- [Matthew] The iPhone 10 is
packed to the gills with risk.
Dozens of new technologies,
new input mechanisms,
several manufacturing firsts,
and an incredibly aggressive
timeline to launch.
It's clear that Apple
needs this to go off right,
but how did they execute?
Most iPhone reviews are done
like technically-savvy writers
put them in through their
paces locally or in a lab.
My thesis was this just wasn't how
most people actually use their phones,
that it created a focus
on the wrong things.
Instead, what if you took
an iPhone to a place where
millions of people
travel every year and use
the absolute crap out of it
for several days straight?
That, I thought, would lend
itself to a much more accurate
through line between me
fiddling with an iPhone
for a few days and what the average buyer
might be able to divide
about how it works for them.
So, I took the iPhone 10 to Disneyland.
I'll get right to the point.
Most of you probably wanna
know whether Face ID works,
it does.
Face ID works very, very, very well.
It worked the vast majority
of times I tried it,
it never once unlocked using a picture
of myself or another person's face.
And the failure rate seemed to be about
the same as Touch ID, aka, almost never.
The Face ID also enables
some other cool things,
one prominent example of the
way that Face ID enables this,
is that you get notifications,
text messages, and apps
that are private by default.
But when you look at the phone,
it expands them out so that you can see
the contents of what you're looking at.
It's super cool,
a way to balance privacy and convenience
based on context and identity.
As far as the camera goes,
once again, top-notch effort from Apple.
Very similar hardware to what
you'd find in an iPhone 8,
with some improvements,
including stabilization
in the telephoto lens,
and the new 3D camera on the front side,
allowing for portrait
shots in selfie mode.
So I found myself to defaulting
to 2X mode a lot more,
cause it allowed for some
great captures inside rides
at a zoom level that wasn't possible.
And shooting portraits in open shade,
and dimmer lighting conditions,
because I had that confidence
of that stabilizer.
And it turned out some great shots.
And in the selfie camera,
with the 3D mode on it,
turned out some pretty amazing portraits
for a pure selfie shot.
And yes, the depth of
field is a little narrower
than you would see on
a normal portrait mode,
but it still turned out
pretty good across the board.
Apple's version of an OLED screen
is manufactured by Samsung.
But it's not an off
the shelf Samsung part,
it's custom-built,
diamond-patterned OLED array
which is built to Apple's
own specifications.
What this means,
is that the colors are bright
and saturated without blocking up,
and they're incredibly,
incredibly easy to see
in direct sunlight,
which proved to be really handy
when walking around the parks.
Now, about that notch,
it's caused a lot of consternation
and I completely get why people hate it.
They view it as a compromise,
and it is.
Apple deeded the camera
and sensor package in there
and this is how it chose to implement it.
Overall, using the iPhone
10 well takes some time.
It's a big change from
a physical home button
to a completely swipe-based interface.
But it's fast, fluid,
and a ton fun once you get used to it.
Before you know it,
you'll forget you ever had to wack
a home button to get things done.
There are some rough edges here and there,
the notch isn't for everyone,
and the screen does have some
color issues at extreme viewing angles.
But overall, Apple bet enormously big
on a bunch of technologies all at once,
on the iPhone 10
and it delivered almost across the board.
It really is like using the
future of smartphones today.
- Da-da.
