Face Time

With iPhone X, Pixel 2 and the odd leftfield surprise, the mobile-gaming sector is hotting up again.

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Not for the first time in games of late, the notch is a problem. To those in tech circles, the inch-wide indent in iPhone X‘s screen has been quite the controversy, Apple’s desire to integrate facial-recognition technology into the device’s front camera forcing something you don’t see often from this company: a design compromise. This is Apple’s first all-screen phone, a move that belatedly sees it catch up with makers of high-end Android handsets such as Samsung. Yet while the surrounding bezel is thin to the point of being almost invisible, the notch is impossible to ignore. Apps, games, and videos look as if someone has taken a bite out of them.

This is the price you pay for Face ID, which captures an infrared, 30,000- point map of your face that then takes the place of your thumbprint, unlocking your phone and approving purchases and password autofills. It naturally invites comparison with Microsoft’s recently killed-off Kinect, but it’s much better than that. Its use of infrared means it still works in pitch darkness, and its ability to capture multiple maps of the same face ensures it can be taught to recognise you when, for instance, you remove or put on glasses, or are wearing hats or bulky headphones. Yes, its cameras intrude on the display. And the whole thing smacks a little of change for its own sake, of a company needing to remove the Home button to make room for the bigger screen but not wanting to be seen to be copying others by moving its fingerprint sensor to the handset’s rear. But there’s no denying the futuristic feel of using Face ID – and that’s essential, really, in a phone that, at £1,000 for the basic 64GB model, is comfortably the most expensive mass-market smartphone that Apple, or anyone else, has ever made.