Apple keynote: all of the news from the iPhone 8 event

It’s been almost a year since the Google Pixel made me put down my iPhone and transformed me from a Google apps user on Apple hardware to a pure Google acolyte. In the grand tug of war between mobile religions, I’m now pulled in the direction of Android, and I can’t express much regret about it. But Apple has just made official its biggest redesign and rethink of the iPhone ever, and so I was definitely curious about the iPhone X and the future it paints for the Apple ecosystem. As it turns out, though, the iPhone X really isn’t a phone designed to draw me back in; it’s more customer service to existing iPhone users than an appeal to new ones.

The Android user hat isn’t the only one I wear, but here are my main iPhone X takeaways from the perspective of someone deeply immersed in the Android realm:

Apple’s new iPhone X, unveiled on Tuesday with an edge-to-edge OLED display and a $999 price tag, is bound to shake up the high-end smartphone market in unforeseen ways. We don’t know how it will impact Apple’s overall sales, or whether it will set off a kind of mobile arms race to see which phone maker can outdo the other in the upper premium price point.

It’s already dividing both diehard Apple fans and longtime iOS detractors over the very idea of a phone costing into the four digits. More than any device before it, the X is testing both the value we put on smartphones and consumers’ willingness to pay for the best Apple to has offer.

Preorders for the new iPhone 8 and 8 Plus began early this morning, and it looks like many consumers are still debating whether to upgrade to the new models or hold out for the premium iPhone X, which is slated for a November release. With the Note 8 also hitting stores today and the Google Pixel still on deck for an official announcement, we polled The Verge’s staff to see why they are or are not looking to upgrade to the new iPhone, and whether Animoji, Face ID, and a bezel-less screen are enough to push them over for the more expensive device.

I resigned myself to the high probability that I’d want the iPhone X when I bought into the iPhone Upgrade Plan last year, so I’m likely going to just follow through with that. Whether I wind up liking it as much as I’d hoped is a toss-up, especially because there’s (finally) a wealth of competition at the high end of the smartphone market again. But any time I try to switch to Android, I usually find myself being pulled by the gravity of iOS back to an iPhone. So here I am. Staring down a $1,000 phone.

Apple spoke very briefly about AirPods at Tuesday’s big iPhone X event, and only really mentioned that the truly wireless earbuds would, like the new phones, be capable of wireless charging using a new case. Now, MacRumors is reporting via Macprime that the refreshed case with Qi wireless charging could come later this year at a price of $69.

As MacRumors points out, that’s the same price as a replacement for the current case if the owner is out of warranty. Otherwise, there’s a lot that’s still unknown about how Apple will make this switch. Will the company simply add the new case to its inventory and sell it alongside the original $159 AirPods at the same price or with a slight markup? Will Apple allow AirPod owners to upgrade to the new case, and will there be a charge associated with that?

Apple’s big iPhone reveal on Tuesday was a hardware extravaganza, with the new $999 iPhone X sucking up a lot of the air in the company’s lavish new Steve Jobs Theatre. But the Apple Watch, more so than any of the less-prominent (and less-expensive) Apple products shown off, earned some significant onstage time, thanks to an introduction of the new LTE-capable Apple Watch Series 3.

We pretty much knew the device was coming, just as we all had a good idea of what the iPhone X would look like and how much it would cost. (It helps, too, that an image the Apple Watch Series 3 could be dug up in a firmware leak of iOS 11 last weekend.) Still, now we have all the details about how Apple managed to fit LTE into its smartwatch and preserve battery life (a better wireless chip), as well as how much it will cost you to get a standalone computing device on your wrist.

Draw me an iPhone.

The lines may be squiggly, the rounded corners imperfect, but almost everyone you pose this challenge to will present you with the shape of a rectangle containing another rectangle sat atop a circle. The iPhone’s silhouette is the most iconic outline in all of modern technology, recognized by even diehard Android fanboys and featured on the side of “Made for iPhone” accessory boxes around the world. It’s a brand and a logo in its own right.

