Autumn presentation Apple I did not disappoint, although we predicted with almost one hundred percent accuracy everything that was shown on it. Namely: iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE and Apple TV 4K. But the details are sometimes important, and it is precisely about the details that we will talk in this article.
We meet the iPhone X
It seems that last year was the last when a unit was added to the name in the name of each second generation of iPhones, and models with a beam “s” were released between them in even years. The coolest of the three announced phones will be called the iPhone X, and it is read as "iPhone ten". Either Apple marketers hint that he arrived from the future, or just “x” looks beautiful. But rather – both.
Is the iPhone X? We look at the declared characteristics and bend our fingers together:
- Super Retina screen, which supposedly has all the advantages of OLED, but is deprived of their shortcomings. Diagonal – 5.8 inches, resolution – 2436 x 1125 points, as well as support for 3D Touch – the ability to recognize the force of pressing;
- two main cameras with optical stabilization and a flash with four LEDs (there is no doubt that it takes off the iPhone X perfectly);
- a six -core processor with the fashionable name A11 Bionic;
- GPU, designed in Apple and giving 30% more performance in comparison with the iPhone 7 video system and at the same time consuming less energy;
- A whole set of sensors on the front panel – we will talk about them separately;
- a battery, the charge of which is enough for two hours of use longer than the iPhone 7 batteries;
- a case made of fortified glass and stainless steel;
- Support for contact charge of the QI standard;
- stereodynamics;
- protection against water and dust;
- as well as all sorts of pleasant little things like support LTE Advanced and Bluetooth 5.0.
iPhone 8 and 8 Plus after the iPhone X are frankly not impressive.
In general, the list is impressive. Brand new iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus amid all this luxury look far from so impressive. Yes, they also have glass rear lids, support for QI charging, stereoinesyes, new cameras, new processors and true tone displays that adjust the color temperature for lighting around. Probably, all this together is enough for an extraordinary addition of a unit to the model number, but the futuristic iPhone X easily overshadows all this.
Why, in this case, it was just to add all the innovations as part of the usual update of the flagship model? Why it was necessary to do one more? Perhaps the main reason is that the technology of the future like a screen to the edges is not immediately produced in such quantities as it is necessary to meet the demand for iPhone.
According to analysts, in order to avoid interruptions at the start of sales, Apple contractors produce no less – ten iPhones per second. It is clear that any complication, like the inaccessibility of the components in the right amount, will make it impossible.
Accordingly, it remains either to wait a couple of years, or to do as the Apple did now: to release a limited circulation model that will cost more.
Price iPhone X, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus
The prices for the iPhone X, as expected, start with $ 999, which in Russia, taking into account taxes, corresponds to approximately 80 thousand rubles. Sales of the iPhone 8, X and Plus in Russia will begin, apparently, in December, abroad – November 3.
Interface
The screen to the edges and the disappearance of the “home” button, as expected, entailed some changes in the phone interface. Instead of clicking on the button, the owners of the iPhone X will need to memorize the gesture with a finger from the lower part of the screen towards its center. This is the key to the updated interface.
You need to unlock the phone? Pull from the bottom up. Switch between applications? The same. Get out of the application? You know what to do! But the control center is now called the other way around – with a gesture from top to bottom.
It may seem that it is difficult, but in reality it should be convenient-mainly due to innovations in the interface between the programs between the programs. It is worth starting to pull from the bottom up during work, as a list of recent applications will appear on the left – you can return to them at any time. And it’s even more convenient to just draw a finger at the bottom of the screen and instantly turn them over.
Face ID. Memory for faces
The neckline in the upper part of the iPhone 8 screen, as expected, contains a whole sensor battery. In addition to the already familiar front chamber, the dynamics and the proximity sensor, an infrared camera, backlight and a point projector appeared here. All together this is called Truedepth Camera.
All this is necessary first of all to replace the Dactyloscopic Touch ID sensor with the user's face recognition – Face ID that disappeared along with the “home” button. Apple claims that this is even more reliable: if the fingerprints are repeated on average once for 50,000 people, then too similar faces are found only once per million.
Having projected 30 thousand points on the user's face, the phone can accurately determine that in front of him is really its owner. They say that thanks to neuralates, any changes that the face are subject to: glasses, hats or growing bristles will not interfere with the work of Face ID.
They say that Apple employees turned to masters who create realistic masks for Hollywood. To teach Face ID not to be deceived.
But the speed and accuracy of the new technology is still in question. How directly you need to keep the phone to work? How to tilt deeply if he lies on the table? We will receive answers to these questions no earlier than Apple will be distracted by the first copies for reviews.
Kinect is in the EPPLOV
Truedepth Camera is useful not only for facial recognition – in fact, an analogue of Microsoft Kinect is built in the iPhone X. By the way, we learned why Apple in 2013 needed to buy Primesense, where we developed the hardware part of Kinect.
In practice, this means that developers can now use the capture of facial expressions and information about the position of the face in space in the applications. Why is it necessary? First of all, such innovations will be pleased with application developers like Snapchat and Instagram, where filters and masks can be superimposed on a selfie.
Apple Vice President Craig Federigi takes a photo for a passport.
The presentation has already shown how Truedepth Camera works in Snapchat, and it looks, I must say, good. Virtual masks sit on the face as glued and deformed, even if they fiercely grimace.
Another example is Animoji, animated emoji, which the owners of the iPhone X will be able to send to their friends. Animoji can be added to audio community, and upon receipt it will be read out by a virtual character, animated with the help of a photographed facial expressions.
