel that animations on my iPhone 6 feel a bit jerky.

FaceID seems pretty impressive, if it works as advertised, and it sounds like they've thought of a lot of edge cases.

I can't get over the black bar at the top of iPhone X though. It looks like it has devil horns...

You got all of that from a press event? reallY?

Yes…they mentioned the tests they put it through. Different hairstyles, facial hair, etc. and it worked; they tried pictures and masks and made sure it didn't.

I'm looking forward for the CCC hack of this. Maybe you can now tape the picture around your face.

It's a bit more complicated than that. But yea, seeing how much effort it takes to hack this will be interesting.

I am surprised they didn't change the included lighting <-> USB cable to USB C. Out of the box still incompatible with the MacBook Pro, and forced to use dongles/adapters.

Why do you ever need to plug your iPhone into your mac?

To program iPhone apps. AFAIK, Until the recent Xcode beta you couldn't push code wirelessly to your iPhone, and even now the feature in the Xcode beta is pretty slow. Also I enjoy charging my iPhone with my macs. For a company that takes pride in seamless connectivity within their ecosystem I find it surprising that you cannot buy an iPhone + MacBook Pro and connect them without adapters.

You absolutely can; just not with the cables they ship with. There are lightning to usb-c cables available from both Apple and others now.

Take a backup or charge it for example.

I am surprised that they still only include a 5W charger. Especially when they advertise fast charging with the 29W charger. Would have been good time to include 15W USB-C charger and USB-C to Lightning cable.

So a lot of times I show my phone to my friends when they ask about the time or if I get a quick message I want to show them on the notifications screen. With Face ID, would this trigger a wrong face recognition? If so, I can see this potentially locking me out as I rarely use my phone when I'm out with groups of people. Touch ID worked a lot better in terms of fine grain control, so this move to Face ID makes me wonder how many different edge cases were considered in this design decision.

That AI chip that runs 600 billion instructions per second - is that just for FaceID or can it be programmed?

600 billion instructions per second to show a poop emoji.

The world's brightest minds are working on this stuff

Incredible, just imagine what 2018 brings us.

A poop "animoji"?

AR poop?

From the company with the largest market capitalization in the world.

I believe they said it was also used with their CoreML library and ARKit.

It can be programmed.

600 billion Apple instructions, who knows how that converts to useful numerical work.

Finally I may be able to do CFD in this thing.

How does the "Home" gesture work with games that require gestures? If someone has a game that requires flicking items upward from the bottom of the screen, will that now be impossible? I don't have an iPhone, but I'm assuming that games like Flippy Knife and Flip Master, currently #1 and #2 on the Play store, could run into issues.

A swipe up that starts past the edge of the screen is already a different gesture than a regular swipe. It works the same way as the current phone (swipe up from bottom brings up the "control center").

Yes, but I've seen this control center option get buggy when apps require similar low-swipe gestures. It would be quite frustrating to deal with this without a home button option. Nevermind how annoying it would be if (god forbid) your screen cracked a bit and lowered the touch fidelity slightly.

Yes, but you could disable Ctrl Center in Apps.

Ok, so how do you bring up the control center now?

Scroll down from the upper right, near the battery/cell status icons.

Swipe down from top-right corner.

Swipe down from top corner per the keynote demonstration.

Sorta. I've constantly opened the notifications or the control center on current and past iPhones in games that require swiping. Maybe I'm not precise enough when playing but I do it so frequently that I'm pretty confident I would accidentally close some apps in this case.

Still, I'm glad they're trying something different. I'm curious how it turns out.

If it works anything close to how it does currently, you have to swipe from off the bottom bevel to the top. If you look at all the screenshots and videos, there's a small bar there.

Current apps ignore input that starts on the bevel and only detect it if it starts and ends on screen.

So, I guess I'm the only one who thinks the notch looks great? Gives it a bit of character! I won't be buying one though, I'm hoping my iPhone 7 lasts at least another 2 or 3 years.

Yes, you must be the only one.

I'm reminded of the spectrum of reactions to the new Prius design by the comments on the notch

>>> Reveal your inner panda, pig, or robot.

Ok, I stopped there. Now let's talk about the sociological impact of Apple.

"The Waldo Moment" (Black Mirror) comes to mind.

Also speaking of Black Mirror, the first episode specifically, and the real world news story that reminded everyone of that episode… I'm sure David Cameron would love to unleash his inner pig :D

I approve of Face ID more than Windows Hello, but I'm not convinced that neural networks are ready for security prime-time. Have we solved adversarial attacks yet? Were any of the masks they used in training painted with adversarial patterns?

(The tech is cool, though. Actually amazing, that it fits on a phone.)

It was said that they worked with some best Hollywood make up artists that make masks.

There is a different way to trick neural networks.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.1897

Face ID just failed in the on-stage demo. Oops :(.

No it didn't the phone was already in the "please enter a passcode" phase, most likely due to a reboot.

The phone had just been rebooted. That's why it asked for a passcode.

Guess, With Face ID, Apple making Fbi or any govt authority's 'Hey can you open this iPhone' case much much harder.

Like iPad replaced a log of information display in Public places like airports, Face ID could one day become our entry pass in many places.

But in the age of Trump, what if Equifax fate to apple?

With Face ID, all the government has to do is detain you. Apple warned against evil twins, but they should have warned against anyone living with you. Family members, kids, roommates.

Face ID: Don't go to sleep ever again

On stage it was stated you needed to be alert and looking at the device, as in eyes open. Sleeping is fine I'd guess :)

If you're worried about people living with you, I'd guess TouchID is already a huge issue.

I don't sleep with my eyes open, do you?

The same people can just slip your TouchID device under your finger and unlock it.

I thought Tim and the whole team did a great job presenting. And the whole company on every team did a fantastic job making every single piece easy to use. The iPhone X seems like a step forward in phones. I’ve used a number of androids and can say that the usability just isn’t there.

Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15229900

I fail to see how this Face ID will work in a North Dakota winter or on the ski slope.

// And they had a demo failure on their new unlock and swipe up for home.

Not like touchid worked through gloves either.

Passcode.

removing my glove for a second is a lot easier than undoing the clothing covering my head

What ianferrel is saying, that in all the scenarios you could use TouchID on previous phones, you can use your passcode on the iPhone X.

I think it's totally fine actually... I'm sure there are several strange scenarios where FaceID is cumbersome because you can't point your phone straight at your face, but in those scenarios you can always just type your passcode.

That in combination with scenarios where FaceID is more available than TouchID (wet hands, for instance), I think it probably evens out.

I always found it easier to just pulling up headwear than pulling off crazy gauntlet gloves at -30.

The passcode is the sensible fallback then.

You're right, why didn't Apple product designers consider the massive segment of the population attempting to unlock their devices via facial recognition in the midst of a blizzard?

well, I'm pretty sure it won't work properly with a burqa or niqab either, but anyone who has an obstructed face is pretty much hosed.

the demo failure was because the phone had been rebooted, which requires a passcode. Certainly not ideal, but it's not a because faceID is a failure.

Let's see how many times we'll hear this today

Seems like all these features were previously available on Android phone for (quite) some time:

- "bezel-less" display

- wireless charging

- no hardware buttons on the front

- facial recognition

- dual cameras

Not to downplay the quality engineering of Apple, but this seems like a big "meh..." to me. A lot of hype for stuff that is commonplace.

I… don't disagree with the "meh" though software buttons and no buttons on the face are pretty different results. And dual camera was added on the 7+ last year (though it was hardly a first back then, IIRC LG and Huawei had dual-camera models in early '16).

Wasn't there a phone with dual cameras for capturing stereographic pictures?

How does Face ID work with identical twins?

Schiller admits that 'evil twins' is a weak point.

If evil twins are a weak point how came facemasks don't work?

or plastic surgery for that matter?

Oh come on.

I say if you're willing to undergo major reconstructive surgery just to read my emails, go ahead, you've earned it.

This is, of course, a threat model issue. If you're Assange/Snowden, you might want to shy away from Face ID, but you probably didn't have Touch ID on anyway.

Evil twins have faces made out of skin, not rubber.

I would imagine the facemasks where not accurate enough when it comes to the the 3d structure.

Could be a different thing when somebody uses a quality 3d printer to print image that is based on detailed laser scan.

Not very practical when hacking a random person's iPhone. And this would never protect against a state-level actor anyway.

facemasks are static whereas features/muscles on a face move a bit?