Apple’s new iPhone X has a spectacular edge-to-edge display that dominates the entire front of the device. Well, nearly the entire front. Unlike Xiaomi’s Mi Mix 2, Samsung’s Galaxy S8, and LG’s V30, Apple hasn’t kept the iPhone X top bezel intact; and compared to the Essential Phone, its camera array is much, much more noticeable... and odd-looking.

While the iPhone X design was leaked several times before Apple was able to officially unveil it, the company revealed this week that it is fully embracing the notch and not hiding it away with software. It’s a move that has generated a lot of discussion online, both during the leaks and after Apple’s official announcement. Some say “Steve Jobs would have never let that happen,” while others have mocked it by creating a “notch mode” for Chrome that adds a black cut-out to every YouTube video. There’s a mix of surprise, sarcasm, and intrigue that Apple has chosen to go with a screen layout that leads to design compromises.

Apple announced the Apple TV 4K yesterday, an updated version of its living room set-top box that adds support for 4K and HDR video and boosts the processing power. There’s not much else new compared to the prior fourth-generation device: it offers the same apps, Siri remote, and a centralized TV hub that aggregates video from participating content providers.

But Apple’s option is just one in a sea of competitors. Google, Amazon, Roku, and even technically Microsoft (if you count the Xbox One S as a streaming box) all offer 4K (and more recently HDR) boxes or streaming sticks for your TV.

With Tuesday’s announcement of the iPhone X, which comes with an edge-to-edge OLED display and starts at a staggering $999, it’s worth reflecting on how such a once-luxury device could transition to mass-market status and then flow back toward its premium perch. When details about the phone, nearly all of which leaked ahead of the time, began surfacing months back, its eye-popping price was immediately the subject of controversy. Was Apple doing the industry a favor by giving its flagship product a nearly four-digit price tag, or was it crossing a line?

The debate hasn’t changed much now that we know the device’s name, what it looks like, and exactly how much it will cost: up to $1,150 for a 256GB model. We’re all wondering who among us is willing to pay that much for an iPhone, how well it will sell, and what it means for the future of the smartphone business.

The biggest news out of Apple’s event yesterday was the debut of its wild iPhone X. Apple saved the device for last and took its time expounding the phone’s technical feats, yet the highlight of the presentation was far more carefree: an overview of animated emoji, a selfie portrait mode, and Snapchat filters.

The iPhone X represents, in Apple’s words, “the future of the smartphone.” Its Super Retina display has essentially no bezels. Its cameras are loaded with new hardware to support facial recognition, and the home button is replaced by gesture controls. Although it’s impressive to some, those details aren’t going to sell this $1,000 phone.

There’s one big question on everyone’s minds regarding the iPhone X: is it really worth $1,000? Well, be thankful you’re not asking this in Russia, otherwise it would be: is it really worth $1,380?

Thanks to the usual combination of currency valuations, import fees, and local sales taxes, the most expensive iPhone ever will be even more expensive around the world. And, using this ranking from Deutsche Bank of the most expensive countries to buy the iPhone 7, we can find out where. (Although, remember: US prices don’t include state taxes, which add around 5 to 9 percent to the cost.)

With all the leaks ahead of Apple’s big event this week, we thought we knew all about the iPhone X. It’s just a $999 combo of iOS, a bezel-less OLED screen, wireless charging, and a polished glass back, right? We’re familiar with all of those things, even the eyebrow-raising price, from the world of Android, so the radically redesigned new iPhone flagship shouldn’t feel all that radical. But for myself (and, I imagine, most current iPhone users), Apple’s presentation threw up more questions than answers, and it positioned the iPhone X as the most enigmatic phone we’ve seen in years.

Here’s a rundown of the things I’d want to know more about before passing judgment on this most fundamental of iPhone redesigns:

Apple’s new iPhone X is billed as “the future of the smartphone,” with new facial recognition and augmented reality features presented as the credentials to back up this claim. But these features wouldn’t be half as slick without a little bit of hidden futurism tucked away in the phone’s new A11 Bionic chip: Apple’s new “neural engine.”

