Apple's Greg Joswiak Talks iPhone X Face ID, Display and A11 Chip

Tom's Guide today shared its list of "2017 Innovation Award Winners," which of course includes the iPhone X, among other products like the Nintendo Switch, the DJI Spark, and the Amazon Echo.

Apple's iPhone X took the Tom's Guide "Best Overall" award for its Super Retina Display, Face ID, and A11 Bionic chip, and the site's iPhone X writeup includes some interesting commentary from Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of product marketing.

For the iPhone X's Super Retina Display, which incorporates the first-ever OLED panel in an iOS device, Joswiak says Apple had to "do a lot of engineering" to come up with "panels that were better" to address traditional OLED issues like oversaturated colors.

iphone x quad
The iPhone X is using its own color management system, a folding panel design that stacks circuits for minimal bezel, and other technology improvements to outshine competing smartphone displays.

Reiterating previous comments from Apple executives on Face ID, Joswiak says Touch ID was never planned for the iPhone X. Prior to the launch of the device, there were rumors suggesting Apple had tried and failed to embed Touch ID both under the display. Apple execs say Face ID was planned for the iPhone X from the beginning. "We had a line of sight on how to do real facial recognition, in a way never done before," said Joswiak.

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The "notch" on the iPhone X, which some believe is a questionable design decision, houses what Joswiak says is "one of the most densely packed technology areas" Apple has done. The notch includes a 7-megapixel camera, an infrared camera, a flood illuminator, a proximity sensor, an ambient light sensor, a speaker, a microphone, and a dot projector, all of which powers the TrueDepth system that enables Face ID and other features like Animoji.

At the heart of the iPhone X, there's an A11 Bionic chip with two performance cores and four high-efficiency cores that work together to make the iPhone X incredibly fast. An included neural engine powers Face ID and other machine learning tasks, while an embedded M11 Motion coprocessor captures motion-based data.

Apple's chip team "worked hand in glove" with the rest of Apple's hardware and software teams to design chips that are "perfectly suited" for the iPhone X's feature set. "That's huge," said Joswiak. "No one else can match that," he added.

Josiwak's full commentary on the iPhone X, which includes additional details about each feature, can be read over at Tom's Guide. The Innovation Award list also highlights multiple other products across categories like Augmented Reality, TV, Graphics, Design, Game, Entertainment, CPU, Tablet, Peripheral, and more.

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Top Rated Comments

MarcMller Avatar
94 months ago
FaceID is great, the notch isnt a big deal at all and doesnt bother me the slightest bit, battery life is great. Haters will hate... This phones just simply amazing.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
woogy12 Avatar
94 months ago
So far very pleased with my iPhone X. Face ID is great and does what it is supposed to do. Is it the most secure way to unlock a phone, No but I dont need that much security. As for the notch, its not a big deal.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
scottcampbell Avatar
94 months ago
I think I need to redo face ID and do it while lying down with my double chins. It fails probably at least 50% the time for me and pretty much always when I'm lying down. Miss touch ID and my headphone jack. :(
Says the Snorlax avatar :D
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JGIGS Avatar
94 months ago
I think I need to redo face ID and do it while lying down with my double chins. It fails probably at least 50% the time for me and pretty much always when I'm lying down. Miss touch ID and my headphone jack. :(
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mi7chy Avatar
94 months ago
For the iPhone X's Super Retina Display, which incorporates the first-ever OLED panel in an iOS device, Joswiak says Apple had to "do a lot of engineering" to come up with "panels that were better" to address traditional OLED issues like oversaturated colors.
BS indicator went off. It's just a color profile.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
chrono1081 Avatar
94 months ago
II don't even notice the Notch and it's non issue for me.
Honestly I think people complaining about the notch never actually used the phone. I used to think it would be a big deal because it looks far more noticeable in pictures, then I used the phone and quickly realized I didn't even notice the notch unless I consciously thought about it.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)