It's called Apple Twin Share

Don't know about Face ID. Microsoft Windows Hello solved it couple of yrs ago.

Do identical twins actually have identical faces? Some of their facial structure must be shaped by diet, exercise, life in general, right?

Recently saw a video made by identical twins whom I knew back in the '60s, and their faces differed much more than they did at that time.

Fun fact. The iPhone 7 "Overview" link[1] on their iPhone 7 page redirects to the iPhone X. Bug? Or a bit over pushing the new product?

[1] https://www.apple.com/iphone-7

it redirects to /iphone, where the X is featured prominently, but you can reach them all.

edit: so does /iphone-6, but not /iphone-6s..

Better coverage: https://www.macrumors.com/2017/09/12/live-coverage-iphone-x-...

Off topic. I posted this same link right when the page was live and it got flagged. This seems to be the only iPhone X link on HN now, but was posted 20 mins after mine. What caused mine to be flagged? Not mad, just curious :)

The TechCrunch/Verge links were on the home page already, so it seems they decided to consolidate into one thread and change the link to the product page.

For me, the tweet of the day https://twitter.com/moia/status/907706685266915328 :)

I'm wondering if it's easier or harder for cops to forcefully unlock your phone using faceID or touchID

This actually raises an interesting question. I say it's easier to do it since there appears on the surface to be less opportunity to mess up as with touch. Sure you could make a face etc but that just seems easier to do in stealth (not seen by cops as doing so) with a finger. [1]

Edit: As only one example you could in theory program a finger that wouldn't typically be used with touch id.

Cuff someone, pull their phone out of their pocket, hold it in front of their face. "Is this your phone? Oh, it looks like it is..."

How's that Fifth Amendment thing working out for you?

EDIT: There's legal precedent that specifically says you can be compelled to unlock your phone with your fingerprint, and that's not "testimonial" (that is, your right against self-incrimination isn't in play). There is zero reason to think FaceID will be treated any differently.

Couldn't they do the exact same thing with your fingerprint?

Yes. FaceID just makes it easier, which was the OP's question.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/17/16161758/ios-11-touch-id-...

Interesting twist. There was advice going around for protestors to disable Touch ID as cops need a warrant for a keycode, but don't for a touch ID. Not sure how accurate that is, but presumably you can disable Face ID if you think you're at risk of being shaken down by the police.

iOS 11 comes with a nice feature to temporarily disable Face and Touch ID if you're ever in this type of situation. Tap the power button 5 times and that's it.

Yes but reaching for your phone can be lethal at least in the US.

Given that it requires "attention" to unlock it seems like it would be HARDER to force this than TouchID.

Just look away or close your eyes.

It's interesting how Apple is moving away from being the first phone with a feature (face id, Samsung did that before, or oled displays that are edge to edge). I think the shift from that innovation is a maturing step, but also a sign that the company is aging poorly. They can no longer claim to be leading with creation, just with quality. More and more the focus in smartphone development, not just Apple, is on being the best of what currently exists instead of actually bringing groundbreaking technology to the table.

Hasn't this been true for a while?

It's almost always been true. Think back to the early iPhone days when they didn't even have cut & paste!

Apple has always done a good job of really refining features, but I'm not certain I can think of one that they were first on.

First keyboard-less tablet?

There were many before. There was even a mac keyboard-less tablet years before the iPhone, just not made by Apple.

First use of capacitive touch on a smart phone (or anything consumer for that matter), the original iPhone really was a big deal with lots of firsts.

First to integrate them on a product category maybe, but multitouch was not invented by them.

Ok, what consumer device had capacitive touch before the iPhone. You just gotta name one! I'm pretty tired of these smug ignorant attitudes, this isn't reddit.

Also, I stated capacitive, not multitouch, if that is meant a strawman.

FingerWorks? Looks like they had a bunch of multitouch products starting in 1998. Probably not coincidentally, their technology was acquired by Apple in 2005.

LG Prada.

Neonode N1 had a different kind of touch screen (not resistive), but share a lot of features with the iPhone as well.

Ok, I stand corrected. Looks like it was capacitive even if it didn't support gestures (single touch only).

Come on, now.

"I didn't mention multitouch, answer my question!"

"Oh, you're right. But it didn't have multitouch!"

Yes. So...the iPhone is irrelevant because it didn't match some nerd first feature list.

No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

If you're simply looking for capacitive touch in a consumer environment, then there are a great many. Simple capacitive touch sensors to replace physical push-buttons were widely seen in the 80s, I remember using them on elevators, and built one myself as a child.

Capacitive touch sensors that registered an X/Y position rather than a simple on/off state were also common in laptop touchpads from around the mid to late 90s. The iPod introduced a capacitive touch wheel to replace the click wheel in their second-generation model, released in 2002.

There were various capacitive touchscreen display devices around before the iPhone, but probably the most relevant to your query (and one of the most well-known, due to its similarity to the first iPhone's technology) was the LG Prada, a phone with a capacitive touch-screen announced about 6 months before the iPhone.

The thing with the iPhone's touchscreen wasn't that the technology was particularly revolutionary -- sure, if you combine enough words together, then you can make the argument that the iPhone was probably the first mass-consumed capacitive multi-touch hand-held consumer device, but you can remove any of those words and it was no longer the first. The revolutionary aspect of the iPhone was, in my opinion, the software that allowed the device to be controlled with the relative imprecision of a finger, rather than a stylus. The actual hardware to process the touch inputs was at best evolutionary, not revolutionary.

I stand corrected. The Prada predates the iPhone by 6 months with capacitive single touch screen. I guess I got angry in my hasty reply; it was a combination of things.

Yes I will concede that the original iPhone was a game changer in terms of new features. However once smartphone competition picked up Apple (rightly, in my mind) mostly sat back and refined features others had tried before.

Ya, I never claimed otherwise.

I'm not really sure what's there to refine about copy and paste though...

Microsoft says Hello.

I actually thought they were always of the opinion that they will only lead when they feel like they can make it a good experience or that the tech is finished or mature enough.

Samsung does every feature first, and terribly. They hit check boxes. Apple executes.

You could unlock Samsung phones with photographs [1]

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-galaxy-note-8-facial-...

And you could/can unlock TouchID with playdoh casts, even high res fingerprints printed on paper... so?

Printing someone's photo off Facebook is trivial.

Lifting a working fingerprint and transferring it to a play-doh mold or a hi-res printer is a whole another beast.

I thought it needed to be a high resolution photo?

For Samsung, nope. You can just open someone's profile picture on Facebook on your phone and show it to their phone and It'll unlock (or not, just like with their actual face).

I agree partially, but Apple is also expected to introduce some new features, right? Or else, what's left of Steve's legacy?

Samsung didn't do face unlock first either, it was part of Android 4.0. Of course, using a single camera without movement you'll only get 2d data, so it shouldn't stand a chance against Apple's 3d sensor.

Samsung's face recognition software was hacked from day one. Not only did, it was hacked with a 2D picture, something that was also shown possible since 2011, when Google first introduced face recognition. It's like Samsung didn't even bother to improve it at all.

Being first with a crappy solution is not exactly ideal, either. We'll see if Apple's solution is that much better - I don't really trust any face recognition tech, but the 1:1,000,000 FAR ratio vs 1:50,000 for fingerprint looks promising at least.

u sure you catch up with latest deep learning stuff? It wasn't so surprising

I think it was reported here that Samsung just stored a jpeg of your face on the local file system and did a simple compare. But sure, they get to claim being first. I suspect Apple is okay with that.

face id, Samsung did that before

No, they didn't. What Samsung did was release software that mimicked facial recognition. In fact, it mimicked it so well, people were convinced that Samsung did it first. What Samsung actually did was implement software that would sometimes coincidentally "recognize" a face, and more often would "recognize" a photo of the target user. What Samsung didn't do was implement facial recognition that was reliable and secure, which I think is what most people think of when they think "facial recognition".

> What Samsung actually did was implement software that would sometimes coincidentally "recognize" a face, and more often would "recognize" a photo of the target user

No way unique to Samsung. Every implementation I've seen fails at this, even the latest one in Windows 10.

If you care about security, don't use it. That's my advice.

This raises a major question though - what's the use case and threat model for facial recognition? If you're remotely concerned about security, clearly you're not going to use it. If you only care about preventing the casual attacker, either option seems good enough.

I just don't see a security model in which Apple has substantially improved it. The security of it is terrible in either case - all Apple did was make it more expensive.

Apple has never been first with any feature, don't know what gave you that impression.

