The big question over the iPhone X

APPLE says the iPhone X represents the future of smartphone technology, but does its flagship feature live up to the hype?

ANTICIPATION for the iPhone X has been frenzied and Apple fans finally got their hands on it today.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has described the device as the future of smartphones, packed with technology including facial recognition, cordless charging and a full screen display made of organic light-emitting diodes used in high-end televisions.

“A few minutes ago the first sales started in Australia; several hundred people were waiting at the store in Sydney and there are similar reports across that region,” he said this morning.

News.com.au was there to see some of the first punters in the world get their hands on the iPhone X but does it live up to the hype?

It remains to be seen if Apple fans are satisfied with the tech giant’s new flagship device which will cost you either $1579 or $1829 outright in Australia, but on first impression there’s certainly a lot to like about it.

Here are some of the fun new changes.

FACIAL RECOGNITION

Samsung has had facial recognition tech on its smartphones for some time now, but after it was initially rolled out, it was clear there was still more work to be done to improve the feature.

For instance, users were even able to unlock the phones by holding up a photograph of the owner.

Apple may be late to the party, but they’ve arrived in style. The powerful front facing camera shoots out about 30,000 infra-red dots to sense depth and recognise your face. Apple says it’s the most compact bit of technology it has ever put in a device.

The result is pretty impressive. It can recognise you from some surprisingly wide angles and is seamless to use when unlocking your phone or using Apple Pay.

According to the company, it’s far more secure than Touch ID which used your fingerprint as facial ID has a false positive ratio of 1,000,000:1 compared to Touch ID at 50,000:1.

Because it’s infra-red, it works in the dark but it doesn’t work if you have your eyes closed so you can sleep soundly knowing your phone is secure.

If you want to quickly turn facial recognition off, you can just hold the kill switch and a volume button on the side of the device and it will then require a pin code to unlock.

However, there are questions over the safety of user’s personal information as privacy advocates have raised concerns about the fact app developers can gain access to customer’s facial data.

While developers are given the opportunity to collect facial recognition data from users, their agreement with Apple explicitly bans them from using the information for advertising and marketing purposes, or selling it to a third party.

NEW GESTURES

The absence of a home button in order to make way for an edge-to-edge OLED display means iPhone users needed a new way of getting around their device.

So the function of the home button has effectively been replaced by the familiar swipe up from the bottom of the screen — you use the gesture to close apps and return to the home screen, as well as a raft of other commands.

Because of this, access to the Control Centre — where you’ll find apps like the flashlight and calculator — is now at the top right of the display. Users can get to it by swiping down. To bring up your notifications, you swipe down from the top left of the screen.

ANIMATED EMOJIS

One of the more quirky features in the new iPhone is what Apple’s calling the animoji range, made possible by the phone’s augmented reality capable camera system.

There are 12 different characters such as a panda, robot, alien, fox, pig and a pretty fabulous unicorn which you can use to make videos and recordings of yourself as these characters and send to them your friends.

The novelty of it might wear pretty thin rather quickly but it’s a lot of fun.

Here's hoping Animoji karaoke becomes a thing. pic.twitter.com/oR8PXkRbff

— Harry McCracken 🇺🇸 (@harrymccracken) November 1, 2017

More Animoji Karaoke for you. pic.twitter.com/pxvxfCUTi2

— Harry McCracken 🇺🇸 (@harrymccracken) November 2, 2017

Originally published as The big question over the iPhone X