I Was Right About the New iPhone X Name 16 Months Ago

By Rob Stott

Pardon me while I pat myself on the back for a moment. While everyone around the interwebs has been talking about the forthcoming iPhone 8 and all of the great things it’ll bring to the smartphone market—along with its rumored $1,000 price tag—I was over here trying to get everyone’s attention. Begging them to listen to me and stop calling this phone the iPhone 8.

Turns out, everyone should’ve been listening to young Rob. (I promise that’s the first and last time I’ll refer to myself in the third person for the duration of this article.)

Among the enormous trove of iPhone leaks that hit 9 to 5 Mac over the weekend was a little tidbit that appeared to reveal exactly what Apple plans to call this new device.

Credit: @stroughtonsmith

It looks like we’ll be getting an iPhone 8, but according to that leaked image, the 8 will reference the regular and Plus versions that release this year, not the special edition iPhone that has been getting all of the prelaunch attention. Rather, that device will be called the iPhone X. The ‘X’ in this case is likely a nod to the Roman numeral 10, which would be very apropos in this the 10th anniversary year of the launch of the original iPhone.

While I hate I-told-you-so moments, I’m not about to let this one pass. Way back in May 2016, just a few months before the iPhone 7 was introduced, there were already rumblings about how the “next, next iPhone” would be a game changer. I wrote about some of those early rumors and, in the piece, opted to refer to the device as the iPhone X because, and I quote, “the Roman Numeral X would work nicely with the tenth anniversary of the device.” Looks like the kid was onto something (sorry, couldn’t help it).

Heck, even a quick search on Google Trends shows that, aside from a few mentions in early 2015, the iPhone X name really didn't start gaining any traction, from a search perspective, until a few months ago. And it hadn't truly taken off until this past weekend.

iPhone X Rumor Roundup

Naming conventions aside, there were some other probably more notable leaks to come out of the weekend data dump. Here’s a quick rundown:

Portrait Lighting is a new thing, which will launch in beta similar to Portrait mode last year, and will support different functions like Contour Light, Natural Light, Stage Light, and more. From the sound of it, this is likely a function that will relate to the flash when taking a photo in Portrait mode.

New video recording resolution and capture speeds were leaked. They now include:

1080p HD at 240 fps480 MB with 1080p HD at 240 fps
4K at 24 fps(Footer) 270 MB with 4K at 24 fps (film style) (HEVC Footer) 135 MB with 4K at 24 fps (film style)
4K at 60 fps(Footer) 450 MB with 4K at 60 fps (higher resolution, smoother) (HEVC Footer) 400 MB with 4K at 60 fps (higher resolution, smoother)

A True Tone Display function similar to what currently exists in the iPad Pro will come to the iPhone X.

Face ID appears to be the official name for the facial recognition technology that we’ve heard a ton about in the lead up to Apple’s fall event. Included in the leak was a fun little clip from the video tutorial for setting up the feature.

One major advantage of this new Face ID technology? Animated emojis, or Animoji for short. Coming to the iPhone with iOS 11, Animoji will use facial tracking and the user’s voice to creative animated messages. And that means, yes, you can make the smiling pile of poop talk…

Apple will ditch the concept of the Home button in favor of an all-screen experience with the iPhone X. The in-app experience appears to involve some sort of dynamic line at the bottom of the screen to give the user additional functionality, or just the ability to return to the home screen. Other clues were given about how the side button (i.e. the power switch) will be used to interact with iOS with the Home button now gone. For example, it’s expected that a double tap of the side button will bring up Apple Pay cards and passes, similar to the side button on the Apple Watch. You can also press and hold the side button to activate Siri. Essentially, the lock button is being converted into a defacto Home button.

Consolidating my 'iPhone 8' @charavel-made mockups in one place; this is, I think, my final bet before the announcement event pic.twitter.com/oxyXgrlts4

— Steve T-S (@stroughtonsmith) August 30, 2017