Does my phone have a DAC? Explaining DACs and Amps in smartphones today

Everything you wanted to know about smartphone audio but are too afraid to ask.

We get this question a lot, and now that so many phones no longer have a headphone jack, it’s even more common: Does my phone have a DAC? What exactly is a DAC and what does it do? What about an amp?

Let’s see if we can figure out the answers and, more importantly, make some sense of how this all works and why we need this DAC thing with its funny name and how an amp makes it sound better or worse.

More: The state of smartphone audio: DAC, codecs, and other terms you need to know

What is a DAC?

Image courtesy of LG.

A DAC takes a digital signal from its input and converts it into an analog signal on its output. A digital audio signal is easy to explain but a little harder to wrap your head around. It’s an electrical signal that’s converted into bits. The bits are in a pattern that has a specific value at each point, and the more times the original signal was sampled, the more precise this pattern and those values are.

An analog signal is what you picture in your head when you think of a waveform. It’s a continuous signal that varies in amplitude along a timeline.

Audio is converted into a digital copy because it’s easier to compress and the electronic things we love, like our phones, can’t store an analog signal like a tape can. They also can’t read one back, in case you were thinking about attaching a tape-drive to your phone. A digital signal is very different from an analog signal, and the easiest way to understand this is a handy little diagram.

The digital signal follows very rigid and calculated lines, while the analog signal is more freeform. This is because of the sample times; more sample times would be closer together along the bottom axis (TIME) and make a smoother digital signal that’s closer in shape to the analog. The right axis measures the amplitude of an audio wave. When you see the signal between the third and fourth sample time in our example, you can see how the two signals are different, which means the sound produced will be different.

Physics and the limitations that come with being human means that this isn’t as important for playback as it appears. But it’s very important for studio work and preserving the original quality of a recording. Conversion is a very complex procedure and a DAC does a lot of work. What’s important is to recognize why a digital audio file may sound different from an analog recording.

The amp

An amplifier only does one thing — drives an analog signal (the amps we’re talking about, anyway) so it’s more intense and will be louder when it comes out of a speaker. An analog signal is just electricity. Boosting electricity is really, really easy and you use what amounts to a transformer (settle down engineers, this needs to be simple) to take the input, grab some power from elsewhere, and crank the input up. It transforms the source.

Building an amp is easy. Building a good amp isn’t.

A few specifics can show the easy part. To amplify a fluctuating signal — like any kind of audio — you use a three-wire component called a transistor (or its equivalent in an integrated circuit). The three connections are called the base, the collector, and the emitter. Feeding a weak signal between the base and the emitter creates a more intense signal across the emitter and the collector when provided with external power. The original signal is attached to the base and the speaker is attached to the collector. You can do the same with a vacuum tube but that’s not going to fit inside your phone.

The hard part is doing all this while maintaining the original frequency and amplitude. If the amp can’t reproduce the frequency of the input signal, its frequency response isn’t a good match and some sounds get boosted more than others and everything sounds bad. If the input amplitude (let’s call that volume) increases to a level that the output can’t match (a transistor can only output so much power), the volume from the amp levels off and your sound starts clipping and distorting. Finally, if you’re listening while recording (we used to call that a phone call), an amp has to be careful it doesn’t boost the signal high enough for the microphone to pick it up or you’ll get feedback. This doesn’t apply to just the output you can hear, but the signal itself. Electricity = magnetism.

A quality amp can mitigate all the distortion it creates.

When you’re talking about big amps that are used on stage there are a lot of other things in the mix like pre-amps or multistage amps or even complicated op-amp setups that can affect the sound. But small amps have their own difficulties if you want to make a good one, too. You can’t boost an analog signal without affecting the gain (volume), fidelity (faithful sound reproduction), or efficiency (battery drain). Making a good amp for a phone is hard. Way harder than using a good DAC, which is why we see phones with a good 24-bit DAC that still sound poor when compared to a phone like the LG V30.

Bit depth and sampling rates

We can’t hear digital audio. But our phones can’t store analog audio. So when we play our music, it has to pass through a DAC. Our little diagram above shows how important it is to sample an analog signal as many times as reasonably possible when converting it into a digital file. But how “deep” you sample makes a difference, too.

Without getting too technical, the more accurate you want each sample to be, the higher the bit depth you need to use. Bit depth is represented by a number that can be deceiving. The difference in size between 16 and 24 and 32 is more than you think. A lot more.

