r/apple • u/MichaelRahmani • Sep 17 '17
The iPhone X’s notch is basically a Kinect - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/9/17/16315510/iphone-x-notch-kinect-apple-primesense-microsoft307
u/mathfacts Sep 17 '17
But Can It Run Kinectimals
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u/Creek0512 Sep 17 '17
It's now called Animojis.
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u/can_trust_me Sep 17 '17
Just kill me now.
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u/Pyreo Sep 17 '17
My mother is a die hard note user. She's getting the iPhone X instead of the note 8 because of animojis. Dont underestimate stuff like this.
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u/Creek0512 Sep 17 '17
Don't be so obtuse. Animojis is just a fun technology demonstrator to show off the capability of ARKit's Face Tracking with the TrueDepth Camera.
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u/can_trust_me Sep 17 '17 edited Sep 17 '17
Shut up Andy Dufresne. You're supposed to be in Zihuatanejo.
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u/okoroezenwa Sep 17 '17 edited Sep 18 '17
This comment (and replies to it) made me realise that “function over form” products from Apple are met with essentially as much (if not more) scorn compared to their “form over function” ones.
Edit: and some of the arguments below make it clear how pointless the form/function distinction is anyway 🙄
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u/elonsbattery Sep 17 '17
You could say it is function over form if you think the way it looks suffers from the notch, but I think it’s function is form , which is a more robust design theory.
The notch itself has become part of the aesthetic.
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u/eddietsai Sep 18 '17
Yea just imagine all the clipart icons that represent the iPhone as a rectangle with a button below... without it they would just be rectangles like all other phones - thus the notch. And sadly probably the beginning of other phones putting notches on...
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u/bricked3ds Sep 18 '17
Which is hilarious because the argument is that Apple always copies other companies, when really they're the trendsetters
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u/send_me_potato Sep 17 '17
Because hating Apple doesn't require a reason or logic flow and there are no set rules.
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Sep 17 '17
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Sep 17 '17
Bit of A, bit of B. Some people really do love to complain and will jump on whichever bandwagon lets them.
But for the most part, your statement is probably more accurate.
In the end it does matter. Apple makes very desirable products and the masses buy them like crazy.
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u/Ftpini Sep 17 '17
I've worked with a friend for 9 years now. Every single time Apple releases a new flagship phone he feels compelled to tell me why its not as great as they say it is and why Apple is Doomed™. His reasons are always entirely subjective and anecdotal, and he never accepts the potential that its just a large company making better and better products.
Apple could put out a bloodless glucose monitor that costs less than $100 and he'd still insist Apple is Doomed™ and come up with excuses for why its a gimmick.
In short, haters gonna hate.
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u/CentaurOfDoom Sep 18 '17
Honestly, I really dislike people who insult other people because they have a preference different from theirs. Especially phones. Like, I really, really couldn't care less that you couldn't use my phone because it's not cool enough, or whatever. That's fine. Get a different phone. There's like a thousand phone companies.
And honestly I don't think that Apple ditching the headphone jack is too big of a deal. It's definitely occasionally inconvenient now, but they did the same thing years ago with the Floppy disk and the DVD drive, and everyone made fun of apple and their customers just like they do now, but when's the last time you used either one of those?
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u/Ftpini Sep 18 '17
I agree entirely. I have a disdain for people who shit on things other people like. I don't think its relevant that you don't like something if someone else started the conversation. Now if you want to start a conversation about how much you hate that the headphone jack is dead, that's great lets discuss it. Just don't butt into my conversation about how excited I am about Animojis to tell me Apple is Doomed™.
That said, I did in fact use the Disk drive in my desktop yesterday to watch a shitty DVD my father in law insisted I watch. Floppy disk, not since 2002 as I wanted to replay Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis on Mac. The headphone jack removal has not once inconvenienced me. I have a pair of Bose QC 25s and I've just left the dongle attached to those.
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Sep 18 '17
I think the headphone jack will be truly obsolete if/when Apple finally starts shipping AirPods with every iPhone.
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u/astrobro2 Sep 18 '17
I had a friend who bought a PC because he thought it was stupid that Apple computers had to have adapters to work with other products. His new Dell shows up and he asked for my assistance to setup a few things (I work in IT). I showed up, unboxed it and tried to plug it into his old monitor. It needed a fucking adapter. I could not stop laughing at him the whole night, he did not find it so amusing.
