Apple has unveiled the much-rumoured iPhone X that comes packed with new features and an all-new display.
It had used its special event keynote to unveil the new iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, but used the occasion to announce the next step in the device's evolution.
The iPhone X screen is 5.8 inches long and covers nearly the entire front of the device. Space has still been made at the top of the display however to fit the front-facing camera.
Gone is the home button and fingerprint scanner, with the smartphone instead using Face ID facial recognition to unlock it. Users can now also use various gestures to navigate their phone rather than using the home button.
Built for AR
The iPhone X features a dual 12-megapixel rear camera system with dual optical image stabilisation. Apple said the phones are custom-tuned for augmented reality with new gyroscopes and accelerometers for more accurate motion tracking.
Developers can use ARKit to take advantage of the TrueDepth camera (made up of a dot projector, infrared camera and flood illuminator) and rear cameras to create AR games and apps for the device.
Apple has also introduced Animoji, which uses the TrueDepth camera to capture and analyse the user’s facial movements and animate it onto various animated characters, such as a panda, unicorn and robot. Messages can be recorded and sent back and forth between users, delivered by the Animoji.
Feel the power
The iPhone X is powered by the A11 Bionic chip which features a six-core CPU design with two performance cores and four efficiency cores that are said to be 25% and 70% faster than the A10 Fusion chip.
One of the most interesting features is wireless charging, which works through the Qi ecosystem (which Samsung also uses) and special charging mats called AirPower. These won’t come until 2018, though.
The iPhone X will come in 64GB and 256GB models starting at $999.
Pre-orders will start on October 27th in more than 55 countries and territories, and will officially launch on November 3rd.
You can find more announcements from the Apple special event keynote here.