When you add one bit, you double the amount of data patterns.

A bit can only store two values (0 and 1), but you can count using them just like you can with “regular” numerals. Start counting at 0 and you hit 9; you add another column to the number and get 10. Using bits, you start at 0 and when you hit 1 you add another column to get 00 which becomes a 2-bit number. A two-bit number can have four different data patterns or points (00, 01, 10, or 11). When you add a single bit, you double the number of data points and a 3-bit number can have eight different data patterns (000, 001, 010, 011,100, 101, 110, or 111).

Don’t worry. We’re done with math. It’s just important to understand what the bit depth really represents. A 16-bit signal has 65,536 separate data points, a 24-bit signal has 256 times more data with 16,777,216 points per sample, and a 32-bit signal has 4,294,967,294 points per sample. That’s 65,536 times more data than a 16-bit file.

Sample rates are measured in Hertz, and 1 Hertz means one time each second. The more times you sample a file, the more of the original data you can capture. CD-quality audio encoding captures data at a rate of 44,100 times per second. High-resolution encoding can realistically sample at 384,000 times per second. When you capture more data with a higher bit depth and do it more times per second, you can recreate the original more accurately.

Building a good DAC and amp isn’t the only complicated part of the process – encoding audio uses millions and millions of calculations every second.

These same factors matter for streamed audio (which is digital) as well but streamed audio adds another layer of complication because it’s quality also depends on bitrate — bits processed per unit of time. We measure this the same way we measure internet speeds: kbps (kilobits per second). Higher is better. The codec used to compress a digital audio signal is also important, and lossless codecs like FLAC or ALAC keep more of the digital data that lossy codecs like MP3. A lot of work is involved to make sound come through your speaker or headphones.

Real-world numbers

We mentioned earlier that encoding a recording for storage (as a master) is a bit different than encoding it for playback. Machines and computers can’t hear, and this is all a numbers game. When you encode and decode an audio signal, you’re doing a lot of math. The more information you use to calculate the amplitude of a signal, the more accurate the calculations will be. But our ears are not computers.

Even perfect hearing won’t help you hear any benefit from a 32-bit sudio system. For now, anyway.

An audio file is filled with “sounds” that we can’t hear. Most of the data in a 32-bit encoding is of no use when listening, and a sample rate that’s too high can actually sound worse because it introduces too much electrical noise. Producing a digital audio file that holds the right amount of information takes this into consideration, as does the design of a DAC. But like all things, higher numbers look better to the people who market them. Knowing the how and why all this works is really cool, but knowing what you need is more important.

A digital audio file encoded at 24-bits and 48kHz, and a DAC that can convert them offers the best quality we can hear. Anything higher is a placebo and a marketing tool.

The physical limits of our bodies and the way our current tech works mean data collected at a bit depth greater than 21-bit and sampled more frequently than 42kHz are the limit of “perfect” hearing. It’s important to have a digital copy of recorded audio at extremely high data rates in case there’s a technological breakthrough, but the files you listen to and the hardware that plays them back has a reasonable ceiling. But that breakthrough will never happen with hardware we use today, so that 32-bit DAC in your LG V30 is a lot of overkill.

So, let’s go through this DAC and amp thing again

A DAC is an audio component that is used to turn the digital audio files stored on our phones into an analog signal. There is a lot of complicated math involved that tries to make the copy of a copy sound close to the original, but much of the audio data is something we can’t hear. You can even make things sound worse if you try to do too much when encoding a file.

An app plays the file. A DAC converts it to analog. The amp boosts the signal. And the cheese stands alone.

An analog signal is fed into an amp that boosts the signal’s intensity so it gets louder. But making things louder without making them sound bad is very hard. When you’re doing it on something as small as a phone which also has a limited amount of battery power it becomes especially complicated. The amp can (and usually does) have more impact on how things sound to our ears than the DAC does.

The analog output from the DAC and amp is something that our headphones can play and our ears can hear, but our phones can’t properly store one, so a digital file is needed. And in case an engineer somewhere makes a significant breakthrough in digital audio encoding and decoding, original works are stored with astronomical amounts of data, much of which gets thrown out when encoding a file that sounds best.

All you ever need is a DAC that can convert 24-bit/48kHz files, an amp that boosts the signal without adding distortion or noise, and high-quality files to play.

Whew.

Does my phone have a DAC and an amp?

Does it make any sounds at all? If so, it has a DAC and an amplifier.