Not even copy and paste.

They're rarely the first to market with a feature, but they often are the first to really succeed at one, including cut/copy/paste.

Which is just what I said.

What was so special about their copy/paste?

> Apple Computer widely popularized the computer-based cut/copy-and-paste paradigm through the Lisa (1983) and Macintosh (1984) operating systems and applications.

(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut%2C_copy%2C_and_paste)

On phones, their FIRST copy/paste version worked between apps, worked with pictures as well as text, etc.

As others have said, the Samsung face unlock was not secure. Windows Hello has been around a while though and I think it works similarly to how the iphone one works.

How many iPhone X will sell this month and how many Samsung phones sold the 1st month they released edge to edge displays? I think part of Apple's problem is success, they have to launch with a profitable phone the 1st month; no delays & no defects. Samsung can have a higher internal scrap rate for the 1st few months because they sell less and it impacts the bottom line less.

> they have to launch with a profitable phone the 1st month; no delays & no defects.

They've survived both in the past.

Google had face unlock back in 2011 when the Galaxy Nexus came out but I'm not going to pretend it was anything like this. It worked alright but had plenty of warnings saying it wasn't perfect and that someone that looked like you could unlock your phone. I always found it quite cumbersome to use because it turns out my natural way of holding my phone doesn't point the front camera directly at my face. I hope for the sake of iPhone X users that that isn't true for FaceID and that the sensors are wide angle enough that it isn't as annoying to use as Face Unlock is.

It's almost obligatory.

"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." [1]

[1] https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...

To be fair Apple always was further behind the adoption curve for bleeding edge technologies perfectly timing for them to become mature enough first.

I'm impressed with the presentation and looking forward to the iPhone X. Some features are gimmicky like the Animoji, but a lot of the new features and upgrades are really nice. That being said I have two main gripes.

I know it kind of goes against how their Camera app and system works, but I really wish that Apple would (or will) enable RAW shooting from within the default Camera app. I use a separate app, besides for the special features like level and white balance adjustment, for the RAW shooting. I feel that it's kind of put there because it's available but they don't really care about it -- you can tell from the fact that the Photos app doesn't properly show RAW photos. It would be great if you could seamlessly take a photo and be able to take and export the RAW if you enabled a flag in the settings, just like how 4K was/is hidden behind a flag.

The other gripe is now the control center is from the top, rather than the bottom. I use the control center often when controlling music and the flashlight and it makes it less usable for one hand. In fact, I'm wondering how the "swipe from the bottom" will work with apps that take over that gesture, because I run into a lot of issues with trying to open the control center but being annoyingly overridden by the current app. I'm hopeful but hesitant that Apple thought of this and worked out kinks regarding this.

It's interesting that they are not retiring the 6s, which is now 3 generations behind. I am not the only one refusing to buy a smartphone which requires some dongle to listen to my music.

iPhone X has not been authorized as required by the rules of the Federal Communications Commission. This device is not, and may not be, offered for sale or lease, or sold or leased, until authorization is obtained. What does this in disclaimer section means?

It hasn't been approved by the FCC for sale in the United States.

It hasn't been approved by the FCC for sale.

FTFY FCC has no authority outside US

Yep, its a US-only restriction, hence my qualifier

My guess is they didn't want to tell anyone at the FCC about it fearing leaks?

It means that they purposefully did not file with the FCC before presenting this so they would minimize leak opportunities, and did not care as their timeline is sufficiently padded forward that they will do that this month; but they also can't pretend it is already sellable: the FCC technically could say "no" (though it doesn't seem sufficiently crazy different from the iPhone 8 that I would imagine anyone expects any chance of that happening).

Probably hasn't certified by FCC yet [1], for sale. The FCC process has been subject to leaks in the past, so they've probably waited until after main announcement.

Didn't help too much though re: leaks.

1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_Declaration_of_Conformity

Basically means that Apple had a hard time getting the final specs worked out so they didn't submit it to the FCC for review until it was too late to have approval ready to go for the announcement.

they are promoting it before pasing through FCC certification, maybe they wanted to keep it secret since FCC data is publicly available and that would basically reveal their design and specs

I know that a ton of people swear by the iPhone, and it will probably be a hit no matter what, but every new one that comes up all I can think of is how much good UX they sacrificed for the shake of having a better looking product.

One button without an always on back button was already a turnoff for me, but no button at all? at least android has swipe from the bottom.

FaceID instead of TouchId will remove a lot of use cases people got used to - no longer answering texts in meetings anyone?

You can just type in your passcode, no?

I think those screen rounded corners and the cameras space at the top is one of the worst ideas Apple has ever had.

When they showed a video playing in landscape I could only facepalm.

remember, on the back there's a giant bump for the camera as well...

That's a horrible eye-sore; probably would have been better to make the entire phone thicker.

So how secure is FaceID actually? It does a 3d scan like the Microsoft Kinect and maybe gathers some more light information in the infrared sprectrum, but that can easily be circumvented with advanced 3D printing.

They even demonstrate that it recognizes you with facial modification like a new beard, a new haircut or a new pair of glasses.

By bet it that this technology is totally overblown and circumvented quickly.

It's likely exactly like a Kinect since they acquired PrimeSense in 2013.

They said it's 20 times more secure than touch ID, which since it uses more data I could believe.

They also said that they got special-effects artists and other things to work on it and try and make it hard to track. I imagine it's going to take a lot more than a simple 3D printed head to trick.

We all knew as soon as this phone is released people are going to start trying to break this, it should be fun to see what people find.

With the Kinect "sign in to profile with your face" we made sure the person had a heartbeat - there's minute color fluctuations in your face that actually allow you to discern heart rate/ BPMs.

That was using primesense. Apple bought primesense. I'm sure they're doing something similar

Product page now up: https://www.apple.com/iphone-x/

Press release: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/09/the-future-is-here-ip...

I very much appreciate the OLED high contrast, wide colour display.

I have yet not watched the release and read the technical details but I am more than slightly concerned about “Your face becomes your password”, while it’s obviously optional so security conscious people by no means have to use it, I’m not confident that it’s a sensible idea to promote the widespread use of what is known not to be a secure, private piece of information that you can change or choose not to use.

However, in my opinion Apple is by far one of, it not the most security conscious large corporate manufacturer of hardware and software and generally tries to know as little about your personal data and promote encryption (FileVault, forced phone encryption etc) as much as possible while maintaining practical use for general public. So I am very interested to see what makes this so different from Samsung/Google’s failed and easily bypassed face unlocking they were very vocal about but ultimately was an embarrassing security and PR failure.

The dimensions seem much more focused on aesthetics than functionality to me. Being mostly thin doesn't seem to buy much when the camera sticks out. Why not make it uniformly thick and increase the battery capacity?

For those of us who enjoy one handed use, the SE still seems unmatched.

Has anyone seen anything about how to get it not to unlock automatically with your face when you look at it?

I have bus times on my lock screen, one swipe to the left away. That seems to become obsolete if the phone automatically unlocks when I look at it.

Additionally, swiping up from the bottom is the single least effective swipe for me. Pulling up Control Center fails for me more often than not, with the little "looking for me?" rectangular handle popping up on the bottom, and still it doesn't work well.

I wonder also what this means for screenshots; with no Home Button to push along with the power button, what do you do? And what do those screenshots even look like, given the ears at the top of the display?

It actually only unlocks but does not go home until you do the new home button gesture which is swiping from the bottom. Nothing to be worried about

It, like Windows Hello, doesn't "unlock" until you swipe up. You can still do things from the lock screen without unlocking it.

It was said Face ID is one in a million so that means ~7500 people can unlock my phone..

My current PIN is 6 digits, so ~7500 can also unlock my phone on a random guess. Chances are the first five people to try will trigger the passcode though.

Haven't checked your math but that's random guesses on an insecure password and prevented by rate limiting, you can't just enter 7.5 billion passwords.

Face recognition (other than Face ID I mean) is fairly advanced. Let's say a government wanted to unlock my phone they could search for similiar faces and just pay the person. Sure a lot of trouble for unlocking a phone and it's theoretical but it's still a flawed system in my opinion.

There's no perfect solution to this problem. Secure password is too clumsy to enter on phone many times per hour. Passcodes are easy to catch via shoulder surfing.

Sure, I see that but different users - different habits.

I manage just fine with a 25+ character random alphanumerical password that I change at least every six months. I only use Touch ID when I'm home and am very aware when entering my password. In the end it's just a phone but I like to have it at somewhat secure.

