T3 India

Dan Grabham

iPhone X specs, design, features and release date – the iPhone 10 is here and it looks fantastic

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Three new Apple iPhones were announced in yesterday’s Apple event.

As well as a new iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, Apple also unveiled a top-of-the-range iPhone X at its event in California.

The iPhone X will be a super-duper iPhone with a full-glass front, OLED display, powerful facial recognition system and new dual camera with True Tone.

The iPhone X name was revealed in a leaked version of the Gold Master (final) version of iOS 11 over the weekend.

iPhone X design

Made of ‘the most durable glass ever’ it has a surgical steel (like a premium watch) band wrapped around it and comes in Space Grey or Silver. No jet black this time or that matt black that didn’t look so good.

iPhone X specs and display

The 5.8-inch iPhone X display is phenomenal, with 448 pixels per inch and a 2,436 x 1,125 resolution. It’s got HDR10 and Dolby Vision support and features Apple’s True Tone tech. And yes, it’s OLED this time.

The processor is Apple’s new A11 Bionic chip, just like in the iPhone 8. It’s available in 64 or 256GB versions.

Despite the new display, there’s also two hours more of battery life versus iPhone 7.

There’s also wireless charging just like the iPhone 8 via the Qi standard – Apple has a new AirPower charging mat that you can also charge your Apple Watch Series 3 on. That’s coming next year in addition to a wireless charging case for the AirPods.

The front of iPhone X has two cameras including one infrared camera for Face ID, more on that below.

iPhone X release date and pricing

The iPhone X release date is November 3. All the new iPhones will be waterproof and dustproof.

The iPhone X is from Rs. 89,000 for 64GB, so the 256GB iPhone X will be VERY expensive.

iPhone X Face ID and lack of home button

Face ID has been introduced, so you can now use it instead of Touch ID (we currently don’t know if we will have Touch ID as well but we assume not as there is NO HOME BUTTON). It’s a two camera system and you can use it for Apple Pay as well as unlocking your phone.

It’s been specifically designed so you can’t erroneously unlock – you have to be actively looking at the phone. It can recognise your face even if you wear a big hat, and will discount someone wearing makeup to resemble your face.

According to Apple, only one in a million people could unlock your iPhone X with their face, compared to one in 50,000 who might try to unlock your phone using a fingerprint, via Touch ID.

We’re really intrigued to find out how Face ID works in practice. Touch ID is so easy, so will it really be a worthy replacement?

With the home button gone, you can now swipe up from the bottom to multi-task or activate Siri vocally or via a ‘larger side button’.

iPhone X camera

Both the front and rear cameras have portrait mode. According to Jony Ive, the rear dual-camera setup has been completely redesigned and there’s now a Quad LED True Tone flash.

The ‘True Depth’ camera array features dual 12MP sensors, with f1.8 and f2.4 (wide angle) apertures. It seems very advanced, yet is mainly utilised in this presentation at least, for quite stupid things, such as tracking your face in order to animate an emoji. Woo!

The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus specs, features, release date and more – these are the new ‘everyday iPhones’

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The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus have been unveiled at its event in California. We’ve also seen a top-of-the-range iPhone X, which has stolen the iPhone 8’s thunder, just a tad.

But for now, let’s focus on the iPhone 8.

The iPhone 8 has an all new design, improved camera, and a new, faster chipset.

Let’s start with the camera:

The new iPhone 8 has a new 12MP pixel camera. The 12MP lens promises ‘83% more light’, ‘better colour saturation/wide colour gamut’ faster focussing and there is ‘multi-band noise reduction’.

The ‘killer’ feature in the iPhone 8 Plus is Portrait Lighting, a step on from the iPhone 7 Plus portrait mode. It uses machine learning to separate the subject from the background then apply lighting ‘effects’ to the person’s face. And it can also be applied retrospectively.

There’s also a new screen, although sizes and resolution have been carried across from the iPhone 7, Apple has upgraded the Retina HD display, with improved colour accuracy and a cinema wide colour gamut.

