2017 — Graduation, and the iPhone X
In this year
Spring · Graduation #
2017 was a reset: graduation, and the iPhone X.
November · The iPhone X #
After the iPhone 6, 6s Plus, and 7 Plus, the X felt like what everything had been leading toward. I loved getting a hardware and software shift at the same time. The gestures, the display, Face ID, and the fluidity between them made it feel like a different kind of device.
Authentication as part of the experience #
The way I understand the X is that Face ID and the new navigation belong together. Authentication could happen as part of picking up and using the phone, instead of feeling like a separate deliberate step. To me, that made the rest of the experience possible.
That’s my reading of the design, rather than a claim about how Apple’s team arrived at it. But it has stayed with me: when hardware and software are designed around the same idea, you feel it throughout the product.
A phone worth keeping #
The iPhone X was the first iPhone I kept for two years. It sated me completely. I wasn’t drawn to the next model’s colors or details, and by 2018 I was working and couldn’t easily justify another expensive phone anyway.
For once, I had something I wanted to keep using.