We talked about why recorded audio is converted to a digital copy earlier, but what about an analog signal? Why is it special and why do we have to convert audio back to analog? Because of pressure.

Every electronic thing that can play sounds has a DAC.

One way to measure an analog signal is by its intensity. The more intense (further away from the zero spot in a waveform) each frequency in a signal is the louder it will be when recreated by a speaker. A speaker uses an electromagnet and paper or cloth that moves to convert the signal into sound. The analog signal keeps the coil moving and the paper or cloth elements push the air to create a wave of pressure. When this pressure wave reaches our eardrums it makes a sound. Vary the intensity and frequency of the pressure waves and you create different sounds.

It almost seems like magic, and the scientists who figured out how to record and playback audio were on a whole ‘nother level of smart.

A DAC and amp can live happily ever after in your headphones or a cable.

Some phones have a better DAC and amp than others, and phones without a headphone jack don’t have to use a DAC/amp combo to send audio to a pair of headphones. All phones have them for system sounds and voice calls, but a DAC and amp can also live inside your headphones or even in the cable that connects headphones to your USB port. USB-C can send analog and digital audio out and both regular headphones (with an adapter) can be used to play analog audio from the port and headphones with their own DAC can receive digital audio to decode and convert themselves.

And you probably have headphones with a DAC and amp inside them, because that’s how Bluetooth works.

Bluetooth audio

A DAC and amp have to sit inline between the digital file being played and your ears. There’s no other way we can hear any sounds. When we use Bluetooth to listen to music or a movie (or even a phone call) we’re sending a digital signal out from our phone and into our Bluetooth headphones. Once there, it’s converted on the fly (that’s what audio streaming means) into an analog signal, routed through the speakers and carried through the air as a pressure wave to your ears.

Bluetooth adds another layer of complication into the mix, but there is still a DAC and amp involved.

The quality of a DAC and amp when using Bluetooth is just as important as it is with a wired connection, but other components can affect the sound, too. Before audio is sent through Bluetooth, it gets compressed. That’s because Bluetooth is slow. A smaller chunk of a file is easier to send than a larger one and compressing audio makes it easier to stream. When the chunk of a compressed audio file is received by your headphones it must first be decompressed then sent in the right order through the DAC and amp in your headphones. There are several different ways to compress, chop up, transfer and reassemble audio over Bluetooth using different Bluetooth audio codecs. Some bring a better digital file (a higher bit depth and sample rate) than others to your headphones’ DAC and amp, but once that data arrives your Bluetooth headphones work exactly the same way an internal DAC and amp do.

A summary and what matters

There are a lot of ways to get music from a song you downloaded on your phone out to your ears. But every single one of them requires a DAC and an amp.

You don’t have to be an audiophile to enjoy listening to music. What matters is how it sounds to you.

High-end audio components can process more audio data and offer better sounding audio, but everything in life has a trade-off. A DAC that can convert more than 16-bit audio is more expensive to buy and incorporate into a phone because it’s also more sensitive to interference from other parts. The same goes for an amp — especially powerful amps that can drive high-impedance headphones. Even the audio files themselves have a drawback, as “hi-res” audio files can be quite large and take more storage space or a faster connection to stream.

You really don’t have to know any of this to like the way your phone sounds. And that’s the key — you are the one who decides what sounds good. Don’t let any discussion about what’s best or what’s wrong with Bluetooth influence what you hear, especially if you are happy with how it sounds.

TSA Precheck will let you into some NFL stadiums faster

TSA’s Precheck clearance isn’t just useful for getting around the security theater at airports. Idemia has started making deals with NFL teams to use Precheck as a “fast pass” for stadiums, starting with the San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium and the New York Jets’ MetLife Stadium. You can even enroll on the spot and use that pre-screening the next time you’re flying. Levi’s Stadium will also use Idemia’s biometric scanning to “assist in fan experience and security” in the near future, although the company hasn’t elaborated on what that means.

The implementations are certainly convenient — you don’t have to panic quite so much if you arrive late to the football game. At the same time, it’s hard to avoid the privacy concerns that come with Precheck and biometrics. Is it worth handing over personal information (such as fingerprints and your Social Security number) just to be sure you’re in your seat in time for kickoff? And if enough people sign up, Precheck could lead to a pseudo-blacklist where those who refuse to enroll are effectively at a disadvantage or treated with suspicion. This doesn’t mean that Precheck at stadiums is a privacy nightmare (Idemia promises to keep info private and secure), but you may want to consider how comfortable you are with data sharing before you rush to sign up.

