The iPhone X. Is it Apple’s phone of the future? Is it an upgrade worth getting now? How different is it and what does it feel?
iPhone X Favorite Features
We have had the iPhone 10 for just a handful of hours so far, but these are our first impressions out of the box with what the 10 brings to the table. The iPhone 10 feels a lot like the iPhone 8 or 7 in the hand but a little more dense and thick, still, it feels like the perfect size since it still manages to cram nearly a full edge to edge screen on the front.
There is a cutout notch where Apple’s advanced depth sensing selfie camera lies, most apps don’t use that area much, but videos and photos can be expanded to use that part of the screen. It mostly means, that when apps and videos get cropped down to avoid it the 10’s display sometimes does not feel larger than the plus screens at all.
The Face ID Feature
All new true depth front camera is the iPhone 10’s biggest future feature, depth sensing infrared can scan out a short distance which is used for a few things. Right now most important is that this camera can now unlock your phone and pay for things. Face ID replaces touch ID, and the 3d face mapping is the only way to unlock your phone and pay for things besides using a normal passcode.
It is pretty fast to set up, but you still need to swipe up to unlock. Extra settings can turn on or off the attention feature which requires you to look at the phone in order for it to work. Face ID is supposed to work with your face even when you make casual changes. What happens when face ID sees some changes in your face, well it can recognize you even when you have your new haircut, beards, glasses, a hat, a scarf, hat and scarf. What if you just changed everything? Face ID has limits. It will mostly work provided you look directly at it.
Use of Gestures
The Face ID and not the touch ID also means no more home button, which means you need to relearn how to use the phone. New gestures control things, it is a swipe up to get to the home screen, swipe down from the corner for control center, and swipe up and hold for other apps or swipe the bottom strip to swap apps. The side button control Siri and Apple pay, it’s a lot to get used to right away and some of the gestures are not always one hand friendly for quick on-the-go access.
The Front Facing Camera Tricks
There are a few camera upgrades on the iPhone 10, selfies can get portrait mode which adds depth effect to headshots, it looks really good, for the portrait lighting, beta so far, which tries to add studio style lighting. The true depth camera can also be used for augmented reality and other face mapping tricks. An emoji is Apple’s snapchat like face mapping trick for iMessage, which lets you face puppet animated emoji as you speak.
The 10-second clips are cute, but snapchats also taking advantage of true depth with improved face mapping filters too, Apple’s clips app uses it to green-screen faces into animated effects, maybe there will be more down the road but there aren’t many yet. More to come.