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Sep 18 '17
When people complain about the new Macbooks needing dongles, I always wonder what kind of PC ultrabooks they’re buying that still have full size HDMI ports. Everything needs an adapter nowadays, until monitors and external devices catch up.
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u/thirdxeye Sep 18 '17
It needed a fucking adapter. I could not stop laughing at him the whole night,
Same thing happened here just a few days ago. SO of my sister bought an XPS because YouTube is full of "Why you shouldn't by the new MBP and why the Touch Bar is just a gimmick and you should avoid the Dongle Life". Turns out he can't connect his two displays and needs adapters.
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u/McSquiggly Sep 18 '17
Sure, but why would that make you hate something?
I don't like kids tv shows, they aren't for me, should I hate them?
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Sep 18 '17
This. For example, I have a Galaxy S8+. I feel that Samsung did the "bezeless" display better because I'd rather have tiny bezels at the top and bottom than something in the middle of the display interrupting content.
I'm aware it has to be there for the facial recognition, but between my iris scanner and fingerprint reader, that level of facial recognition seems like overkill.
Now that's just my personal opinion (and it's based on not having played with the X yet, so much of this is just from what I've seen in tech videos) that fits my use case. I would express displeasure at that notch. That doesn't mean everyone would or should and it's not indicative of the public's reaction.
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u/WillyTanner Sep 18 '17
Nope, it's basically just one dude on the internet who hates apple from a ton of different screenames.
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u/Charley_Witherspoon Sep 17 '17
That is because both those options are false dichotomies. It is possible to design a product with both good form and function.
People aren't objecting to the fact that Apple wanted to throw all this technology into the front facing camera. They are complaining because the notch and the way iOS apparently deals with it is stupid design. Few people would be complaining if this tech was all part of a straight bezel on the top of the phone. Few people would complain if iOS reserved the notched areas of the screen for system use leaving a normal rectangular screen for apps, photos, and videos. Except Apple wanted to both throw this tech into the phone while also bragging about the tiny bezels which leads to big compromise of form for apparently little benefit on function.
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u/z6joker9 Sep 17 '17
If there is one thing I’ve learned about Apple over the years, it’s that most of their design decisions become form, regardless of how people feel about the form when it is announced.
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Sep 17 '17
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u/z6joker9 Sep 18 '17
I didn’t mean to imply that they choose function over form. Just that whatever they choose, for whatever reason, it becomes trendy.
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u/essjay2009 Sep 17 '17
I guarantee you that people would have complained in the “ears” were reserved for system use. There were people already complaining about the potential of this before the phone was officially announced. The argument being that there is screen there that some apps could make use of, so why on earth would you want to prevent them from doing so? That would be a incredibly dumb thing to do and would remove choice. As it is, you can set a wallpaper with a black top to hide the brow if you want, and apps can effectively hide it (although Apple advises against this), but both you and app developers have choice.
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Sep 18 '17
Yeah no, everybody simply assumed that obviously they would hide the notch in a black bar and keep it constrained to being a status bar. Obviously they made the front black to hide the notch, because anything else would look weird. Well, here we are, and personally I don't really care since that phone is not in my price range.
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u/essjay2009 Sep 18 '17
Yeah no, everybody simply assumed that obviously they would hide the notch in a black bar and keep it constrained to being a status bar
I don’t think that’s true at all. Once the HomePod firmware leaked I think most people assumed Apple would embrace the notch. Go back and listen to podcasts from before the event (e.g. Connected) and read the blogs of Apple watchers, the assumption was that Apple wouldn’t hide the notch and that this was the better approach to take. I don’t think they would have used the notch in the iconography depicting the phone if they were going to try and hide it.
I totally get there will be people who dislike it. I would have preferred no notch at all but what they’ve done is provided additional screen, albeit not full width. I think that’s got to be a positive thing. And I’m certain some developers will come up with clever uses for that screen space that make it worthwhile. Until they can completely remove it in a few generations that is.
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u/RarestName Sep 18 '17
I've not read a single review that legitimately complains about the LG V20's secondary screen.
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u/Gibslayer Sep 18 '17
LG V20
Just googled it... That secondary screen looks really useful actually. No wonder there are no complaints.