6 * 10 = 1,000,000

One in a million is the same as with a six digit passcode.

> six digit passcode

Which is insecure. I use a 25+ character random alphanumerical password that I change at least every six months.

Having to enter a 25+ character random alphanumerical password every time you need to use your phone isn't anywhere near acceptable for modern usage expectations. Hell, it's not even acceptable for laptop and desktop computers.

Sure, a useless system is technically safe but it's still useless.

For the average user, definately not, I agree with you there.

For laptop and desktop computers this should be the standard in my opinion, at least 20 random chars if you value your privacy and care for security. Once your inside the system you can use a password manager to use passwords as long as possible without any notable impact on user expierience.

But I haven't said I'm the average user, and a six digit passcode just isn't secure I doubt you'd argue on that point?

I'd argue that under some conditions: I feel it's secure enough for locking a phone for example because a phone won't allow any form of brute-force unlocking that would allow an attacker to try, lets say 1 password/sec. Same goes for pin codes on debit cards. Same goes for a physical combination lock safe: 1 million possible combinations would take an impractically long time to crack on average in a realistic real world attempt.

For things like hard drive encryption where you can get the specific piece of hardware and have software brute force it then yes I agree it's insufficient.

https://xkcd.com/936/

It's funny how the thread has three times more comments that votes. It's like everyone is in a rush to say something but they forget to upvote the story. Shouldn't upvoting be automatic when you comment in a thread?

No, it shouldn't. Because you may still want to comment on a story, so to say a part of it stinks in a very bad way. Something that IMHO is what most commentators are doing here, and for reason. By no means am I going to up-vote the latest apple bullsh*t, but will happily take time to read through the stuff and even drop a line.

I don't think posting a comment necessarily means you value it as a submission

I don’t see anything justifying the price bump.

Did you not see the array of cameras and sensors in the front? Or the longer battery life? Or the 4+2 core chip? Or the reengineered OLED? Were you actually sleeping during the announcement? Serious question.

You both can be right: you are talking about costs and noncoml is talking about perceived value to hirself.

>Did you not see the array of cameras and sensors in the front?

If they don't add any value to me, I don't really care.

> Or the longer battery life?

Doesn't justify $300+ price bump

> Or the 4+2 core chip?

New chips come out every day and they are priced at the same price or lower than the older generation at the day it was introduced.

> Or the reengineered OLED?

You mean the one similar to Samsung S8?

> Were you actually sleeping during the announcement? Serious question.

Why do you have to be offensive?

You asked what justified the price bump, and he told you. Whether you care/will use the things that are raising the price is irrelevant. If you have no need for those features, then buy the cheaper version.

The price of products is more a function of the perceived value for the consumer, than a sum of the cost of the components.

Adding more expensive components to a phone, doesn't make its value go up if it doesn't add some extra functionality or durability or something.

The array of components for FaceID are just replacing TouchID, so for the consumer the net value is 0.

I don't care what they have to add to make it work, what matters to me as a consumer, is what value I get out of it. And at the moment it looks like a net of 0.

You see why I say "I don't care"?

My understanding was that there'd be a constrained supply of the OLEDs in particular, so this is priced to sell at lower volumes than the SE/6S/7/8.

But the funny thing is that this pricing will backfire and the scarcity of the X will move it into the Veblen zone.

I've wondered about this myself (although I've never heard the term "Veblen zone" before!). $999 is a big jump from $699 but it's not a crazy high jump. If you're paying for it monthly over two years it's $29.17/month vs. $41.67/month, an $12.50/month increase.

Still expensive, but very much an attainable status symbol.

Phones are not conspicuous enough to be a Veblen good. Unless buyers start wearing it on their belt or around their neck.

https://www.networkworld.com/article/3092446/smartphones/we-...

Which is disproportionately weighted by heavy users. The average user isn't flashing their phone often enough to be conspicuous: https://blog.dscout.com/hs-fs/hubfs/blog_posts/Mobile_Touche...

truth, cost twice as much as S8 and I fail to see justification for double price - slightly smaller bezels top and bottom bezels (but huge bezel/frame all around), telephoto (OK, though pretty ueless) and inconvenient face id (overfingeprint)?

anything which cost more than S8 must have serious benefits over S8

...and all I wonder is why they are skipping number 9? Are the negative connotations some culture? iPhone NEIN?

With Windows 9, there was at least the explanation that software might confuse it with Windows 9x (which I didn't buy, since there is view api returning the version as a string, and Windows shims GetVersion if you don't declare compatibility anyway).

More on topic, this looks nice, I think people will not be disappointed like they were with the MBPs. Can't wait to try it in a store (and probably can't afford it either...). Edit: no touch ID?? Might have spoken too quickly...

I think its because this is the 10th anniversary of the iphone. And they want to have it seen as a major step forward.

Probably because it's been ten years since the original iPhone, and they feel this one's far enough from the original to merit the version bump.

They may also be trying to indicate that they feel this iPhone is on a par with OSX for productivity or something.

It's more succinct than Tenth Anniversary iPhone Edition, I suppose.

During WWDC 1998, Steve Jobs announced Mac OS X (as a change from the original Rhapsody strategy) while Mac OS 8.1 was still current. There is precedent by Apple to announce version X before version 9 is released.

I'm pretty impressed and blown away honestly that Apple chose to support Qi wireless charging over coming up with some proprietary nonsense. This might be the killer feature that finally gets me to upgrade.

I am guessing this had something to do with Steve Jobs no longer being there. More freedom for choosing technologies.

Would genuinely love to know the reasoning behind the negative votes. Steve's departure has certainly changed the company in the past.

I suspect only because speculation alone is getting to be tiresome at this point. There are so many comments that say this or that about how Apple isn't the same because Steve Jobs isn't there. What would be interesting is someone really digging into this, looking many different aspects of Apple since it's inception. Otherwise it's just not substantive and can come off as lazy at this point.

Like I said, that's all speculation. From what I can tell based on the shade of gray of your comment, you received at most a couple of down votes. It's really hard to distinguish between something meaningful and noise here, particularly in a hot-topic thread like this one. At the end of the day, I think I'd just make a small mental note but otherwise just chalk it up as collateral damage in a heated thread.

Interesting nevertheless, appreciate your reply.

This is the first time Apple have given in to OLED displays and wireless charging (and a standardised one even) - both relatively old technologies [1] which were at their disposal during Steve's time.

From what I've seen the corporate secrecy at Apple will make such conclusive investigation next to impossible. What I often think of is NeXT and Steve's return that saved Apple in the 1990s.

[1] http://www.gsmarena.com/qualcomm_taunts_apple_list_android_f...

> I suspect only because speculation alone is getting to be tiresome at this point.

> Like I said, that's all speculation.

Grr. Scratch that "Like I said". The second sentence is meant to be that my take on the down votes is speculation. The editor regrets the error.

Features I'm curious how they work on the new iPhone.

1) Touch status bar to scroll to the top of the page(my favorite iPhone feature).

2) Locking the screen. I'm assuming the double tap and Siri don't interfere with this.

Tap on the time, and press the home button?

To add to this, the "reachability" feature where I double-touch the home button to bring the top half of the screen into reach.

In the disclaimer:

> 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.

I wish they had enough confidence in their water resistance that they would cover water damage to some degree in the warranty ...

Hey question. Currently, if an officer has you under arrest they go through your phone. With a strong password, they tend to give up. With FaceID wont they just put it to your face and unlock it?

I think it won't unlock if you close your eyes.

They can always beat you until you give your password.

So...wait, wasn't one of the biggest selling points of the (awful) Touch Bar on the latest MBP that it could use Touch ID? And a few months later they are moving away from that entirely?

Reportedly, they couldn't get it to work through the display (bezel-less) (and they didn't put it on the back)

The notch is really not that good UX. All that elaborations and tricks to show it or hide, to fit in there notifications. If you go bezel-less, one of the best options now is Xiaomi Mi Mix 2. There are already reviews on YouTube. I'd say it is the best configuration yet for that type of a phone. Also, it's worth to consider that it is already the second iteration after the first Mi Mix.

http://www.mi.com/mix2/

How do you get to the home screen?

For instance if I'm using an app right now I hit the home button and it take me to my home screen with all of my app icons. How do I do this on the iPhone X?

You swipe up from the bottom.

Being that it is the 10th anniversary, I was hoping they will come out with something ground-breaking. iPhone X seems like a good phone. But it's just a better iPhone 7.

