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Apple's Embarrassing Attempt to Rewrite The iPhone X History

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‘History is written by the victors’, or in the case of the iPhone X it is built on a well-placed exclusive interview with Apple’s SVP Phil Schiller. Speaking to UK magazine T3, Schiller has presented Apple's gamble with both FaceID and the removal of the physical home key as a legendary effort against the odds:

At the time, at the beginning, it seemed almost impossible. Not just almost. It seemed impossible. And to pull off what feels impossible and make it possible – and not only that, but just something we love using – is just a great achievement.

Yes, Apple had to commit early to its design choices, and yes Apple had to commit that the new iPhone systems would work, but to regard the implementation as ‘almost impossible’ is gilding Cupertino’s lily just a little bit.

Let’s take the removal of the home button and the impact this has on the iOS UI. The iPhone X is not the first smartphone to ship with no physical home buttons. Pick up any mid- or low-range Andorid handset and you'll find that countless manufacturers have coped with a virtual home button. iOS itself has a virtual home button available under the accessibility settings if required.

Schiller’s stated worry here was that losing the button press to bring a user to the launcher screen or the app switcher would compromise the experience. Again, the iPhone is not the first to have to deal with this - Sailfish OS has been using a ‘no home button’ gesture system since its inception, and the award-winning Nokia N9 (that Sailfish OS was built on) was reliant on gestures back in 2011.

A challenge to educate iOS users? Yes. Something that seemed almost impossible? Far from it.

The inclusion of FaceID in the iPhone X remains a big selling point and Apple is going to promote it at every opportunity, even if it introduces just as many usability problems as it solves. Again, Schiller pitches this as something almost impossible, full of risk, and a Cortez-like ‘burn the boats’ moment of the iPhone X’s design cycle.

To me the challenge of switching from TouchID to FaceID is a question of when Apple was committed to dropping fingerprints. As noted in the pre-release leaks, the iPhone X power button is suspiciously large - large enough for a Sony-like fingerprint sensor to be embedded in the button allowing for biometric identification. The recent launch of the OnePlus 5T has shown that facial recognition can be achieved with nothing more than the forward facing selfie-camera. OnePlus readily admits that this is not as secure as a fingerprint, but it meets the remit.

I sincerely doubt that Apple was not aware of the technological fallbacks or failsafe positions with existing hardware to verify identity.

Again, it is a change from what came previously, but it should not be seen as a 'bet the company' change.

The iPhone X is a great evolution on the smartphone, but it adds very little new to the mix. What it does do is mix a number of existing elements in a package that is easily marketable and that consumers are happy to pay over one thousand dollars for. Apple’s primary skill remains in the marketing of dreams and delusions in its hardware. But pitching it as an almost impossible device that is now on sale?

I think that’s going a bit too far.

Now read how you can get an iPhone X before Christmas…

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