Angry Robot

iPhone Pro? iPhone 8? iPhone Edition? iPhone UniBrow?

Whatever the new expensive iPhone is going to be called, because of Apple’s (surely accidental?) release of HomePod firmware, we now know 1. the rumoured edge-to-edge-with-unibrow screen is real, 2. its resolution, 3. it has some crazy infrared face-detector thing.

This has spawned some speculation about the UI on such a thing. Since the chinless design means it’s almost certain the bottom strip of the display will include space for a virtual home button, it would make sense if the navigation bar wound up there too. This would also be easier for big-phone users to reach.

Another issue is: does Apple embrace the notch or hide it? The leaked device icon implies that they will embrace the notch (have the status bar match the colour of the screen rather than the black of the notch). I dunno. It is rumoured to be an OLED screen like that in the Apple Watch and some Android phones, and in OLED screens black pixels are actually off, so they can match the bezel exactly.

The other thing is the crazy 3D face-reading camera. Presumably that means TouchID is out. But taken alongside Apple’s new and potentially yuuuuuuge ARKit, 3D sensing cameras could mean some amped-up AR jazz up in this piece. Sadly, as close as these long dreamed-of technologies get to reality, it just makes my brain skip ahead to Apple Glasses and how close those might be. Can never stop dreaming those dreamin’ dreams!