iPhone X reinvented the smartphone, now it is obsolete

In 2017, Apple launched the iPhone X, a phone unlike any other at the time. Now, the company has termed the device as obsolete. All smartphones can be traced back to what the iPhone X brought to the table.

In Short

• Apple terms iPhone X obsolete after nine years
• The iPhone X changed the way smartphones were designed
• It was called the biggest leap in iPhone history by Tim Cook 

On September 12, 2017, Apple held its first launch event at Apple Park. Media from around the world came to Cupertino to see what the company had in store to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the original iPhone. During the event, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the next-generation iPhones, the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. But the moment it seemed that the event was about to end, Cook came back on stage, under the banner “One more thing.” That one more thing was the iPhone X. The X stood for ten, marking the 10th anniversary of the iPhone.

One more thing was a nod to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Over the years, Jobs had built a reputation of surprising attendees by announcing “one more thing” at any Apple keynote after it seemed that the event was about to be over.

The time and place of the launch mattered too. The announcement was made in the Steve Jobs Theatre at Apple Park. Cook said, "Ten years (since the first iPhone launch), it is only fitting that we are here in this place, on this day to reveal a product that will set the path for technology for the next decade.”

The iPhone X was unlike any other smartphone at the time. And Apple was confident that it would revolutionalise the industry the way the first iPhone did in 2007. Tim Cook called the iPhone X "the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone."

Now, nearly nine years later, Apple is classifying the iPhone X as “obsolete.” That is, the device will no longer be eligible for service or repairs via Apple’s official channels. But the iPhone X’s influence lives on. The smartphone that you are reading this article on, too, has probably borrowed a thing or two from its playbook.

Mind you, when the device was announced, the smartphone industry looked far different. LG was still making phones, Sony remained a global player in the smartphone space, and Blackberry was alive too. On the other hand, Samsung’s latest flagships were the Galaxy S8 and Note 8 series.

When you first looked at the iPhone X, it would’ve instantly caught your eye. Apple claimed that the device had an “all-screen” display. And it was partly true. The bezels were very slim for the time, and there was virtually no chin at the bottom either. Granted that you did get a notch for TouchID, but more on that in a while.

At the time, then-Apple chief designer Jony Ive was proud of what the company had managed to do. "For more than a decade, our intention has been to create an iPhone that is all display," he said. "The iPhone X is the realisation of that vision."

Prabhu Ram, VP, Industry Research Group, CyberMedia Research (CMR), believes that the iPhone X was more than just a new iPhone. “The iPhone X marked the iPhone’s 10th anniversary, and its redesign made it feel less like an upgrade and more like a new category of device,” he tells India Today Tech.

And this display made all the difference. Couple it with the vibrant wallpapers Apple used to market the 5.8-inch Super Retina OLED screen, and geeks simply fell in love with the iPhone X.

The all-screen display also meant that the iPhone X had to ditch the home button, a first for an iPhone. Instead, the iPhone X relied on gesture-based navigation where you would swipe up to close apps or go back to the homescreen. Today, virtually all smartphones come with this system.

As we mentioned earlier, Apple gave TouchID a miss on the iPhone X, making way for FaceID. Unlike a standard Face Unlock, FaceID used a TrueDepth camera system that read over 30,000 infrared dots on your face to recognise you. Apple said at the time that the chances of a random person unlocking your phone were 1 in a million, compared to 1 in 50,000 with TouchID.

This change, however, was not a small thing, it was something completely new for users. “At the time, removing the familiar Home button and Touch ID was a huge gamble,” independent tech analyst Yogesh Brar tells India Today Tech. “Apple was asking millions of people to get used to gestures and Face ID, both of which were still relatively new concepts.”

Though during the launch, Apple’s Senior VP Craig Federighi could not get the iPhone X to unlock with FaceID, and had to switch to a different unit. Apple later clarified that the device had fallen back on passcode for the login as many staff had handled the phone at the event.

With time, Apple has continued to improve FaceID and it remains an integral part of the iPhone identity even today, albeit the notch has turned into a much smaller Dynamic Island.

There was another aspect of the iPhone X that made headlines – the price. The iPhone X was the first iPhone to hit the $999 price tag in the US, and it cost Rs 89,900 in India. While we are used to much higher prices for flagships today, the iPhone X was the most expensive iPhone at the time.

Prabhu Ram says that Apple took a big risk with the iPhone X when it came to its design as well as the price. He explains, “The biggest risk with the iPhone X was that it broke away from a decade of design status quo in one single move, at a premium price point.”

But you did get a lot of bang for your buck. The iPhone X was a drastically different iPhone than even the iPhone 8 series that it launched alongside. And as Tim Cook said, it formed the basis of the modern iPhones that are sold even today.

The iPhone has seen major upgrades over the years, with more cameras, better performance, improved battery life. But the core principle can be traced back to the iPhone X.

It is not just iPhones either. Look at any other smartphone on the market, and you will see familiarities to the iPhone X. Be it an Oppo or a Vivo or a Samsung, all phones now come with displays with minimal bezels, gesture navigations, and the works. While the iPhone X was far from the only phone to do this, it likely had the most influence on how phones were made.

“Almost every design cue since the iPhone X — the notch, face-scanning unlock, and a screen that runs edge to edge with no physical button — shaped iPhones and Android devices alike,” Prabhu Ram notes.

Yogesh Brar concurs, insisting that the iPhone X truly felt ahead of its time. “There was something genuinely futuristic about the iPhone X. It felt like a major step away from the phones people were used to, and that’s a big reason it became such a memorable and beloved iPhone,” he says.

As Apple labels iPhone X obsolete, Brar says, it is the end of an era. “It feels like we’re finally closing the chapter on one of the most important hardware shifts in the company’s recent history,” he adds.

Now, the iPhone X is obsolete, just a month before Apple is expected to announce the next generation of iPhones. This year, the company is rumoured to make the biggest change to the iPhone since the iPhone X with a foldable iPhone. Perhaps, this foldable iPhone – potentially called iPhone Ultra – may set the tone for iPhones for the next decade too.

- Ends