Apple’s annual September event is a big deal this year. The event’s show-stopper was the iPhone of course and it didn’t leave us disappointed, but the opening acts are worth watching too and this year was no exception. From Apple Watch Series 3 to new animated emoji (“Animoji” as Apple named it), this keynote was certainly top of the charts.
Our life is being enhanced day by day due to the groundbreaking technology. These small ripples are adding up to a huge impact on the way we live, manage our daily work tasks and have fun, and Apple is doing its best in amplifying that technological impact. While these September event announcements seem exciting to the tech savvy users and there are many news and posts about their reviews, our intention is to highlight the impacts, these technologies will have on our daily lives.
Face ID
iPhone X, it’s real, it’s here, it’s expensive yet worthy to buy. It comes with a deep-black OLED screen topped by a TrueDetect camera system that enables a Face ID unlocking system. Without a home button for Touch ID, Apple demonstrated Face ID to unlock the iPhone X with face. Face ID uses a TrueDepth camera and sensor system to detect your face quickly, even in the dark and even with the glasses on. It also has a feature ‘user attention’, which uses gaze detection that checks if user has his eyes opened and head facing towards the device so that a sleeping guy can’t unlock it.
Apple’s Face ID is the new replacement for the Touch ID and just like Touch ID API, Apple may soon open Face ID API for development, allowing gaze to have an impact on the modality of the apps. It may also allow to create 3D avatars based on your facial dot projections to be used as your profile IDs or in games.
Animoji
Animoji is a new feature included as part of iOS 11 which sends ‘animated emojis’ in iMessage app that respond to your own facial expressions. According to Apple, the TrueDepth camera analyzes more than 50 different muscle movements to mirror your expressions in 12 Animojis.
You can think of Animoji more like Snapchat filters, but instead of a filtered face, the emoji is actually your face. This is an immersive way to send video messages that will surely make someone smile. You can greet your friends and families with some amusing animojis on their birthday or any special occasion.
In the near future, when Apple make Animoji, a part of iOS SDK, there will be many interesting applications of this technology for the developers. You can put facial expressions on any 3D facial model and it will mimic your movements. This can be applied to any kind of app, from games to in-app advertisements.
Portrait Lighting Mode
The iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X has a beta feature called Portrait Lighting. You pose a photo, turn on the Portrait Mode and then the camera creates a depth map to separate the subject out of the background. Then it detects facial landmarks like your nose, forehead and cheekbones to adjust the lighting on all of them.
Photography fanatics can capture studio quality portraits by quickly adjusting the light on the photos without the need of a separate professional camera and lighting equipment.
AR Optimized A11 Bionic Chip
All the new variants of iPhone are powered by a 6-core A11 Bionic chip with 2 high-performance cores and 4 efficiency cores to save the battery life during lower-intensity tasks and an electronic controller can even combine all 6 cores at once to provide a great experience while performing the resource intensive tasks likes playing AR games and capturing 4K videos. For the very first time the graphics are power by a GPU designed by Apple which is beefier and power efficient at the same time.
This A11 Bionic chip will be a treat to augmented reality apps. Creating tools that let you see how your furniture fits in the room or quickly calculate the area of your kitchen will be very helpful in the home decor and architecture sector. The games are going to be revolutionized too when you and your friend can have a virtual chessboard on your empty table enjoying the game in realtime. Moreover, we can expect tower-defense and simulation games that can fit on your floor or table with buttery smooth performance, Thanks to A11 Bionic, the possibilities and applications are endless.
4K Video Recording
The all new iPhone is capable of shooting 4K video at 60 frames per second. It divides each video into 2 million tiles and then analyzes them as you’re shooting to maximize quality and compression.
So, no need to carry a separate 4K camcorder when one can capture beautiful 4K videos on the go. With iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X, you can now capture True 4K video and 1080p slo-mo video at 240 frames per second.
Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE
The latest Apple watch is featuring a major feature: LTE, which lets you receive calls, read messages and get alerts on your wrist even when your iPhone is out of your range. Apple added LTE without increasing the watch’s size which is incredible.
You can now command Siri at your disposal from your watch and also listen music directly without picking up the phone. A new barometric altimeter keeps you updated with more accurate elevation readings when you are working out or climbing. This will open up a new era for fitness and technology.
Final Word
Apple never ceases to amaze us by introducing technology that can bring ease and enhancement in our daily lives. Apple launched the iPhone back in 2007 and at that time, no one knew that it can bring a huge shift in technology paradigm by creating an eco system for app development, the way we interact with our personal devices and the way we use technology.