>>> Asian Update

Asia Mid-Session Update: China PMI declines, sending yields lower; tech giants in Korea and Japan report strong results

***Asia Summary***
- Asian equity markets have opened generally lower, following the mixed trading session in the US.
In the tech sector, chip giant, Samsung Electronics has gained over 1%. The company confirmed its Q3 results, announced a plan to increase capital returns to shareholders and said it plans to raise its FY17 Capex by over 80% y/y. Softbank has declined by over 5%, following the speculation that the merger between Sprint and T-Mobile could be canceled. Shares of Nintendo have risen by over 6%, as the company raised its FY forecast on demand for its Switch device.
South Korean advertising firm Cheil Worldwide has gained over 9%, as the company reported better than expected Q3 results. Shares of Lotte Shopping and Lotte Tour have outperformed. Earlier today, South Korea and China agreed to work toward improving bilateral relations.
Fast Retailing has declined by over 0.4% amid the earlier weakness seen in the S&P 500’s Consumer Discretionary sector. Australian Retailer Woolworth’s has gained over 1.5%, as Q3 revenues rose by over 3%.
Steel makers are currently trading mixed. Kobe Steel has gained over 1%, after reporting its financial results. At the same time, Nippon Steel and South Korea’s Posco have declined by over 1%. In Oct, China’s Steel PMI declined, according to an industry association.
The auto sector in Japan has traded generally lower. On Wednesday (Nov 1st), Honda is expected to release its financial results.
Japanese mega banks have added on to the losses seen in the prior session. In the brokerage space, Nomura has declined by over 2% after the company reported a decline in its quarterly profits. There has also been some weakness in the banking sector in China/Hong Kong. Shares of the Bank of China have declined by over 3%, after the company reported flat Q3 profits. China Communications Construction has dropped over 2% following its 9-month results. In the mining sector, Glencore said it would move to have its Hong Kong listing withdrawn in 2018.
Meanwhile, China’s Oct official manufacturing and non-manufacturing PMIs each declined from the prior month. The country’s sovereign 10-year bond yield has declined for the first time in 5 sessions, after yields moved to the highest level since late 2014 during the prior session.
In terms of the Chinese shorter-term rates, there has been speculation that the PBoC could announce a medium-term lending facility (MLF) by as soon as Friday. Liquidity conditions in China may tighten in the near term with around CNY1T in funds expected to mature this week, says the China Securities Journal.
In Japan, as speculated the BoJ left policy unchanged and lowered its inflation forecasts. Once again at today’s policy meeting, official Kataoka was the dovish dissenter on the belief that the central bank’s policy should target the 15-year JGB yield as opposed to the 10-year yield, which is currently the focus.
There has been little initial impact on the Yen following the policy decision. In New Zealand, the Kiwi has declined by over 0.4%, as PM Ardern confirmed plans to crack down on foreign purchases of residential properties. On tomorrow’s session, New Zealand’s Q3 employment figures are expected to be released. Ardern has previously said the incoming government plans to review the RBNZ’s mandate to see whether it should cover employment
Japanese companies expected to report results later today include, Asahi Glass, Daiichi Sankyo, FUJIFILM, Japan Airlines, JTEKT, JVC Kenwood, Mitsubishi Heavy, NEC Corp, NGK Insulators, Nippon Express, Nitto Denko, Oki Electric Industry, Omron, Panasonic, Sony, Sumitomo Heavy and TEPCO.

***Key economic data***
- (JP) BANK OF JAPAN (BOJ) LEAVES INTEREST RATE ON EXCESS RESERVES (IOER) UNCHANGED AT -0.10%; AS EXPECTED
- (NZ) NEW ZEALAND SEPT BUILDING PERMITS M/M: -2.3% V +5.9% PRIOR (1st decline in 5-months)
- (CN) CHINA OCT OFFICIAL GOVT MANUFACTURING PMI: 51.6 V 52.0E
- (KR) South Korea Sept Cyclical Leading Index Change: -0.2 v 0.1 prior
- (KR) SOUTH KOREA SEPT INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION M/M: 0.1% V 2.2%E; Y/Y: 8.8% V 4.8%E
- (JP) JAPAN SEPT OVERALL HOUSEHOLD SPENDING: -0.3% V 0.6%E
- (JP) JAPAN SEPT PRELIM INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION M/M: -1.1% V -1.6%E; Y/Y: 2.5% V 2.0%E
- (NZ) New Zealand Oct ANZ Business Confidence: -10.1 v 0.0 prior; Activity Outlook: 22.2 v 29.6 prior
- (AU) Australia Sept HIA New Home Sales m/m: -6.1% v 9.1% prior
- (AU) AUSTRALIA SEPT PRIVATE SECTOR CREDIT M/M: 0.3% V 0.5%E; Y/Y: 5.4% V 5.6%E

