The good news is that the iPhone X is undoubtedly the most technologically advanced iPhone had ever created. Even more intriguing is that the iPhone X’s TrueDepth camera system is so sophisticated that it may take Android competitors years to implement something similar. The bad news, though, is that Apple is still having trouble producing the device at scale.
According to a new report from Nikkei, Apple is still encountering production issues with the aforementioned TrueDepth Camera system, the component which serves as the foundation for Face ID. Specifically, problems are still arising with the iPhone X’s dot projector, the component responsible for illuminating a user’s face with 30,000 infrared dots to create a depth map of a user’s face.
The report reads in part:
A tech executive familiar with iPhone X production told Nikkei Asian Review on Thursday that manufacturers are still struggling to perfect 3-D sensors and in particular dot projectors in Apple premium handset’s TrueDepth camera system, though the person could not pinpoint exactly the problem.
Hardly a surprise, reports that the iPhone X’s dot projector is the component responsible for production delays originally surfaced a few weeks ago and have since been echoed by a number of other analysts since.
All that said, another tech executive that spoke to Nikkei relayed that Apple is still gearing up to begin iPhone X mass production in the next week or two, with shipments slated to begin later this month. As it stands now, iPhone X pre-orders are still on track to open up on October 27 with deliveries expected to arrive on November 3. Of course, it goes without saying that supply will likely be extremely limited at launch, with some analysts opining that many interested buyers may not get their hands on the iPhone X until 2018.
Once Apple gets a handle on production, analysts are anticipating that demand for the iPhone X will be off the charts. To this point, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes that the iPhone X will help Apple sell upwards of 250 million iPhones in 2018. If Kuo’s projection pans out, 2018 may very well see Apple set a new record for annual iPhone sales.