The neural engine is actually a pair of processing cores dedicated to handling “specific machine learning algorithms.” These algorithms are what power various advanced features in the iPhone, including Face ID, Animoji, and augmented reality apps. According to Apple’s press materials, the neural engine performs “up to 600 billion operations per second” to help speed AI tasks (although this stat is hard to put in proper context; operations-per-second is never the sole indicator of performance).

In the short time since Apple announced its Face ID feature for the iPhone X, we’ve seen a lot of questions about its security compared to a fingerprint or passcode. For example, if you’re arrested, can a police officer just point your phone at your face and unlock it?

Apple has some technical features that might make this harder. The iPhone X isn’t supposed to unlock if your eyes are closed, for example, and since iOS 11 reportedly lets you disable Touch ID on the fly, you might be able to do the same for Face ID. But from a legal perspective, you’re less secure unlocking a phone with your face — or just about any biometric mechanism — than with a passcode.

Although it’s a hurdle the tech industry has long failed to clear, high-profile incidents this year have put the battle for gender diversity in Silicon Valley in the spotlight. In February, Uber engineer Susan Fowler published an explosive blog post detailing allegations of sexism at the company, an incident that contributed to Travis Kalanick’s ousting as CEO and may even inform new legislation. In June, a prominent venture capitalist was accused by multiple women of making unwanted advances during business meetings. More recently, a viral anti-diversity “manifesto” written by a Google employee ignited a controversy that eventually resulted in the author’s firing, and forced Google to confront some of the sexist beliefs accepted in the tech industry.

Against that backdrop, one would expect Apple to make an unusually concerted effort to have more women appear onstage at today’s iPhone announcement. Instead, the event played out much like other Apple keynotes. The very first person CEO Tim Cook invited to speak at the event was Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, who gave an update on the company’s stores and, memorably if controversially, said the company envisioned them as modern “town squares.” She spoke for just over six minutes before Cook returned.

T-Mobile was well prepared for today’s iPhone reveal, as the carrier has already publicly announced trade-in deals for Apple’s latest smartphone refresh. The carrier says it’s giving $300 to any customer who trades in an iPhone 6 or newer in good condition for an iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, or the iPhone X. For those interested in the latter, extra-costly device — which costs $999 for a 64GB model, or $1,150 for a 256GB model — a $300 credit should help ease the pain a little bit.

T-Mobile also says Apple is offering three months of free cellular service for the new LTE-equipped Apple Watch Series 3, which piggybacks off your plan by using the same phone number. After the promotional period for the Apple Watch ends, T-Mobile says unlimited talk, text, and data for the Series 3 will cost an extra $10 a month. Adding a Watch to your plan is done through T-Mobile’s Digits service, which is the same thing that lets your phone number migrate to other internet-connected devices, like watches or a work phone, or be shared with friends and family members.

Excruciating self-congratulation has always been part of Apple’s brand, but the company took this to new levels at today’s iPhone event.

It started with a tribute to Steve Jobs that was unnerving in the depth of its veneration. As smiling photos of the company founder beamed down at the audience, we were told that Apple is not, in fact, one of the richest and most influential corporations of all time, but the embodiment of one man’s creative spirit. The revenue, the supply chains, the employees, the users — all an incarnation of Jobs.

Apple announced High Sierra, the latest version of macOS, back in June at WWDC, and early adopters have been testing out the beta version for months. It’s now finally ready and Apple will ship out the final version on September 25th. Like all macOS updates, High Sierra is free. It runs on just about any Mac made since 2009, but there are some changes to this OS that could break compatibility with older apps. Old versions of Apple’s own Final Cut and Logic programs, for instance, aren’t compatible.

Major under-the-hood updates in High Sierra include Apple’s new APFS filesystem, which should free up some space on your Mac, speed up certain tasks, and make backups easier; the new HEVC video codec which makes videos smaller; and external GPU and VR support. It’s the first time that Mac is getting VR support and it’s compatible with SteamVR and the HTC Vive VR headset.

Apple’s newest mobile operating system, iOS 11, will be released on September 19th, right alongside the new iPhone 8 and 8 Plus.