Source: Idemia (1), (2)

Engadget giveaway: Win a Fluance Fi50 Bluetooth speaker!

Speakers don’t always need to fit in a backpack or provide a lot of chatter, but you do want them to offer big sound and quality audio output at a decent price. Fluance’s $200 Fi50 Bluetooth speaker is a great example of those core basics. This speaker is powered by a 40-watt amplifier, with aptX support, dual tweeters and 5-inch woofers for a loud, warm sound. The Fi50 is enclosed in a hand-built MDF wood cabinet with convenient backlit touch controls on top. You can pair via Bluetooth or connect via a 3.5mm audio jack. Plus, there’s a USB port to help keep mobile devices charged. Fluance has provided us with three of its Fi50 speakers for a trio of lucky readers this week. Just head down to the Rafflecopter widget below for up to three chances at winning.

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’Super Mario Run’ isn’t as profitable as Nintendo would like

Super Mario Odyssey might be a runaway hit for Nintendo on its Switch platform, but its mobile game Super Mario Run hasn’t been as big of a success. It’s incredibly popular, with over 200 million downloads, but “we have not yet reached an acceptable profit point,” for the game, said Tatsumi Kimishima, president of Nintendo, in a briefing about the company’s financial results.

That’s not to say that it was a failure. As noted by Kimishima in the presentation, one of Nintendo’s main goals is expanding into games for smart devices (phones and tablets), and Super Mario Run helped quite a bit with that endeavor. Ninety percent of downloads of the game came from outside Japan, and the game was able to enter markets that Nintendo doesn’t have a traditional presence in with its console systems.

Additionally, it looks like the company will continue to improve Super Mario Run, rather than focus their efforts on developing a new Mario game. Kimishima said in his presentation that, “Our aim is for this application to be the definitive Mario application for smart devices.” Despite the game not raking in what Nintendo considers acceptable profits, they claim to have learned quite a bit from developing the game that Nintendo will apply to future endeavors.

It’s worth nothing that Nintendo’s second mobile game Fire Emblem Heroes had a free-to-play model, rather than Super Mario Run’s one-time fee. Of that game, which launched earlier this year, Kimishima said, “We are on track to meet our overall business objectives, including our profit objectives.” It’s probably not a coincidence, then, that Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, which is launching next month, is also free to play.

Via: The Verge

Source: Nintendo

This lamp turns on by holding your smartphone hostage

We’ve all seen those tips and tricks for how to stay offline and stop checking our phones so much; after all, constant distractions can kill your productivity. But have you ever thought of just surrendering your phone altogether? It’s what a new desk lamp from designer Klemens Schillinger demands of you. The lamp will only turn on if you put your smartphone in an attached drawer.

There’s no pricing or availability information on this thing, and really, it seems strange to pay for a device that takes something away from you. The website’s description of the lamp reads as follows, “The drawer is like a magical chest that requests a small object like a smartphone that can be put inside. Once the smartphone is locked inside the drawer, the light turns on. When you give something, you get something in return.”

Now, the “small object” part is really where it gets interesting. What size object does it have to be? Can you put any small object with some weight into the drawer to trick the lamp into thinking you’ve surrendered your phone? Does it have to be a certain shape and size? These are important questions that fully miss the entire purpose of this lamp and prove just how addicted I am to my phone. But to be fair, this lamp is a little ridiculous.

Via: designboom

Source: Klemens Schillinger

Google’s video conferencing kit gets an AI camera and display

Google has been trying to get a seat in your board room this year, courtesy of its tools and products for meetings. In March, it pivoted its Hangouts app to businesses, following it up with a $5000 interactive display with collaborative cloud features. Not content with the two-punch software and hardware combo, the big G is now taking another stab at video conferencing. Remember the Chromebox for meetings bundle the company dropped in 2014? Well, it’s back, courtesy of some rebranding and a bunch of upgraded products.

Google’s new Hangouts Meet kit essentially packages the ASUS Chromebox hub, a 4K-sensor camera (with added AI wizardry), a mic, and a touchscreen display. It’s the type of thing the search giant rolls out every 18 to 24 months.

But, the new additions are notable. This time round, the $2,000 bundle includes some useful G Suite enterprise edition integrations. For example, you can use the display to join scheduled events from Calendar or view meeting details with a tap. It also puts you in charge of business huddles: You can use it to mute team members, control the camera, and record conferences to Google Drive.

