iphone X Review: What Apple Might Be Trying to Tell the World

Published in

The Startup

9 min readSep 20, 2017

Taking an optimistic and positive view of Apple’s ambitious new launch of their iPhone X. Setting aside all the negative things, let’s try to stay positive :)

Introduction

On September 12th, the announcement was made on Apple Campus in the Steve Jobs Theater by Tim Cook who said, “iPhone X is the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone.” And of course, all the craziness at the scene was what we were already used to from past years whenever Apple introduced its new iPhone.

Obviously, we know that all the new phones made by different companies will almost always improve on the performance and specs such as battery life, charging speed, display resolution, durability, and many more. However, what we’re always interested in hearing about is, “what are some of the novel things that set iPhone X apart from other phones?”

Shortly after the iPhone X was introduced, there were many online reviews, articles, tweets and even funny Youtube videos about it, conveying both excitement and disappointment. And if you were watching the announcement live, you would have experienced both amazement and boredom at the same time as well. However, today- setting aside all these, let’s take a different view and try to think about what Apple might be trying to tell the world with its new phone.

These are just based on my personal thoughts based on what I’ve heard and observed. Comments are welcome and appreciated but most importantly, I hope you enjoy this little piece :)

#1. Going beyond the traditional rectangular screen

We all know that mobile phones typically have rectangular screens. However, on this day, Apple broke the tradition and decided to deviate from the norm by utilizing more space at the top (called “notch” or “earsbar,” however people want to call it). This stirred up a lot of controversy world-wide and even professionals like designers and engineers ranted over how they now need to come up with new ways to design and engineer around this. And yes, it’s a little different than Samsung Galaxy’s edge, a little more ambitious and adventurous.

Frankly, it’s a fair question to ask, “how much of an extra space could we have with this? Is this even necessary?” However, what Apple might be trying to express is that they are actively looking for ways to utilize some of the unused space on the mobile phone (Even on the new Macbook Pros with the interactive slide bar!). At the same time, it might even be the first step towards creating a more creative screen space. With fair assumption, Apple’s future iPhones could potentially be even more different, completely breaking the convention of rectangular screen but that’s only my personal thought.

(It could be that the designers of the iPhone might have stared at it long enough and tried to invent new ways to sell the product. Or the team might have thought about fully utilizing the two-dimensional space and even are thinking beyond what they currently have in the new iPhone X.)

#2. Exploring the best way to secure personal data

In the previous version of iPhone, Apple implemented Touch ID (finger print) to unlock the phone. In addition to that, we always had standard password entering mechanism. However, for the iPhone X, they came up with a new technology called Face ID which “analyzes more than 30,000 invisible dots to create a precise depth map of your face.” Apparently, it’s supposed to have a much more secure authentication because “your face is now your password.” With this cool technology, users can now unlock their phones by scanning their face and even make payments much easier and faster.

However, there are still, some controversy over this which have already existed for the Touch ID. Some people argue that,

“Even under US law, an officer with a warrant can force you to depress your fingerprint on the Touch ID sensor to your phone and unlock it in order to carry out a lawful search of your data. The same can be said for an officer can holds up your phone to your face and unlocks it with Face ID. (A fair point: Face ID requires the phone owner to have their eyes open.) These biometric seizures happen more often than you might realize.
But you cannot be legally compelled to unlock a device with a just a passcode. That’s because under the US constitution, the Fifth Amendment protects what’s stored in your head, but not what’s on your body.”
— By Zack Whittaker for Zero Day (Source)

But on the more positive and reality side (considering the top situation won’t likely to happen a lot), the Face ID may provide a more secure way to protect the data. Honestly, not a lot of people hide their screens or their keypads when they press on their password code or patterns. We can see this everyday during our commute, when we’re with our friends and well, anywhere. It’s quite easy for other people who glanced at it and easily have access to the phone. A fair example could be a jealous partner who wants to go through all the chats when the other partner is briefly away without the phone.

But regardless of all of that, the point is, Apple is constantly trying. They are constantly making effort and is at the forefront of coming up with new ways to unlock the phone (quickly) while trying to discover the most optimum way to secure personal data.