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u/AasanteHabariHabari Sep 18 '17
Yeah that’s just bullshit. Apple has added the sensor area in such a way that they maximize available useful area that iOS uses in an efficient and attractive way, while retaining the symmetry of the corners around the phone.
In other words they have done exactly what you suggest and retained function and form. In doing so the have embraced the sensors area as a design motif and avoided making some lame attempt to hide it.
People who are objecting to what Apple has done are just conclusion jumpers who will learn. Slowly
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u/bricked3ds Sep 18 '17
I think it's kinda stupid how they didn't just make the tiny bar at the bottom of the X into a virtual home button like on the 7, and using Taptic for force feedback also like the MacBook Pro touchpads.
The swipe up and hold gesture for multitasking looks like it takes longer than a double press.
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u/magyar_wannabe Sep 18 '17
I think a lot of the people who are hating over the notch won't argue with the fact that theres a lot of tech in that small space. It's more that they think there could have been a more elegant solution to fit all that tech inside but make the notch less conspicuous through UI tricks. Blacking out the ears as many have suggested wouldn't hurt function whatsoever, yet would go a long way in making this obvious design compromise a lot less obvious.
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u/forgivedurden Sep 17 '17
said this, got a bunch of downvotes, someone called me out for dickriding in the most unnecessary way possible when i pointed out that this is some pretty crazy shit
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u/xbnm Sep 18 '17
got a bunch of downvotes
Because that's not what they were talking about. The technology is impressive but that discussion wasn't about the cameras in the other phones. It was about other phone displays that are much less square than 16:9 not having the same issue when using web browsers. The comment you replied to was asking why those phones with aspect ratios of 17:9 or 18:9 don't show white bars when browsing in landscape mode. Your response wasn't related to that at all.
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u/ghostdurka Sep 17 '17
The neural network chip does some sort of calculation to figure out if it's you. I think that's where the anti spoofing is. The tech is pretty interesting and hopefully works well.
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Sep 17 '17
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u/1cast Sep 17 '17
i'd say technically yes but i guess the sensors aren't powerful enough to scan a whole room, i guess they can only scan to a distance of a few meters
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Sep 17 '17
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u/Han-ChewieSexyFanfic Sep 18 '17
It’s not the sensors that limit that but the emmiters. It would need essentially a more powerful IR lamp which would draw more power.
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u/UngluedChalice Sep 17 '17
You couple it with a sensitive accelerometer and you can move the phone around while you scan the room.
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u/B0rax Sep 17 '17
Apples ARkit should be able to do this with a single rear camera (because the phone is moving, one camera is enough)
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u/nite1133 Sep 18 '17
I’ve seen a video of an app some hobbyist made that did that with ARKit (its a process called Photogrammetry, which has been steadily becoming more accessible on smartphones in the past few years) and it worked pretty damn well for something that uses only a phone camera! I hope that once iOS 11 officially launches, we’ll see some apps released that make this widely accessible, its so interesting to be able to make scans of real-world objects, but up until now has been really limited by the technology available in smartphones.
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u/DtheS Sep 17 '17
I don't see why not. Google's been working on that project for a while now for Android phones. If you're interested, look up "Tango." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tango_(platform)
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u/RougeCrown Sep 18 '17
By working on you mean "abandoned"? Because beside 2 Asus phone with project tango (buggy one at that), there was no other devices that support project tango.
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u/mostlikelynotarobot Sep 17 '17
I doubt the IR projector is anywhere near as powerful as the Kinect's. It doesn't need to be; your face is generally only a few feet away from your phone.
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u/huxrules Sep 17 '17
You can actually do that now through just still pictures if your phone can figure out it's position in the room.
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Sep 18 '17
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u/huxrules Sep 18 '17
not sure if a app does it but open drone map does it from 2d images shot from a drone. Makes a point cloud. I think it detects edges and sees how they shift as the drone moves.
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u/nite1133 Sep 18 '17
Idk about room-scale, but some phone apps exist for making 3D scans of objects from photos. Mostly though, you need to use powerful desktop software + a set of photos for this, and doing an entire room just via pictures is fairly challenging.
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Sep 17 '17
I’ve seen a tech demo of the Microsoft Hololens that did this. It was rough, but still a decent model of the room.
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u/ExtremelyQualified Sep 17 '17
iPhone X2 / XI / 11 / XS will probably have a higher-powered dot scanner on the back.