Speaking of the camera, it comes with a 120-degree field of view that can capture more faces, even in tight meeting rooms. As Google is prone to doing nowadays, it’s also fitted the snapper with its machine learning tech, allowing it to detect people, and auto-crop and zoom to better frame them.

To coincide with the bundle, Google is also updating its Hangouts Meet app for businesses. Now you can host meetings with up to 50 participants, up from 30 at launch. And, you don’t need the hardware kit to record meetings to Google Drive. Finally, there’s the option to call in to conferences from more than a dozen regions, with Meet auto-updating your dial-in listing to a local phone number.

Apple Dismisses Rumors of Ever Putting Touch ID on Back, Side, or Under Display of iPhone X

For over a year leading up to the iPhone X, rumors ran rampant about Touch ID being placed under the display, or on the back or side of the device, but Apple’s hardware engineering chief Dan Riccio says the reports were never true.

In an interview with TechCrunch’s editor-in-chief Matthew Panzarino, Riccio said Apple “spent no time” looking at implementing fingerprint authentication in these ways because it was already focused on perfecting Face ID.

“I heard some rumor [that] we couldn’t get Touch ID to work through the glass so we had to remove that,” Riccio says, answering a question about whether there were late design changes. “When we hit early line of sight on getting Face ID to be [as] good as it was, we knew that if we could be successful we could enable the product that we wanted to go off and do and if that’s true it could be something that we could burn the bridges and be all in with. This is assuming it was a better solution. And that’s what we did. So we spent no time looking at fingerprints on the back or through the glass or on the side because if we did those things, which would be a last-minute change, they would be a distraction relative to enabling the more important thing that we were trying to achieve, which was Face ID done in a high-quality way.”

Rumors about Apple embedding Touch ID into the iPhone X’s display surfaced as early as May 2016, so it remains possible that the company at least explored the idea, but never proceeded with it after moving forward with Face ID.

Several reports corroborated the rumors as recently as this past summer, which usually means they are true.

Many reports even made it sound like Apple was under pressure. In July, KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Andy Hargreaves said Apple was still struggling to embed Touch ID under the display, to the point the iPhone X could have been delayed.

Sebastian Hou and Brian Chen, analysts at Hong Kong-based equity research firm CLSA, in May said there was a “high chance” that Touch ID would be placed on the back of the iPhone X like Samsung’s Galaxy S8.

iPhone mockup with Touch ID on rear via iDrop News
It’s worth noting that one Apple analyst, the oft-reliable Ming-Chi Kuo, predicted the iPhone X wouldn’t have Touch ID back in July.

Kuo’s latest prediction is that Apple will remove Touch ID on all iPhones launched in 2018 in favor of Face ID. He thinks the TrueDepth camera and 3D facial recognition system won’t be significantly upgraded next year.

Face ID has proved to be reliable in early iPhone X reviews and first impressions, and it’s also considered easy to set up and use.

Related Roundup: iPhone XTag: Dan RiccioBuyer’s Guide: iPhone X (Buy Now)
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Nintendo Says Super Mario Run Has Yet to Reach ‘Acceptable Profit Point’ Nearly One Year After Launch

Nintendo yesterday held its quarterly earnings report [PDF], launching off with details of its “Smart-Device Business” and telling investors how things have been going for Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes, while detailing the upcoming launch of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. Although Fire Emblem Heroes is on track to meet the company’s “overall profit objectives,” Super Mario Run appears to be a disappointment in the iOS App Store for Nintendo, which stated it has “not yet reached an acceptable profit point” for the game (via The Verge).

The difference between the two apps lies in their payment structure, with Fire Emblem Heroes a free-to-download title with micro-transactions, and Super Mario Run priced at a fixed $9.99. The company noted that Super Mario Run has now hit the 200 million download mark, and Nintendo was even able to launch the app in countries “not previously reached by our dedicated video game platform business.”

Unfortunately, after about 10 months on mobile devices Super Mario Run still has not made the amount of money that Nintendo predicted for the title, which was its first foray into a mobile app built around one-time payments. Still, the company said that it has “learned a lot in terms of game development and deployment,” which it plans to “take advantage of moving forward.”

Although we have not yet reached an acceptable profit point, we have learned a lot in terms of game development and deployment that we want to take advantage of moving forward.

