Two problems. One, too much hype raised expectations too high. Tim said the X is as much of a breakthrough as the original... sorry, that's just asinine. It came nowhere near that impact. And it would've been hard to pull that off - smartphones are a maturing product. It's really hard to pull off a revolution here. And for sure the X didn't make it revolutionary. So that's a FAIL. Not so much that the X is a fail, but that saying it will be all that, when it was not all that, is just a pure failure of PR.
Second. To me, the X really feels like a beta product. I would never buy it. The bezel is still too big, that wedge cutout is just sloppy, and it seems to lack fit and finish, as demonstrated by the face recognition failure on stage.
I have a 6S, and although I am very frustrated by how poor the battery life is, I don't see this iteration of X in my future. The battery life is not that impressive, despite what Phil claimed, and there really are not many features that I'm super excited about.
I will wait for the next edition of the X, or even the one after that. But what frustrates me is that by now Apple seems to be in a perpetual catchup mode to what's going on in the Android world. Sure, the iPhone is way more integrated and smoot and reliable, and that counts for A LOT for me - A HECK OF A LOT. But! But, the fact is, that folks like Samsung introduce advanced tech much more quickly. I was hoping that at some point Apple would not just catch up, but pull ahead in that regard. But now it seems the pattern is set - Apple is always 1-2 years behind, and I don't see that changing. If ever there was an incentive to pull out all the stops, it was with the 10-anniversary phone like the X. And instead, they're barely catching up, for sure not charging ahead.
So to sum up, relative to the hype, it didn't live up to the exaggerated claims and it's a beta product. I hope for better going forward, but I gotta admit, I'm losing hope. YMMV.