Although iPhone X is a beautiful device and depth camera will have many innovative applications, I'm so disappointed with iPhone 8(plus). There is barely any difference with iPhone 7(plus). As for wireless charging - seems like charging pad will be available only next year and you will have to spend extra money. Considering rumored problems with iPhone X production and starting shipping it beginning november I would expect their year to year sales go down.

Given how painfully slow wireless charging is, I'd prefer they go for the rapid charging feature. May not be as sexy but it's way more useful.

Fast charging was listed as a feature

From the footnote, fast charging works with the USB-C chargers. That means it is possible it supports USB-PD like the iPad Pro. It does mean that fast charging requires the Apple 29W charger. But should also work with any USB-C charger.

I'm going to train future face recognition phone to only work if I close one eye and stick my tongue out ... the border guards will never guess

If it's using steel does that mean it will be magnetnetic?

That would be neat to attach it to my wall. And it would open up a lot of options for car holders.

I grew up in a time when "Magnets + Screens = NO! BAD!" Is this not the case anymore? Like, I get freaked out when my girlfriend attaches her magnetized Surface Pro pen to her SP4. Even the macbook magnetized chargers freak me out. Is this just poorly learned behavior that's no longer relevant?

Only if they wanted it to be: stainless steel is not significantly ferromagnetic. My guess is they don't want it to be magnetic but I can't think of a good reason other than "that's not what phones are like".

By not marketing it as a replacement for the 7, Apple has managed to significantly bump the price of the device with barely anyone the wiser. Anyone hazard a guess at the increase in apples profit margin on the X. The price appears to have gone up significantly, for a comparatively small increase in BOM cost.

Even if you question their design decisions, it's hard to fault their product strategy

Perhaps the UX needs to be felt in person but it feels like a way worse UX than before. It seems Apple is losing sight of the question which IMO should define the choices we make when it comes to technology. Does it make peoples lives better? I don't see how this phone does. It feels like apple made something for the purpose of making people want it. It's un-apple like.

Say what you want about practicality, the facial tracking on this is pretty impressive..... aaannnd Apple uses it to give us the Poop Animoji.

How do you check notifications with your face? Or switch songs while jogging? Seems like it would unlock as soon as you look at it?

Just like with TouchID, it _unlocks_, but actually going to the home screen requires a press of the button.

You can lift it or tap the screen to show the locked screen. Your face will only unlock the device, it will not bring up the home screen.

Seems crazy that they have no less than eight models of iPhone available at once: https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/

Why are the 6S and 6S Plus still there? Why no love for the iPhone SE? It's now two entire generations of processor behind.

Re: black bar. For what it's worth, folks that reviewed the Essential Phone said that the notch on the top does "go away" after using it for a few days.

What I am more disappointed about is Apple not going with a curved display. It looks amazing on the S8 and taking it edge to edge would have made for an incredible bezel-less illusion.

I really don't see the extra $300 justification between this and the regular iPhone 8. A slightly better screen and better camera with otherwise similar specs. Edge to edge and face scanning emojis are neat, but I just can't justify that kind of spend for it.

That, and I'm not all that jazzed about Face ID. Seems less secure than touch.

> between this and the regular iPhone 8. A slightly better screen ... with otherwise similar specs

The screen is a fair bit larger

Not appreciably more than the 7+

https://9to5mac.com/2017/09/06/iphone-8-compared-to-iphone-7...

More PPI sure, but I think we reached the point of diminishing returns a while ago.

(Ignore the headline - the opening image is an X set next to a 7+)

I was responding to someone comparing it to the standard model, not the plus models. See the text I quoted, and see their original comment.

I'd have to see the oled next to the current screen to judge it.

That said: I go through at least a screen repair, maybe two, for a phone.

If I calculate the price of phone + 1 extra screen, it's probably looks even worse for the X.

The $300 gets you status in a restaurant/bar/club, that's all.

Wouldn't Face ID allow a stolen phone to be easily unlocked? Just put the stolen phone in a different container (with a hole for the camera/sensors) and point it at the victim.

My daughter likes to "steal" my phone to play games on it. With touch ID, she can't. She wouldn't have a problem if the phone has Face ID.

They said during the announcement that you have to be looking at the phone for it to unlock.

Then you put in a container with something small written on it ;)

What about just printing out a photo and placing it in front of the camera? Does it have some way of understanding depth?

Yes. Please bother to even read the linked article before commenting.

So does it bug anyone else that the status bar around the notch looks misaligned? The rounded corners make me feel think it's sticking out past the bottom of the notch, and there's this huge empty space above it. Especially weird with the clock. Maybe it's one of those things that looks better in person.

I don't understand why the website keeps repeating "it's all screen" even though the phone is not all screen. I own a entry-level Motorola G5S, never owned a Samsung before so not fanboying here, but their phones strike me more as "all screen" than this iPhone X. Am I missing something?

Price of this phone wtf is this in my country cost 1200 euro this cheaper version :/ http://blendberg.com/pl/oferta-bazy-danych-gotowe-bazy-danyc...

I do hope Apple have got this facial recognition stuff right, but personally I'm skeptical that it'll be better than TouchID.

For me, from reading previously leaks, this feels like a compromise where design (we want a phone that's all screen) wins out over usuability (TouchID is great for usuable security)

> The most powerful and smartest chip ever in a smartphone, with a neural engine that’s capable of up to 600 billion operations per second.

sorry but "neural engine" is just too funny. i mean there's normal levels of bullshit bingo and then there's branding your chip "neural engine".

Bummer about the size. The Plus is a monster to me and I prefer the pocket-happy size of my regular 6.

I kind of wish the "home screen line" at the bottom was a big long thick rounded line to mirror the notch on top. That would make the notch a lot less jarring. In the screenshots the "normal" UI seems to never use the bottom space anyway.

Rather off-topic question. How do you make an animation via scrolling like their "X"?

Scale an element up (the X), while scaling another down (the device). Place both inside a position fixed/sticky container and interpolate between scaleStart scaleEnd as a ratio of how much has scrolled.

More to it than that from what I see here, but that will get you started

As an Android user I'm still kind of interested in this phone. One thing that bothers me on most phones is the camera sticking out the back. It ends up being the point of contact to every surface you sit it on and sometimes the camera glass breaks.

Someone can drug me and hold the phone in front of my unconscious face to access all my data?

Same goes for your fingerprint, surely?

or for for anything, really?

(mandatory https://xkcd.com/538/)

There is far worse they could do to you in that state that open your iPhone...

Biometric has the same issues regardless of touch or facial recognition.

No, eyes need to be open, the user has to be "paying attention".

If your threat model includes being abducted and drugged, basically nothing will save you.

If someone is willing to do that to you, odds are that they're also willing to apply a crowbar to your limbs should you fail to comply with unlocking the phone.

Didn't we already learn 20 years ago that if an Apple product ends in an X, virtually nobody will actually say it like the X is a Roman numeral?

Or am I a transplant from that weird parallel universe with "Mack Oh Ess Ecks" and the Berenstein Bears?

Why don't we have unlock you phone with your watch? Or unlock a desktop with your watch? Or enter a password on a website with your watch?

Sounds more useful and secure to me than any fingerprint/facial scanner. And it allows Apple to sell more watches.

> Or unlock a desktop with your watch?

This is a thing, has been for a while.

Wouldn't that involve implementing some sort of remote unlocking scheme which is basically what Apple publicly fought/denied the FBI?

I'm just excited the GPU'S are getting faster in a mobile device. I really wanted Apple to have more pixel density in their iPhone X. 2000+ do would mean that we can wear an iPhone as a head set and have a descent VR experience.

I love how for their demo they selected videos where it was dark where the screen bump is.

And in future news:

"Celebrity gets iPhone stolen. Naked photos unlocked at wax museum." :D

I'm still sorry for the things we'll be missing with the loss of Metro Design, now lying in its deathbed in Windows 10 Mobile.

Wish Apple had the balls to just plain steal it, the iPhone home screen nowadays seems from last century.

That is some extraordinary marketing.

I just want it. But i know i have absolutely no need for it.

So many people pre-complaining about some actually neat stuff. The screen looks fine, stoked about the HDR10. Portraits will looks really nice. Wireless charging is a big plus. I think this will be a great phone.

I turned off the stream because I needed to get back to work. Did they say anything about security for FaceID? Such as where the data about your face is stored. Or what about just holding up a photo of someone?

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/09/12/live-coverage-iphone-x-...