We’ve actually known what to expect from iOS 11 for a while now, as Apple originally showed off the mobile OS back in June at the company’s developer conference. It’s one of the biggest upgrades to iOS in years, and all that stuff we already knew about is still here: Siri translations, Apple Pay in iMessage, split screen mode on iPad, drag and drop, ARKit, a brand-new control center, Do Not Disturb mode while driving, screen recording — the list goes on.

The iPhone X is here, and it might be the most dramatic update to Apple’s flagship smartphone in years. Gone are mainstay features like the iconic home button and Touch ID, replaced by a bezel-free OLED display and a new Face ID feature that relies on 3D face-scanning technology to unlock your phone and process Apple Pay purchases.

And that’s not counting other upgrades to the iPhone X — like the faster A11 processor, wireless charging, and a True Tone display for better color accuracy — that the device shares with the more modest iPhone 8 and 8 Plus models that Apple also announced today.

Apple just rolled out the golden master build of iOS 11 to developers and public beta testers today ahead of its official launch on September 19th. This version of iOS 11 should be very close to finished with most of the bugs ironed out, but there’s still a chance you’ll need to download an update on release day. This is the same software build that leaked over the weekend when, so the story goes, an Apple employee emailed public download URLs to 9to5Mac and MacRumors, resulting in numerous eleventh-hour leaks about the company’s announcements for today. They all proved accurate.

But that’s the past, and what you care about is getting iOS 11 on your iPhone or iPad right now. If you don’t feel like waiting until next week, you can install iOS 11 today just by signing up for the public beta program at Apple’s website. Once that’s done, you just open the beta website with Safari on your iPhone or iPad and follow the directions. You’ll download a profile to your iOS device, restart it, and then head to the update menu. Make sure to back up your device before starting the upgrade. Apple spells out how to do that here.

Apple just announced a third version of the Apple Watch, the smartwatch it first launched in 2015. Since then, the Apple Watch has evolved into a product that’s really only great at a few things — notifications, fitness, and authentication like payments —and has still largely been an accessory to the iPhone.

But it’s possible that could change, now that Apple’s newest Watch has LTE built in. This means that wearers can be without their iPhones and still run all the supported apps on the device. You can make phone calls, use maps, and stream music, all without your phone.

Moments after Phil Schiller got done extolling the accuracy of the iPhone X’s brand-new, ultra-sophisticated Face ID authentication system, Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi came onstage to show how easy and fast it is to actually use. Unfortunately, Federighi’s initial attempt to unlock the onstage demo iPhone X was unsuccessful. The passcode screen popped up. He then picked up a second iPhone X and the feature worked successfully.

For all we know, this was a one-off fluke that’s not indicative of how well Face ID will actually perform for consumers. In fact, it doesn’t seem to be an error by the company’s replacement for Touch ID at all. The passcode screen that Federighi got on that first iPhone X said “Your passcode is required to enable Face ID.” This is the same screen that would come up on existing iPhones after a device has been restarted — or simply after several hours have passed without authenticating through the lock screen. This is a security precaution introduced with Touch ID that will clearly carry onward with Face ID.

Apple has announced the iPhone X, a top-of-the-line smartphone with an edge-to-edge display. Announced alongside the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, it will actually be on the market more than a month later than the other two. The premium version of Apple’s latest smartphone will start at $999 and come in two configurations: 64GB and 256GB.

Preorders for the iPhone X will begin on October 27th with shipping planned to begin November 3rd.

Apple today showed off a handful of new augmented reality demos to show the efficacy of its new ARKit platform and power of the new camera and A11 Bionic chip on the just-announced iPhone 8 and iPhone X. The demos, which ranged from gaming to sports, showed off high-fidelity visuals placed dynamically in the real world, viewable through the iPhone’s camera lens.

The first, a version of Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade from developer Pixel Toys, showed giant mech suit warriors battling on a real-life basketball court, while another illustrated how the iPhone’s AR capabilities could overlay the faces and names of players and game stats over a live baseball game. Developer Directive Games also showed off more footage of the known AR strategy game The Machines, which is powered by Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 and is shaping up to be a definitive title for the platform’s early days.