Click to Skip Ad
Closing in...

The iPhone X was supposed to launch in 2018

Updated Nov 2nd, 2017 8:48AM EDT
iPhone X Release Date
Image: Apple Inc.

If you buy through a BGR link, we may earn an affiliate commission, helping support our expert product labs.

Apple on Friday will launch the iPhone X In various markets around the world, making the first November release for an iPhone ever. Yes, this iPhone arrives more than a month later than the usual September timeframe.

It turns out, however, that the delayed iPhone X is actually here a year earlier than planned.

Apple said in an interview with Mashable that the work on the iPhone X started three years ago. But Apple wanted to make an all-screen handset since the original iPhone.

“It’s been a dream we’ve had since iPhone 1,” Apple’s senior vice president of marketing Phil Schiller said. “We’ve had a dream since Day One to make it all screen, edge to edge.”

However, the tech wasn’t there yet. And Apple aimed for a 2018 release for the iPhone X. But, according to Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering Dan Riccio, with a lot of hard work, talent, grit, and determination we were able to deliver them this year.”

He also said that the accelerated development meant there was no time for last-minute changes, and Apple went all-in for replacing the home button and Touch ID with Face ID. That’s something Riccio told TechCrunch also. “We spent no time looking at [putting] fingerprints on the back or through the glass or on the side,” he said.

He also added that the iPhone X design was finalized last November, an information Apple PR apparently didn’t want to give out. ““Quite frankly, this program was on such a fast track to be offered [and] enabled this year. We had to lock [the design] very, very early. We actually locked the design, to let you know, in November,” the exec said.

The full interview is available at this link.

Chris Smith Senior Writer

Chris Smith has been covering consumer electronics ever since the iPhone revolutionized the industry in 2008. When he’s not writing about the most recent tech news for BGR, he brings his entertainment expertise to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and other blockbuster franchises.

Outside of work, you’ll catch him streaming almost every new movie and TV show release as soon as it's available.