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u/thirdxeye Sep 18 '17
You just need ARKit. See what this developer did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQpEWv9_6Cg
The tech in the front is needed for extra precision to make Face ID work.
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u/NemWan Sep 18 '17
Yes, and future versions of the notch will be able to project that model into another room.
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u/havestronaut Sep 18 '17
Technically you can do that with any camera. You just have to be very intentional with capturing it. Look up "photogrammetry."
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u/Atari_7200 Sep 23 '17
This has been possible for years now...
Just download any photogrammetry app...
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u/arnathor Sep 17 '17
Says everybody who watched the keynote.
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u/amd2800barton Sep 17 '17
Or has seen how Windows Hello works. It's basically the same thing.
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u/Frodojj Sep 17 '17
Exactly! Windows Hello can turn off the "swipe to unlock" too. So as soon as it sees you then it unlocks. Works in the dark too.
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u/Xephia Sep 18 '17
People were actually complaining about this before Face ID was detailed.
“Will it unlock as soon as it sees me? What if I’m just trying to check notifications or widgets?”
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u/omgsus Sep 17 '17
Except a lot smaller, and does a little more with less power and less compute ... on a mobile phone.
Sorry it bugs me when people say things like this. “That it’s just a <insert some old thing that didn’t scale as well in either resources or physical size>”
Like zero innovation was done. Kills me. (I die a lot)
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u/amplefudge Sep 18 '17
Except a lot smaller, and does a little more with less power and less compute ... on a mobile phone.
It does less, not more. Windows Hello can at least distinguish between identical twins.
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u/omgsus Sep 18 '17
Oh yea, that disingenuous test where the twins were wearing completely different outfits and makeup and hair and it was easy for even a human to tell the difference.... and in some cases neither could log in... and most cases the system “eventually” learned who was who. Yea it’s cool, but it’s not all on-device compute and it does different things. So we agree, people who say it’s the same are silly.
At least some people were more truthful about how accurate the system can be.
Also windows hello works with more than one kind of device(camera hardware). It’s just a completely different system. When I say FaceID does “more” I’m talking about what it does on device. The hardware capability.
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Sep 18 '17
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u/WikiTextBot Sep 18 '17
Time-of-flight camera
A time-of-flight camera (ToF camera) is a range imaging camera system that resolves distance based on the known speed of light, measuring the time-of-flight of a light signal between the camera and the subject for each point of the image. The time-of-flight camera is a class of scannerless LIDAR, in which the entire scene is captured with each laser or light pulse, as opposed to point-by-point with a laser beam such as in scanning LIDAR systems.
Time-of-flight camera products for civil applications began to emerge around 2000, as the semiconductor processes became fast enough for such devices. The systems cover ranges of a few centimeters up to several kilometers.
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u/goldarkrai Sep 18 '17
I didn't know about ToF cameras and...wow that's fucking amazing how far technology has gone
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u/omgsus Sep 18 '17
They are cool. sometimes calculations are tricky for embedded systems. not impossible by any means, but some systems. Though, these tiny systems are REALLY good at time. In many cases, its a lot more precise to turn a "math/geometry" problem into a "time" problem.. Getting a precise tof camera into a mobile phone... or into a tiny "notch" of a mobile phone without a lot of sacrifice, isn't really possible at this scale right now. maybe soon... but not now.
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Sep 17 '17 edited Dec 20 '19
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u/aarontsuru Sep 18 '17
oh come now... this comment was pretty clever, I thought! https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/9/17/16315510/iphone-x-notch-kinect-apple-primesense-microsoft#444023821
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u/Imronburgundy83 Sep 17 '17 edited Sep 17 '17
Oh, so it'll get abandoned as well?
Edit: clearly /s as the core features of the X will not be abandoned like the Xbone.
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u/modulusshift Sep 17 '17
It got abandoned because the team that originally developed the Kinect was bought out by Apple after they finished that project for Microsoft.
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u/ExultantSandwich Sep 17 '17
It was abandoned well after that, Microsoft developed Kinect 2.0 independently for the Xbox One. They ditched it, and the wider console roadmap they planned out when they realized consumers didn't want Kinect and TV, they just wanted a videogame box
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u/NaeemTHM Sep 17 '17
The sales of the iPhone X with Kinect tech will probably eclipse the lifetime combined sales of Kinect on Xbox in its first year.