"Face data protected by A11 chip's secure enclave. On-device processing."

Looks like its using a dot projector for the depth sensing (similar to the xbox kinect).

It’s stored in the secure enclave locally on the device. They said it can’t be fooled by photographs and they tested it with “Hollywood mask makers”. It’s “one in a million”.

It's all stored locally on the phone. I don't think they mentioned whether there will still be a "panic" button which forces passcode unlock.

The "panic" is an iOS 11 feature, not phone specific in any way.

They did mention that they tested against photos, and worked with hollywood makeup artists to make masks to test the phone as well. The number they mention for the odds that someone elses face will match yours is 1 in 1,000,000. They also said that touch id has a 1 in 50,000 chance, so it is 20x more secure.(I say that a bit tongue in cheek) I would like to know how they crunched these numbers though.

The OLED screen and the gesture based UI makes me think about the Nokia N9.

Loved that phone.

Meh. I still have a 6P. I will pick up used 7 now (as there is always a ton for sale after a new iPhone) so I can use the NFC for the Tokyo subway. The face thing to unlock to pay is a non-starter for me.

It would be awesome if they could use the facial recognition feature to eliminate the problem with spurious landscape/portrait mode switches when you are lying in bed, reading the phone at an angle.

Even prior to the leak it seemed (to me) like it would be hard to improve on the 6s/7, and the keynote confirmed it.

From wireless charging to FaceID it just feels like a bunch of incremental, gimmick-y changes.

The screen is the big deal. It's quite a lot better. Oled. Ridiculous dpi.

But the problem with that is that the regular iPhone screen is unbelievably good already. Why would people pay so much for the improvement?

I was surprised not to see a reconstruction of your own face as one of the animoji options. More than a novelty, it could be very valuable possession to a family member, after someone passes away.

They already butchered the MacBook Pro with the TouchBar last year. And all for a 30 second demo during the keynote. Here's hoping that FaceID actually works and isn't FacePalmID :/

FaceID shows the difference between Apple and other smartphone manufacturers. Apple doesn't release features until they are absolutely sure they can engineer them to work perfectly.

How do you know it'll work perfectly? No-one actually has one of these to test it yet.

Of course I don't. But the presentation gives enough information to be able to assume it is secure. Some other manufacturers' solutions can be tricked with photos. Since Apple mentioned dot projector, you can assume they are tracking the 3D model of your face which by itself should be much more secure. And it works with Apple Pay, the banks wouldn't allow it if it wasn't equivalent to Touch ID.

So windows Hello, which also uses 3D models, has been available for years.

As to banks, I'm fairly sure (although I have no inside knowledge) that the banks won't have been allowed to review this technology in advance of the release, so they have no real assurance here.

You can of course assume it's secure and as usuable as TouchID, but I'm guessing the devil will be in the detail on this one.

Lol, just as it fails in the live onstage demo ...

It didn't fail, the phone had rebooted, forcing passcode entry.

No, that was the second attempt at unlocking. He even mentioned switching to passcode mode.

it just didn't work twice live on stage.

And it failed in the demo...

Well, the beauty of presentations... Touch ID also fails sometimes. The important thing is that your finger can't unlock my phone.

It didn't fail, the phone had rebooted, forcing passcode entry.

oh like the iphone 4 antenna?

Like TouchID? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM8b8d8kSNQ

Swipe gestures, a steel frame, and a higher ppi screen. It sounds like the iPhone may have finally caught up with my BlackBerry Passport SE. Maybe I'll give the iPhoneX a try.

Who knows, maybe in few years we'll have the "first ever" smartphone with physical keyboard

First thought: how well can they discern in the mail app whether I wanted to scroll down or go to the home screen?

I probably have to swipe carefully from the very bottom or stay away from the bottom?

The bar is as low as today's iPhone home button. I have a strong feeling you will hardly ever reach it by accident, considering scrolling from a point that low is unnatural and uncomfortable.

Also, there is always a big obvious bar down there.

Do we have any idea what carriers like Verizon will charge to lease the X? I am currently paying $109 all in for 4GB of data and unlimited calls and txt. Phone is iPhone 7 128GB.

I'm pretty curious about the new AI chip that Apple might put in their phone. If the integration with Core ML works well, it might lead to a series of new interesting apps.

Another reason to keep using my iphone-5s. New phones are way too big, and I love the home button. If I was forced to upgrade I'd get the iphone 7 se (the mini one)

It's rather the 6s one. Still, I hope they will upgrade it in future. Also, I'm sure they will release scaled-down version of the X in time; it's just easier/cheaper for them to release a bigger iPhone first.

iPhone SE, you mean. It's the same on that came out alongside iPhone 6S.

I hope the OLED display used in the iPhone X doesn't use PWM, unlike Samsung.

LG OLED TV's seem nice as well, although I haven't looked at them for a long period of time.

Good luck with that considering they're using Samsung panels.

"Our vision has always been to create an iPhone that is entirely screen"

so the iPhone 2x will have no speaker or camera in the front... or they will be behind the screen.

I can't wait for someone to pick up my phone, point it at my face and have it unlock. Hope it has a "User sleeping, can't unlock" feature.

Yeah, seems that it needs your attention to work. So eyes closed or looking away wont unlock it.

During the keynote they mentioned this particular case, and they claimed it does have such a feature.

The Animoji thing is surprisingly neat. I was all prepped to make fun of it when they put the name on the screen, but that's just... really really neat.

Seems completely useless to me. Apple has lost it's focus. I'm thinking of switching to Android for the first time since iPhone 3G. The only reason I'm still on iOS is for iMessage/Facetime.

It's entertainment. People enjoy entertainment. Why not?

it may be useless to you ... but like, do you know any "regular" people? do you know how popular things like bitmoji are? and snapchat face 'filters'? This is gonna kill ;)

Will it kill in the first iteration though? I know tons of people who have snapchat and speak in emoji, but they are all using 5 year old iPhones or budget androids. Because they are 10-25.

I feel that Apple knows exactly what it's doing with this feature. There is a strong pull with iMessage for 15-25 year olds in schools, the kind of market something like this will go over pretty well with and potentially create more lock in to their message platform. Along with all the other photo apps that will take advantage of this tech. You could even just look at the Animoji as a tech preview for all the other devs.

Exactly. The Snapchat demo was evidence of how this will be opened up to developers.

The new photo features clearly showed how it will be used by the Instagram crowd as well.

Poor guy, this "useless" feature is an important milestone in AI

To be fair, this is an argument for AI being a bit of a misnomer for current "AI" tech

Totally, I love it. Very expressive and fun.

I can see a lot of use in "I don't really want to record video and worry about how I look today, but this stupid poop can share my exact facial expression".

I don't have an iPhone and don't plan to have an iPhone, but this is going to be a surefire hit feature for Apple, and I expect other platforms to try to emulate it pretty quick.

Also, a friend of mine pointed out how popular it will be among the furry community. :)

Looks like the tech from the Faceshift company they purchased, I'm curious if that's why they grabbed them

Seems likely/plausible. Most of these tech companies prefer to buy a company and then integrate their tech over developing ideas like this in-house these days.

How do Muslim women that cover their faces use this phone?

You don't have to turn FaceID on -- you can continue using a normal passcode.

So, how do you snap a screenshot without the home button?

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/298203/how-to-take...

I'm more than happy to pay £1k for the iPhone X if it docks and I'm able to use it as a Mac Mini running MacOS. It should be powerful enough.

What exactly is a bionic chip? Is it just the codename?

It's marketing BS.

It's a CPU+GPU+ML-optimized chip. I'd say "Bionic" is a bit of a stretch from the marketing department but it's likely a reference to the neural network capabilities which are modeled after biology.

So with FaceId being able to unlock my phone at any time, does that mean it will be filming everything, all the time, waiting to detect a face?

I can already tell I'm soon going to be very tired of the word notch. It's starting to feel like the tartlets from Seinfeld.

Anyone else experience major issues with the website? It's inscrutable to me with the scroll based parallax nonsense breaking horribly.

It seems the camera sticks out at the back. This would mean it's not possible to put the phone stably on a flat surface. Is this true?

> I think Apple needs to position themselves as a privacy concerned company

They have already been doing this for quite awhile. With their practices on device encryption, public stance on cooperating with police for unlocking devices, etc, they have made it a key differentiating factor between them an Android in many ways. And when it comes to security and privacy, you are incorrect when you say that all phones today are the same.

