SAN FRANCISCO — Apple launched three new iPhones packed with upgrades to processing power, display technology and new capabilities such as wireless charging, including a new flagship 10th anniversary iPhone that carries a sticker price starting at $999.
The new flagship iPhone, iPhone X (pronounced 10) as well as the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus are powered by Apple's new custom A11 Bionic chip, which boasts significant gains in performance and efficiency over its predecessor A10 Fusion and integrates a neural engine supporting artificial intelligence (AI) as well Apple's first internally designed GPU.
In the first ever event held at the new Steve Jobs Theater at its new campus in Cupertino, Calif., Apple also introduced its third-generation Apple Watch incorporating built in cellular capability and a new version of Apple TV supporting 4K resolution and High Dynamic Range (HDR) technology.
The A11 Bionic is a 64-bit, 4.3 billion transistor CPU featuring six cores: two high-performance cores that are said to be 25% faster than those in the A10 Fusion and four high-efficiency cores said to be 70 percent more efficient than those in the A10 Fusion. The neural engine, used to support facial recognition for authentication in the iPhone X, is capable of 600 billion operations per second.
The iPhone X, featuring an OLED display that Apple Vice President of Product Marketing Philip Schiller called "the first OLED great enough to be in an iPhone."
Source: Apple
The iPhone X, described by Apple CEO Tim Cook as representing "the biggest leap forward since the introduction of the original iPhone," introduces Apple's Super Retina Display, a 5.8-inch OLED screen with rounded corners that offers a million to one contrast ratio. In addition to the facial recognition Face ID technology for authentication, the iPhone X design does away with the iPhone's home button, relying instead on swipe gestures for navigation, and includes features to support augmented reality (AR) for gaming and other applications.
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