For Fire Emblem Heroes, Nintendo said that it “listened to the voices of our consumers,” leading to continual updates to the app since its launch in February. This game is on track to meet Nintendo’s business and profit objectives, and new in-game events will be added soon, as well as Traditional Chinese text. The game will then expand to five more countries and regions: Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao, Thailand, and Singapore.

Nintendo’s newest iOS game Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp will follow in the footsteps of Fire Emblem Heroes, bringing in-app purchases to the free-to-download game in the form of Leaf Tickets. For the mobile version of Animal Crossing, Nintendo said that “our objective is to offer a service that allows even consumers who do not normally play games on a regular basis to have a little fun each and every day.”

Nintendo’s first iPhone game, Miitomo, also uses a free-to-download payment structure with in-app purchases, but the company made no mention of that game in its newest earnings report.

Earlier in the year, a senior official at Nintendo reportedly told Nikkei that the company prefers the pay-once strategy of Super Mario Run, and called the freemium aspects of Fire Emblem Heroes an “outlier” in the grand scheme of its mobile gaming plan. Even then, Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima — who presented this week’s earnings report — admitted that Super Mario Run “did not meet” the company’s revenue expectations.

To entice old players to return and new players to download, Nintendo updated Super Mario Run in September with a new mode, new characters, and a 50 percent price drop. Nintendo’s earnings report charts are vague, but the company noted an uptick in weekly users thanks to this September update. Prior to that, its weekly users had been dropping precipitously since April.

Ultimately, Nintendo still aims for Super Mario Run to be the “definitive Mario application for smart devices,” so players can likely expect ongoing updates to the app in the future.

Tags: Nintendo, Super Mario Run
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Apple Acknowledges Apple Watch Series 3 Issue Where ‘Edge Stripes’ Appear on Display

Apple has determined that some Apple Watch Series 3 models have an issue causing “edge stripes” to appear on the display after time.

In an internal memo distributed to Genius Bars and Apple Authorized Service Providers, Apple said the issue is to be treated like any other Apple Watch repair. Since the issue appears to be a manufacturing defect, the repair should be free under Apple’s standard one-year limited warranty policy.

Apple’s memo, obtained by MacRumors, identifies GPS models as being affected and not cellular models. The difference could be the result of LTE models having a different display assembly with an integrated antenna.

To verify the issue, a Genius Bar or Apple Authorized Service Provider employee will ask the customer to rub their finger on the display to allow smearing to appear. If no edge stripes are found, Apple’s instructions are to clean the display and have the customer breathe on the display edge to create humidity.

Apple’s memo doesn’t confirm the underlying reason for the issue. Given the steps to reproduce the issue, however, it sounds like the edge stripes may appear as a result of moisture collecting under the display.

While we can verify this information is accurate, Apple doesn’t always acknowledge its internal service policies when a customer brings it up. We don’t know exactly why this is the case, but be aware that your mileage may vary.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 4Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Buy Now)
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Ming-Chi Kuo Says 2018 iPhones Unlikely to Have Rear-Facing TrueDepth Camera System

Apple is unlikely to expand its front-facing TrueDepth system for Face ID and Animoji to the rear-facing camera module on iPhones released in 2018, according to oft-reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

In a research note with KGI Securities, obtained by MacRumors, Kuo said the iPhone X’s 3D sensing capabilities are already at least one year ahead of Android smartphones. For that reason, he thinks Apple’s focus with next year’s iPhone models will be ensuring an on-time launch with adequate supply.

Based on aforementioned assumptions, we do not expect 2H18F iPhones to come with rear TrueDepth Camera/ 3D sensing, contrary to market expectations. While we agree that a rear TrueDepth Camera/ 3D sensing can potentially provide more augmented reality (AR) applications, we note that Apple needs to quickly resolve two issues if it wants 2H18F iPhones to have a rear TrueDepth Camera/ 3D sensing, namely: (1) the development of AI and ARKit software and an ecosystem, which takes time; and (2) achieving stable shipments and on-time shipping, which are challenging due to the higher spec requirements of rear TrueDepth Camera.

Even without rear TrueDepth, Kuo believes 2018 iPhone models will unsurprisingly come with other tech spec upgrades to attract consumers. He has a positive view on the prospects of the new iPhone models.

Related Roundup: iPhone XTags: KGI Securities, Ming-Chi KuoBuyer’s Guide: iPhone X (Buy Now)
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