Throughout HN comments for the last couple years, it seems to be widely acknowledged that Apple offers the best privacy of the current mobile industry.

I'd say that they already do. Most data is kept on device and whatever is sent to the cloud is end-to-end encrypted.

If you want a phone that respects your privacy, take a look at https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

Fellow Scandinavian here. Apple has talked a lot about privacy and security in last couple of years, both on stage and off stage. I'd even go as far ans say it's probably one of the topics they've been most vocal about off-stage.

What's your specific privacy concern in relation to the presentation given?

The only way to stop someone from unlocking your device by just pointing it at your face is to close your eyes. Dealbreaker.

How many folks thought the bezel up top is weird? They should have captured the screen space for something else.

What's the point of the iPhone 8? It's essentially an upgrade to the iphone 7S and that's all.

It's Apple's way of transitioning to a higher price point on their phones. Now they have the iPhone X at $1000 but oh, there's still have this iPhone 8 at the lower price point... I'm betting next year there is no more lower price point and the new standard is $1000 phones.

That's a pretty big point by itself. Lots of people with pre-7 phones looking for an upgrade that don't need or want all the X features.

There is no iPhone 7S. Only 6, 6S, 7 and now 8.

Finally, wireless charging, they even support standard Qi, but how are they making Qi work like a power mat?

I thought they said it wasn't a standard, but they are working to eventually add it to Qi

They're "Working with the Qi standards body" to improve it.

No desire to buy one. Even it is well within my range of purchase power, this shit is expensive as hell.

People who use 1000$ iPhoneX on office desk need another 400$ apple Watch to check for notifications.

Just checking, this isn't with a see-through glass, right? The phone isn't translucent.

No, A See-through phone is something Robert Scoble predicted since last year, but i never bought his hype and even the AR stuff is not really ground breaking.

Did he also predict see-through batteries and chips?

I'd pay $200 to get rid of the haptic home button. Always hated the feel of that thing.

what a whole lot of meh regarding the Iphone X. The watch series 3 though, that I am getting.

Does anybody know if there is an api to access the raw depth data of the truedepth camera?

Everybody is discussing the features like they've already bought it. But I find that literally none of the features of the X make sense over the 7, or the 6 even. Maybe a lot of people said this before but to me that's it. The iPhone X event should be remembered as the event when Apple jumped the shark.

The A11 is a massive leap forward over the 6 and 7, that alone is a pretty big reason to upgrade.

Did they botch the Mac Air upgrade similar to the Pro now? Or is it still usable?

Meh. I'm surprised they bumped the version to "X" for this.

Not every release can be amazing, but this is just an incremental hardware upgrade with some features taken out.

Meanwhile, they haven't fixed any of the most infuriating and annoying iOS bugs, and don't seem to have any plans to do so...

Great concept. I'll take the revised XS later, and an 8 now.

Telescreen X! Now with an improved backdoor!! Buy now!!!

Does face recognition mean my twin brother can use my phone to pay for his beer?

BTW, wondering how fast until there is "3D print you GF face so you can unlock her phone" service. I see Ali Express business booming.

they explicitly talk about how they worked with extremely detailed mask makers to ensure that sort of thing doesn't happen.

Huge shout out to RZA, for making it into that Keynote.

iPhone X starts at $1,516.85 in Canada (after taxes)...

Did the FaceID just fail on stage for Craig Federighi?

Yep, but he had a back up phone right there.

No, it didn't. The screen said "Enter PIN to enable Face ID." The phone had been rebooted, and a password is required first. Same as TouchID. He failed, FaceID did not.

They should rename this to iPhone N (N for Notch).

No information about RAM or CPU speed/cores?

> Our vision has always been to create an iPhone that is entirely screen. (...) Say hello to the future.

Haven't we seen such phones from other companies already a thousand times over?

I think Jobs would be throwing it into aquarium until the black notch bar is removed. After looking at those photos the notch is pain in the eyes and pure abomination.

Will iphone X have passcode along with FaceId

yes

With all that hype building up, I was hoping they would introduce something less underwhelming than an iPhone without a home button like you know... a new wearable.

New watch with cellular: https://www.apple.com/apple-watch-series-3/

Face ID seems like a great way to build a global database of people's faces. Not saying they will, but if they wanted to, that would be the way to do it.

never leaves the phone.

Apple isn't Google, they have no interest in having a global fingerprint or face database.

Everything is done on device and the device is sealed tight enough to make hacking impractical for everyone except for state level actors.

Lol the first Face ID demo had some issues

The phone had been rebooted and thus required a passcode to unlock.

Both the 8 and the X have the pressure sensitivity "3D Touch". Is that actually useful? To the HN users with iPhones: Do you use it?

Yes, I use it all the time. Mainly app-switching and text navigation (3d-touch/force-press on keyboard to enable floating cursor mode).

It initially came off as a gimmicky way of 'right clicking' but has evolved into more than that. Software has also been refined since first release.

Having used an iPhone with pressure sensitive screen the past year, it remains unused for me, partly because the gesture feels unnatural and partly since most apps don't support it, I dont expect it to do anything.

3D Touch (before called Force Touch) has been in Apple products since 2014. I use it all the time on iPhone 7S, it's a regular part of interacting with the operating system:

- force touch an image to view fullscreen

- force touch app icons to open a quick menu

- force touch buttons in Control Center to open a menu

It's like a quicker touch-and-hold action in other operating systems, although sometimes there's also a touch-and-hold action in iOS which can be annoying.

Expecting the iPhone X to be delayed beyond November. The phone isn't cooked enough yet and I think they have announced it prematurely.

Face ID bypass will sure be available Nov 4-5

Also wonder if this "security feature" is NSA-approved, m pretty sure it is.

I can't wait to see the Youtube videos of people 'taking a selfie' just to unlock their iPhones

Wow, it's not aluminum..

Infrared rays striking your eyes and face each time you look at your phone? Health implications?

Infrared light is all around you all the time. I'd assume the intensity levels here are extremely safe.

Infrared rays strike your eyes and face EVERY TIME YOU GO OUTSIDE.

But where's iphone 9

Failed like Windows 9.

I wonder if the plan is to keep refreshing the iPhone X into the future, like all other X/10 versions seem to do.

iPhone X One X

Looks like a Windows 8.1 -> 10 naming change, it must be in style to be inconsistent :)

I had read part of the decision was based on minimizing confusion with 95/98 versions of Windows. Who knows?

There isn't one. After 30 years of trying to distance themselves from Redmond, Apple has subscribed to the Microsoft School of Counting.

This happened with the 3GS (which should have been 4), and has continued since then.

The iPhone 4 was actually the only iPhone with a number which coincided with the generation; before it, there was 2G, then 3G, then 3GS, then 4. If anything, the 3GS should’ve been called the iPhone 3, but they’ve been pretty clear from the start that the name doesn’t really reflect a simple incrementing version number.

The also went form the original to 3G. 3GS was actually #3.

10 years. C'mon people...

Nobody likes number 9.

See Windows 10.

What about Debian 9?

Seven ate nine

Base-8 encoding: ... 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, ...

:-)

That would be base-9 though

funny, but 8=10 so technically base 9

Welp staying with my SE

Am I the only person not excited about the iPhone since the release of the 4s?

Considering their market share, a lot of people have never been excited about them.

I think the iPhone excitement is mostly a US thing. For a lot of people here, it was the first smartphone they saw - or even their first mobile device.

It's hard to get excited about iPhones when you're used to more modern technology.

Rounded Corners, Rounded Corners Everywhere!

Let's watch Spider-Man with a rounded screen

That's funny, Apple pulled a Microsoft and skipped 9 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

geometric data is a username, not a password

So a neutered 2K screen, and an x% faster APU...

How is this worth over $999?

What do you do if you want to go to a costume party? Lol

Is it Pentile?!

Can we call that notch what it is please, a monobrow.

Back glass...

when the iPhone X SE?

Iphone X One SE Plus

No plus, minus please. I am tired of big phones

Goodbye privacy? A phone that can be unlocked with your face = easy enough for cops to snoop on you. No need for a password, just taking your phone and pointing it at your face unlocks it.

Or just pointing your finger at the sensor unlocks it. Same difference.

Or you can use the "panic" mode on iOS11 and force it to ask for a passcode.

Most regular users of iOS products know very little about these kinds of features, they just enable these things without thinking, then I have to explain why its bad. I have this exact kind of talk every other day on a regular basis.