Here they are, emoticons of the future.
Skeptics, of course, have already ridiculed this idea, and they can be understood. Pay 80-90 thousand rubles for the phone, which allows you to send friends to the friends with the animation of the speaking poop-it sounds stupid. But in Animoji you can see and something much more interesting.
The developers of virtual worlds (both game and serious-aimed at remote working meetings) always stood the task of reproducing facial expressions, which, after all, is an important part of human communication. Animated cats and dogs Apple is a big step towards solving this problem. Most likely, in the future, the technology of capturing facial expressions will still show itself.
May there be light!
Another important and not quite obvious software trick, which will be taught by new iPhones, is a thin adjustment of the stage lighting when shooting a photo. Thanks to double chambers (on both sides of the iPhone X and behind – in the iPhone 8 Plus) the phone receives information about the depth and “sees” the contours of objects. This gives the way to various interesting effects.
Choose a type of backlight.
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the light when shooting a photo: it is the lighting that distinguishes a professionally removed portrait from a selfie made in haste. However, the owners of the iPhone X will be able to bring the art of selfie to a new level, choosing what lighting will be.
In the case of the main camera (or rather, cameras) it works even better, since the algorithm can not only retouch the image, but also adjust the flash in advance, guided by the data on the distance to the objects.
In general, we survived to the point that even such a simple thing as a camera outbreak is now supplied with a neural network.
Complete reality?
Augmented Reality is one of the areas that Apple work on Apple for a long time. The results of this work began to appear only this year, with the release of Arkit – a set of applications for applications with AR.
New iPhones, according to Apple, Tim Cook, are simply created for AR: their gyroscopes undergo the finest factory calibration, and double cameras are created specifically to seize data on the depth of the scene and the location of objects.
All this allows you to create impressive demo and even some useful applications like virtual lines that can be measured at least an angar or football field. But is the augmented reality so good in games, as they say about it in Apple?
As we know, avid lovers Pok é Mon Go They even specially turn off the camera, because there is no benefit from it, only the battery is in vain discharge.
Of course, the battle of robots from Warhammer 40,000 or a giant dinosaur in the middle of the parking lot looks impressive – you can make a cool screenshot and post on social network. But if this does not add anything to the game itself, then such entertainment will quickly bother everyone.
The same applies to the second game, which was awarded the demonstration on the stage – The Machines production Directive Games. This is a strategic game that combines Moba and slightly mutated Tower Defense. The action takes place on this table, and the player paces around him with a phone on an outstretched arm.
See a person who was twisted above the table on the right? This is the future of computer games (actually not).
Needless to say, this is far from the most convenient way to play games? Yes, you feel much better when you can bring the phone closer to any object and consider it. But looking at the world through the screen of the phone is not only inconvenient, but also tiring. If you can play in the same game in a more comfortable position, then any gamer will quickly trick it.
Air power
Another topic that went through the red line through the entire presentation is a “wireless” charge. Of course, it does not completely save from the wires, but put the phone on a special rug, which will immediately begin to nourish the battery – this is, whatever one may say, simple and comfortable. And given that connectors tend to fail, possibly also economically beneficial.
Apple will make their own rug for charging, it is called AirPower. The presentation showed how you can put a phone, new Apple Watch Series 3 and AirPods headphones (though they will need a new cover with support for contact charging).
It is nice that Apple did not invent the wheel and used the industrial standard Qi (read "Chi"). It is already supported by many manufacturers, and it can be expected that such charges will appear in cars or even in our furniture. For example, c IKEA Freakmen with special concessions for wireless charging phones are already being sold now.
But, as usual, with Apple everything is not so simple: Tim Cook nevertheless mentioned that AirPower, although he uses the industrial standard, but has some modifications made specifically for Apple technology. That is, iPhones will be charged on any Qi rug, but their own will be dearer.
Apple TV
As expected, Apple also updated the Apple TV television setup: now it supports 4K resolution and https://leovegas-casino.co.uk/ a high dynamic range (HDR10 standard), which in practice means that instead of 16 million colors of the fifth -generation Apple, a billion. The main thing is that the TV supports all this too.
The new Apple TV is not different from the old.
Computational and graphic capabilities have also increased: the system on the A10X Fusion chip came to the IPAD Pro Apple TV and brought with it four times increased performance.
Those Apple TV users who have already managed to get hooked on purchased content from iTunes will please the opportunity to improve previously purchased films up to 4K. The American audience will also be pleased to appear on Apple TV sports programs. We are primarily interested in games.
This time, Jenova Jong from the studio entered the stage this time Thatgamecompany , where they created Flow , Flower And Journey. He announced the new project of the company – the game Sky , which (at least at the time of exit) will be exclusive for iOS. On Apple TV you can play with the remote control – all control is tied to the touchpad. Knowing what the guys from Thatgamecompany are capable of, you can believe that this will not become an obstructive adventure.
Official Sky trailer.
Apple TV, like other products shown with the exception of the iPhone X, will be available on sale on September 22. The version with 32 GB of flash memory will cost $ 179, 64 GB-199.
Apple fans, as always, do not make breaks, and begin to theorize about what will be shown next time, as soon as the hot discussions of the past presentation finish. Updating MacBuses in the spring? iOS 12 next summer? New Mac Pro? iPhone 9 in the fall of 2018? Or it's time to start a rumor about virtual reality glasses? Let's not rush, while not all jokes about talking poop.