It's been nearly a year since Apple announced the iPhone X, which means it's almost time for another Apple hardware launch event. (It also means the iPhone rumor mill is churning at full speed.) But rather than speculate on what's to come, we thought we'd take a look back at what the iPhone X meant for high-end smartphones this year—specifically, how it set the tone for phone design and interactions.
That's not to say that other phone makers copied Apple; most phones are in production for many months before they ship to consumers. And there are plenty of examples of Apple actually trailing other smartphone makers to certain features, like facial recognition tech or support for 3-D augmented reality. But Apple still has the uncanny ability to set the tone for what premium phones will look like in any given year, whether that means “notches” at the top of our phones or new gesture-based UIs that have us all swiping screens instead of tapping home buttons.
And Animoji. We can’t forget about the Animoji.