#3. Finding out a way to make actions (gestures) more natural and intuitive

We all know Apple’s iPhone was a game changer in the mobile phone industry. With just having one (home) button with entire screen being interactive (tap, swipe, force touch, 3D touch etc), the iPhone quickly became THE successful and ambitious innovation. People lined up day and night in front of the Apple store to get the new iPhone whenever the the new version came out. And yet, this was probably only possible through persistent research of human behavior, trial and error as well as countless user testing sessions in addition to Steve Job and the team’s creative thoughts.

Unlike from the iPhones that we are used to, Apple did something different. With the new iPhone X, Apple removed the ONLY button left on the surface. As mentioned before, they are trying to fully utilize the two-dimensional space (or even experiment further). But what’s important is that there must have been a lot of thought that went into this decision and come up with new ways, the ones that make sense to people and easy to adopt so that the ONLY button left can be successfully substituted. And of course, it ended up being “new” gestures which completely makes sense.

Like mentioned before, there must have been a lot of research and testing sessions that went into investigating and solving this problem. One thing we can assume is that Apple is really pretty confident in being able to “teach” users how to use their products.

#4. Pushing Augmented Reality (AR) to really be a thing in near future

Apple recently focused their attention around Augmented Reality (AR). With their new iPhone X demos, we can see how much emphasis they are making of this cool technology. Also, there are continuous development on the ARKit, inviting professionals to come join the party while raising awareness to the general population of things that are capable with it. Therefore, in our minds, we could be thinking, “Apple might be pushing AR to really be a thing in the near future!”

For people who are not familiar with AR, there has been a lot of successful use cases such as Pokemon Go and the IKEA app. Everyday, professionals come up with new creative ways to implement AR but still, there’s a lot of controversy over whether it will really hit the mainstream one day. On the other hand, many argue that it WILL in fact be a mainstream.

Most importantly, in a similar sense of how they are modifying the traditional rectangular screen space, it’s fair to assume that Apple knows that there are endless possibilities and potentially new ways of how people interact with mobile phones. There has been a lot of great examples like mentioned before of how extra information or even daily entertainment features could be enhanced (experience) with the help of AR.

Apple could be sending out a message, “please pay more attention to AR and try to become friendlier with the concept, apps and how it works.” Also, it could be a message to the industry that we really need to work together (or compete) on turning AR into the mainstream and a habit for people to use because there are endless amount of things that can be done with it.

#5. “Yes, we are keep on trying to be innovative, focusing mostly on people”

Apple calls it, “Animoji” which is an emoji that animates based on the user’s facial expression. It includes a new facial camera system that allows for practical applications like unlocking phones and making payments with the user’s face but it is also used for something that looks fun and interactive— it can track facial expressions and use them to animate various kinds of emojis. According to Apple, the goal of this is to “breathe our own personality” into the favorite emojis and the cool part is that the users can even send voice messages with this also.

After the iPhone X was announced with its features, there were of course, both positive and negative comments made about the “Animoji.” However, this was in fact, “innovative” because it’s a brand new way of making conversations with the help of virtual animated characters. People are constantly trying to figure out ways to make conversations more interesting, emotional and at the same time, personal. Although this could be seen as just another way to sell the new “camera” feature installed with the Face ID, it could be seen as something more.

As far as we know, Apple has been and will always try to be innovative, installing interesting and cool features into their iPhones. They are passionate about users having a better experience when using their products.

Conclusion

With my own thoughts and from the help of many online resources, I was able to write this short article. So far, I’ve read a lot of positive and negative feedback about the new iPhone X and thought it was worth it to take a different view about it.

Although I may not be an expert to be able to understand Apple’s thoughts and vision with their new iPhones but from watching the release, I discovered how they are constantly trying to experiment and innovate new potential ways of how we use our mobile phones. Sometimes, it could be all business and we may not fully understand the underlying reasons but we might see ourselves nodding our head when we hold the new iPhone X in our hands.

While reading, you might have other thoughts (possibly disagreeing) and to be honest, there could be many other ways to interpret and think about it. And of course, the decision to purchase it or to rant about it is completely up to you.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and have a blessed day :)