***Speakers and Press***
Japan
- (JP) Japan said to set FY18 budget at ~¥98T v ¥97.5T set in FY17 - Nikkei

Korea
- (KR) South Korea Ministry of Foreign Affairs: South Korea and China agreed to restore their bilateral relations to a "normal development path swiftly" as stronger ties meet their mutual interests

China/Hong Kong
- (CN) Former China SAFE (FX regulator) official sees stronger US dollar putting pressure on the yuan – China Securities Times
- (CN) PBoC said to check bank demand for medium-term lending facility (MLF) loans, with possible operations on Friday - financial press
- (CN) China liquidity conditions expected to tighten with ~CNY1T in funds are due to mature this week - China Securities Journal

Australia/New Zealand
- (NZ) New Zealand PM Ardern: To amend law to classify residential homes as sensitive which means non-residents can't buy existing homes; expects law to be introduced before Christmas

***Asian Equity Indices/Futures (00:00ET)***
- Nikkei -0.2%, Hang Seng -0.2%; Shanghai Composite -0.3%; ASX200 +0.0%, Kospi +0.6%
- Equity Futures: S&P500 +0.1%; Nasdaq100 +0.1%, Dax closed for holiday; FTSE100 +0.1%

***FX ranges/Commodities/Fixed Income (00:00ET)***
- EUR 1.1653-1.1632; JPY 113.28-112.98; AUD 0.7699-0.7672;NZD 0.6882-0.6838
- Dec Gold -0.1% at $1,276/oz; Nov Crude Oil -0.2% at $54.05/brl; Dec Copper -0.1% at $3.11/lb
- USD/CNY *(CN) PBOC SETS YUAN REFERENCE RATE AT 6.6397 V 6.6487 PRIOR
- (CN) PBoC OMO: Injects CNY300B combined CNY150B in 7-day, 14-day and 63-day reverse repos v CNY140B prior; Net injection CNY80B v CNY40B prior

***Equities notable movers***
Australia/New Zealand
- SGH.AU Updates on recapitalization; -20.6%
- AHZ.AU Reports Q1 (A$) Rev 1.9M, +23% y/y; -13%

Japan
- 7974.JP Reports H1 Net profit ¥51.5B v ¥38.3B y/y, Op profit ¥40.0B v loss ¥5.95B y/y, Rev ¥374B v ¥137B y/y; Raises FY18 outlook’ +4%
- 3092.JP Reports H1 Net ¥9.6B v ¥8.1B y/y; Op ¥13.8B v ¥10.6B y/y; Rev ¥42.7B v ¥31.6B y/y; -9%

China/Hong Kong
- 000338.CN Reports Q3 (CNY) Net profit 1.95B, +316.1% y/y; +7.3%

Korea
- 005930.KR Reports Q3 (KRW) Net 11.2T v 10.8Te; Op 14.5T v 14.5T prelim; Rev 62.1T v 62.0T prelim; +1.6%

>>> US After Hours Summary: CBI / MDLZ / ALSN / BURL +5% higher and NL

After Hours Summary: CBI / MDLZ / ALSN / BURL +5% higher and NLS -10%, SANM -6% lower following earnings/guidance, NSM +6% on potential sale

