A Smarter Smartphone - Iphone X

Apple iPhone X / $999

To Dan Riccio, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, the iPhone X is a dream come true. “I look at the design as something we really wanted to do since day one,” He says. Now you may have question why: the X is arguably the world’s most sophisticated smartphone, with a screen that stretches from edge to edge, a processor optimized for augmented reality and a camera smart enough to allow users to unlock the phone with face.

But in order to make it all possible, Apple had to kill the home button, a popular all-purpose navigation tool. Much like the company’s move to nix the 3.5-mm headphone jack on the iPhone 7, this decision was driven by “looking to the future,” says Jonathan Ive, Apple’s chief design officer. “I actually think the path of holding onto features that have been effective, whatever the cost, is a path that leads to failure.” At $999, the X is also the most expensive iPhone yet. “As you would expect,” Ive says, “there’s a financial consequence to integrating the sheer amount of processing power into such a small device.”

It’s easy to imagine a future iteration with a screen that wraps around the entire device, or a camera that can detect gestures. But for now, Ive and Riccio won’t divulge specific plans. “We have a clear vision” for the next generation of iPhones, says Ive. The X is “in some sense a completion of a chapter.”