Looks like the truth hurt the majority of you too much. This is fact in the life of an electronics repair tech, so much so that it should be written as a law. Most users have ZERO CLUE. They don't read a manual. They piddle around until they get what they want working and tend to stop there, and go no further.

Oh, and panic mode? Cop sees you doing that, you've obviously got something to hide and they can act then and there. Not a very smart move.

This is reality. You may not like it, but you're part of the reason it is what it is.

This just in: Apple releases the Samsung Galaxy S8, calls it an iPhone

Would you say the same thing in reverse if Apple's event was a month earlier? These things have been in work for more than the past month.

What difference does a month make? The S8's been out since April.

Apologies, did a quick google for Galaxy S8 Announcement and saw August 7th, didn't realize that was for the S8 Active.

S8 has a headphone jack.

and a fingerprint scanner

- Ugly notch

- No USB-C

- Gimmicky features

- Protruding camera

- $999

You forgot to add "lame" /s

I really don't get the notches. They're extra ugly, they put the sensor in a vulnerable position and are basically there so that they can claim a thinner phone forcing user to fatten it again with ugly plastic cases just to have the phone rest flat

- No wireless

- Less space than a Nomad

- Lame.

Let's not mince words here, this thing is gonna print money.

Please don't buy it. It is not a phone for you.

Exactly!

and add this:

- to access Ctrl Center, every time you have to swipe from the top right corner of the screen, on a 5.8" screen for God's sake...

Face ID = Where the camera watches you all the time.

Apple Watch is the new iPhone. The iPhone is becoming a home computer. Watch it.

I'd say iPad is Apple's vision for the home computer.

Does it mean that the next version will be called Iphony ?

they can also go XL, XXL, XXXL and so on :p

or even XI XII XII. Hail caesar or something.

iPhone X "Pro"

iPhone X Cheetah.

My guess is it will be called iPhone X Series 2. Also iPhone 8/8 Plus next year will change to "iPhone" and "iPhone Plus". All follow the same Apple Watch naming as they can't have iPhone 10/iPhone 10 Plus. They keep the "8" this year probably for the hope to gain market share in China as people there like the number "8".

$ 1200 for a brick and people still buy this crap phone. All people who buy this phone should be ashamed. Stop wasting the earth. Thanks.

Interesting how they decided to already publish the article although they have nothing more than the teaser but no actual content.

> So what does a decade of iPhone innovation look like?

> Developing… Please refresh for updates.

Keynote is quite boring after so many leaks.

Are they aware that "Surgical‑grade stainless steel" means extremely cheap? Surgical‑grade stainless steel is designed to be single-use. They advertise their phone as having steel that is good enough to use once?

Aren't surgery tools supposed to last years of use?

Sterilizing surgical tools is extremely expensive, and not good enough. You can sterilize some tools, for some purposes, but usually that doesn’t remove all contaminants.

So surgical tools are instead produced for single time use, and after that recycled, to ensure they’re always sterile.

EDIT: For example, with scalpels, you can remove and replace the blade, and do exactly that after every use. Removing and replacing the blade looks like this: https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-dc86caa627022bbfb7e6b4...

What? Can't you just throw them in an autoclave?

You can remove some contaminants in an autoclave, but others surprisingly survive, and would contaminate the next patient.

So stuff like scalpels, for example, is recycled after every single use.

Even such simple things as prions actually already require far more complicated autoclaves than you’d expect.

I would expect prions to be harder to sterilize than bacteria, actually. Prions aren't even alive.

They are much harder to sterilize, and autoclaves don't work. Ideally you'd dispose all tools exposed to prions, but if that's infeasible, the CDC recommends an autoclave in a bath of NaOH.

https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cjd/infection-control.html

I would also expect that you want scalpels to be sharp as new on each use. The blade probably doesn't take too kindly to the sterilizing conditions.

Many surgical items are reused - for example scissors, and retractors. Surgeons may have their own set of tools that they continue to use.

Lower cost items are not reused (a scalpel, which might simply be a piece of plastic attached to a blade).

Yeah, isn't this what an autoclave is for?

Define "use". I've had a steel rod in my leg for 14 years now. I use my leg to walk more than I use my phone.

Single-use if we bury you with it. Unless you're being cremated... then all your metal parts are like prizes or something for the cremators.

But yeah, I think "surgical" is used the way we used to say "space age plastics" and such.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgical_stainless_steel

> There is no formal definition on what constitutes a "surgical stainless steel", so product manufacturers and distributors apply the term to refer to any grade of corrosion resistant steel.

I mean if they want to use a corrosion resistant metal that sounds fancy they should have gone with Monel. It's very hard and tough, corrosion resistant, and the name even sounds fancy and expensive. It also has a nice look when machined.

"Surgical‑grade stainless steel" doesn't mean anything. AFAICT, there's not certification or metal grading committee that says, "yes, you can call that 'Surgical‑grade stainless steel'. Accept no substitutes."

Beside, we're making phones, not doing surgery. What is that even supposed to mean to me the phone consumer? I understand that I'm supposed to think "better" because "surgical", but for all I know the standards aren't all that high because it just needs to be sharp, not durable.

IOW, it's just marketing, just like "military-grade encryption".

maybe you can cut yourself on it because it's made for surgeons and they just wanna raise awareness that their product is not that safe for careless consumers?

It's just marketing BS. Like the "Bionic" chip. It doesn't officially mean anything, but it sounds cool.

The phone is definitely 2017. But I would like to condemn those who say its futuristic. Whats so futuristic about it?! is it foldable? Is it wearable? Does it generate holographic images, Does it at least project to wall for larger display? Does the battery lasts a week? They could have placed a touchID on the back(well, may be next iPhone). You might say, I am asking way too much in 2017. Yes I am! Thats why its not futuristic.

Just Realized : Face recognition unlock : Biggest Security Scare

- Case 1 : Imagine crossing security check or border crossing. Guards just take your phone and point it to you : UNLOCKED . No need to resis to give passwd

- Case 2 : drug the activist and point unconscious victim ! Voila !

- Case 3 : Steal the phone, and change the cover and flash it in front of the real owner !

could go on and on ...

All these problems exist with fingerprints too. At least Face ID requires you to look at the phone before it unlocks.

Developing… Please refresh for updates.

Obviously the "hype" for a new iphone is still up & running since there is a thread for not yet officially announced device...

> Obviously the "hype" for a new iphone is still up & running since there is a thread for not yet officially announced device...

Doesn't Apple announcing it at their "Special Event" count as an officially announced device?

It does, but at the moment the post was put online, there is nothing official, except the name. Hence "this is iphone X" looks like a placeholder for a future event.

"Please refresh for updates"

Besides there is a new thread ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15229902 ) for the same subject - nothing offcially started, yet several threads for it.

Anyway, it will be fun to see if this one will hit 1000+ comments :)

Every refresh is an additional set of ad impressions

Device itself is announced, that news is exactly only that. Right now on apple stream you can see them going through specs

I really wanted to see this turn the iPhone X into the primary computer for all things - replace the MBP and the iPad line. Dock to screen/keyboard etc... so that everything is just running off of the phone.

That would be a perfect jump off point to AR glasses with the phone as the computing engine in 2020.

It would let Apple re-focus, kill a bunch of product lines and swallow the market with a singular device + robust peripheral market.

I am not interested in the X model without TouchID. FaceID provides a less secure authentication method than TouchID.

* Sleeping victims * Attacker holds the phone to your face

Its not as simple as using the 'wrong finger'. You only have one face.

This is awful, Apple. What were you thinking?

You have to actively look at the display to unlock it. So sleeping wouldn't work.

Just wait. Id rather not even deal with these scenarios at all. Where is touchID?!? Why did they ship this without it!?

What about if you're dead? Would law enforcement, medics and/or family be able to use your (recently) deceased face to unlock? Would that be legal?

Clearly you have no understanding how it works and did not watch the keynote.

I did. I guess you have more info as you are an apple engineer and are breaking NDA?

The keynote mentioned multiple times that the face must be actively engaged. Passers by or sleeping faces won't work. Maybe watch it again.

It would be trivial to simply observe which finger a person uses with Touch ID to unlock their phone (something people are doing in public every single day). Something tells me 99% of people are using at least one thumb. And then in your sleeping victim scenario the phone can still be compromised.

If you have people in your physical space while you sleep that you cannot trust to not mess with your phone, then you have other serious security problems.

That being said, I also prefer Touch ID because it still appears to be much faster. But it offers no additional security over Face ID, and based on what was said, Face ID is more secure in other ways.

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