The design is also refreshed. There’s a glass front and back in aerospace grade aluminium while there’s again water and dust resistance.

This allows for wireless charging in both models.

The speaker is louder and bassier, while the new Apple A11 Bionic processor has cores that are 70% faster than those in the A10 with 3x faster graphics now made by Apple itself.

Preorders will start on September 15, and will be available to by from September 22.

Prices start at Rs. 64,000.

The Apple TV 4K is here complete with HDR and 4K movies on iTunes

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The old Apple TV was announced in September 2015 and went on sale a month later – while it was technically the fourth generation model, it was the first significant update for the device for five years.

Two years on, we’re FINALLY getting a 4K-capable upgrade, plus HDR support. Behold, Apple TV 4K!

As well as a UHD-supporting, max resolution of 2160p, there’ll be support for HDR (High Dynamic Range) video, with both HDR10 and the more sophisticated Dolby Vision on board.

The Apple TV 4K pricing is Rs. 15,900 for 32GB and Rs. 17,900 for 64GB and it’ll be available for pre-order on 15 September and the Apple TV 4K release date is 22 September. India will get it after the US launch.

iTunes now features 4K HDR movies and will upgrade all the compatible titles to 4K HDR automatically.

Apple is working on an entirely new Mac Pro. Yes, really

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The Mac Pro is a superb computer, a high-end workstation loved by many. Trouble is, it hasn’t been upgraded in 1,202 days. That’s 2013!

So imagine our surprise when we found out that Apple briefed a few select pals in the US about its intention to release a new, “completely rethought” Mac Pro in 2018 (or at least, it said “not this year”). There will also be new iMacs sometime during 2017.

Although it’s a very unusual step for Apple to pre-announce, this is great news!

BUT that’s not all. Imagine our further surprise when Apple emailed to tell us that it is bringing some high-end Mac Pro options down into the standard two configurations at the same price points.

For $2,999 you will now get a 6-core Intel Xeon processor, dual AMD FirePro D500 GPUs and 16GB of memory, and for $3,999, you will now get an 8-core processor and dual D700 GPUs.

Pricing has not yet been confirmed to us.

The moves could be seen as an attempt to hold the interest of creative pros that are actively considering a move to Windows ahead of the Windows 10 Creators Update due next week and in the face of high end PC models like the Surface Studio.

Apple replaces the iPad Air 2 with a new iPad, called simply ‘New 9.7-inch iPad’

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Apple has replaced the iPad Air 2 with a new iPad, referred to simply as ‘new 9.7-inch iPad’ or, ‘new iPad’, as we’re sure it will be more commonly known!

Apparently the new iPad features a ‘brighter’ retina display as well as the Apple A9 chip (plus the M9 co-processor) from the iPhone 6S, 6S Plus and iPhone SE.

iPad comes in silver, gold and space grey (the same as before) and starts at Rs. 28,900 for the 32GB with Wi-Fi model and Rs. 39,900 for the 32GB Wi-Fi + Cellular model. The 32GB and 128GB storage options remain the same as do the 8 megapixel and 1.2 megapixel cameras.

It is a bit shallower in depth at 6.1mm versus the 7.5mm of the older model but the height and width remain the same.

Also announced today was a new red version of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus as well as the new iPad mini 4, available in silver, gold and space grey, now offers more capacity for the same price starting at Rs. 34,900 for the 128GB Wi-Fi model and Rs. 45,900 for the 128GB Wi-Fi + Cellular model. Yep, you read that right, the mini 4 now appears to be only available in a 128GB variant now.

The new iPad is available to order beginning Friday (March 24) in the US and more than 20 countries and regions including Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. Denmark, India, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Turkey and other countries and regions will follow in April. Brazil, Taiwan and other countries and regions will follow in May.

Polyurethane Smart Covers for iPad are available for Rs. 3,700 in charcoal grey, white, midnight blue, pink sand and (RED).