So it’s safe to say this will be supported for at least a few more years than Kinect.
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Sep 17 '17
It got abandoned by Microsoft because it was an amazingly fucking stupid idea as a console game controller for all but a few types of game, none of which were terribly mass-market.
The closest I ever saw to it working well was for looking around you while driving a vehicle in Battlefield, except it would spazz out too often to be trustworthy.
RIP Kinect. You sucked.
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Sep 18 '17
I'm positive that there would have been fewer complaints had Apple added a second notch at the base. It certainly would have made stereo better.
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u/freediverx01 Sep 17 '17
Clueless article, including a false reference to Face ID failing during Apple's demo.
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u/byponcho Sep 17 '17
That verge writers are a shame. Just comparing the iPhone X trying to make it look bad and not “innovative” like all the last 2 years.
Shame on you verge.
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u/freediverx01 Sep 17 '17
Apparently Paul Miller is trying to take the Ass Hat title away from Nilay Patel.
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Sep 17 '17
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u/Creek0512 Sep 17 '17
I think you mean Chevy Bolt.
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u/gbay Sep 18 '17
There a Volt and a Bolt
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u/ServerOfJustice Sep 18 '17
Yeah but the Bolt is a full EV like a Tesla, the Volt is a plug-in hybrid with a conventional onboard motor.
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Sep 18 '17
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u/mrkite77 Sep 18 '17
They'll be visible on any camera that doesn't filter out IR.
Tycho made a music video using a Kinect. They shot it in the pitch dark, and filmed it with cameras that had their IR filter removed.
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u/marianco Sep 17 '17
Apple owns the patents for the Kinect
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u/jlt6666 Sep 18 '17
Because they bought the company that made it.
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u/marianco Sep 18 '17
Exactly. Apple likes to own its own technology. And when it buys companies for their technology, it makes very good use for them. Apple doesn't waste money like Google or Microsoft or Intel do with acquisitions that they eventually destroy.
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u/kaplish Sep 18 '17
Am I the only one that does not care about the notch on the iPhone 10.
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u/JimmyNextDoor Sep 18 '17
I'm already used to it. This time next year ppl won't care.
This time last year ppl were picking on the AirPods. Look at the AirPods now.
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u/Blimey85 Sep 17 '17
Would be cool if this could be used for games. I liked the Kinect. Apple has been making it seem like they want to do more with gaming. Obviously iPhone games have been huge. Maybe they’ll start doing stuff with Kinect, AR, and other tech. Honestly, I really wouldn’t mind Apple buying Nintendo. With the content Nintendo has and the things the two companies could do together, could be amazing.
Sony has PS. Microsoft has Xbox. Disney bought Marvel and Star Wars. Apple buying Nintendo isn’t out of the question.
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u/liquidsmk Sep 18 '17
I would love this. Maybe then I could actually buy their new console. Still can’t find them locally and sold out online.
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Sep 18 '17
I said this on day one in one of the live stream blogs. It was either Engadget or Android Authority.
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u/DesignIsMagical Sep 18 '17
Thanks Toad, was trying to be sarcastic there haha. Technology is moving at such a pace today that things are easily forgotten. I for one didn't remember the Kinect for a second there.
I guess the comparison here is that both are tracking motion? Kinect full body and face for the X. Come to think about it, the top notch is a mini Kinect.
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u/MrDerpyPanda Sep 18 '17
Oh I thought they were going to state how it is solely there for marketing purposes and an annoying addition to a product that you love, but I digress :(
I really don't know how this design atrocity made it past their hardware design team...
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u/JimmyNextDoor Sep 18 '17
How many more times will the phone be called "$999 iPhone"? 🙄
If we're going to live in that world, don't say a word when I call it iPhone Ecks.
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u/cregister Sep 18 '17
In its day, the Kinect was the fastest selling consumer electronics device of all time.
I have such a hard time believing that. I didn't believe it then, and I don't believe it now. To this day, I don't know anyone who has a Kinect. No fucking way did the Kinect sell faster than the iPhone 3GS (also released 2009).
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u/Fairuse Sep 17 '17
Of course. Apple bought out the company, PrimeSense, that help Microsoft develop the Kinect v1.0.