I’ve been an iPhone owner since the very first model was released back in 2007. I was working the Nokia beat at the time, but I knew immediately when I saw the iPhone unveiled that my favorite Finnish phone company had been outclassed. I bought myself a new iPhone when it was released that June, and I fully expected to use Apple smartphones for a year or two until Nokia came out with something even better. Of course, things didn’t exactly turn out as planned. Now, a decade later, I’ve had an iPhone in my pocket every day since June 2007.
For me, there is no better smartphone out there. The software is in a league of its own, app quality is unmatched, the cross-platform integration with macOS is fantastic, and the phones themselves are the smoothest and fastest phones available. Of course, that doesn’t make them exciting. Like countless other Apple product users out there, I’ve grown bored of my iPhone over the past couple of years. In fact, if I didn’t need to always have the latest and greatest iPhones for work, I’d probably still be using an iPhone 6s or maybe even an iPhone 6. But this year, Apple finally reimagined its smartphone to create the iPhone X, and it’s the first time I’ve been excited for a new iPhone in years.
When I wrote up the iPhone 8 Plus back in September, I discussed how impressive and powerful the phone is, calling it the best smartphone in the world by a wide margin. I also discussed how incredibly boring it is. It’s pretty much an iPhone 6sss Plus.
Apple has things covered on the software side. The company’s smartphone cameras have also improved regularly each year, and the iPhone 8 Plus’ camera is the most impressive mobile shooter I’ve ever tested. But the phone’s design is boring. It was fantastic in 2014 and passable in 2015. In 2016 it grew tiresome. Now it’s just aggravating.
The bottom line is this: A great smartphone design for 2014 is no longer a great smartphone design in 2017.
Things have changed. Designs have improved. But Apple’s 2017 iPhone lineup is stuck in the past. Well, 75% of Apple’s 2017 iPhone lineup is stuck in the past. But once you work past the iPhone SE (design from 2012) as well as the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus (design from 2014), you finally come to the iPhone X, which takes the current all-screen smartphone design trend to an entirely new level.
Apple fans are so excited for the iPhone X that they’re even going crazy over photos of the phone that are captured in the wild. This is a smartphone that Apple already announced a month ago, but people are still flipping out when Apple employees are seen walking around with the phone in public. Why? Yes, it’s due in part to the fact that they’re so starved for an iPhone with a new design. But it goes further than that… it’s actually a pretty incredible phone.
Earlier this morning, we showed you the latest round of iPhone X photos that hit Reddit. These are the first high-quality shots of the iPhone X being used in public, and they reveal absolutely nothing new about the handset. But people are still giddy over them, and you know what? It’s starting to get to me, too.
I’ll never be as excited about the iPhone X as Apple fanboys are. Honestly, I might not ever be as excited about anything in my life as Apple fanboys are about the iPhone X. But the new X truly is an exciting phone, and I’m starting to feel it. The more I see photos and the more I talk to people who have used it, the more exciting I get.
Apple has achieved the best screen-to-body ratio in the world among phones in this class, and the Samsung-sourced OLED display is going to be a sight to behold. Just look at this guy’s reaction after trying out the iPhone X for the first time. Slap that sleek design and stunning screen onto a phone with the fastest mobile processor in the world and a camera that’s even better than the one on the iPhone 8 Plus, and you’ve got something truly special. I’m not sure what more you could want in a smartphone in 2017.