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: UIS +10.7%, APTI +6.9%, STRL +6.5%, EXAS +5.8%, QNST +5.8% (ticking higher), CBI +5.1%, CGNX +4.9% (also announced that its quarterly dividend has been increased to $0.09 per share. The company's stock will undergo a 2-1 split and will begin trading on a split-adjusted basis on December 4), MDLZ +4.7%, ALSN +4.6%, BURL +4.5% (expects Q3 EPS of $0.64-0.66, including $0.02 benefit from the recent accounting change for share-based compensation, vs $0.62 consensus; also sees comps approx. 3.1% vs guidance of 2-3%), TREX +4.2%, MDCA +4%, CRAY +3.4%,  LMNX +1.7%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: NSM +6.4% (reports the company hired advisors for potential sale), AET +0.7% (ahead of earnings)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: NLS -9.8%, SANM -6.2%, NR -5.9%, CMP -5.7% (ticking lower), ELVT -4.3%, AMKR -3.1%, AEIS -2.8% (light volume), NBL -2.7%, OHI -2.2%, CHGG -1.9%, RCII -0.9% (also to explore strategic and financial alternatives, suspends quarterly dividend; Chairman Steven Pepper resigns)

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: VYGR -12% (announces an update to its VY-AADC program for advanced Parkinson's diseasel; Sanofi 'has decided not to exercise its rights'), OFC -4.4% (commences 8 mln public offering of its common shares of beneficial interest), KOS -3.7% (ticking lower; completed drilling Hippocampe-1 exploration well; reservoirs were encountered in both exploration targets but these proved to be water bearing), GTLS -2% (commences $225 mln offering of Convertible Senior Subordinated Notes due 2024), S -1.4% (continued weakness)

>>> US Close Dow -0.36% S&P -0.32% Nasdaq -0.03% Russell -1.15%

Closing Market Summary: Slipping From Record Highs

The U.S. equity market retreated from record highs on Monday as investors engaged in a little profit taking ahead of another busy week. The Nasdaq touched a new record high early in the session, but eventually settled just a tick below its flat line. The S&P 500 and the Dow finished with respective losses of 0.3% and 0.4%, while the small-cap Russell 2000 underperformed, dropping 1.2%.

After opening modestly lower, the stock market looked as if it might take a stab at another record high, but a Bloomberg report that the House is considering a gradual phase-in approach for reducing the corporate tax rate prompted a sharp, but modest, sell off. The White House later said that President Trump does not support a phase-in approach, but equities continued trending sideways at session lows.

Telecoms paced Monday's retreat after the Nikkei Asian Review reported that Sprint's (S 6.34, -0.65) parent company, SoftBank, plans to end merger talks between Sprint and T-Mobile US (TMUS 59.58, -3.37). The two wireless names moved sharply lower following the report, but pared some of their losses after CNBC's David Faber said parts of the report were untrue.

Still, the two companies finished solidly lower, dropping 9.3% and 5.4%, respectively, and the S&P 500's telecom services sector lost 1.4%. 

The health care sector (-1.1%) also struggled on Monday, with Dow component Merck (MRK 54.71, -3.53) showing particular weakness. The pharmaceutical giant tumbled 6.1% after announcing on Friday that it withdrew its European application for its cancer drug Keytruda. Morgan Stanley, Barclays, and SunTrust each downgraded the company following the announcement.

On a positive note, Apple (AAPL 166.72, +3.67) climbed 2.3% to settle at a fresh record high. The tech giant has added 5.9% over the last two sessions after the company announced that demand for its new iPhone X has been "off the charts" and following upbeat earnings from fellow mega caps Amazon (AMZN 1110.85, +9.90), Microsoft (MSFT 83.89, +0.08), and Alphabet (GOOG 1017.11, -2.16).

Apple, which is the largest company in the S&P 500 by market cap, will report earnings on Thursday evening.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries ended Monday with solid gains, erasing their losses from last week; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note dropped five basis points to 2.37%. News of a potential phase-in approach for reducing the corporate tax rate (as mentioned above) and another lukewarm reading for the PCE Price Index helped fuel the rally.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which included September Personal Income, Personal Spending, and PCE Prices:

  • Personal income ticked up 0.4% in September (consensus +0.3%) following an unrevised increase of 0.2% in August. Personal spending rose 1.0% (consensus +0.8%), while the prior month's uptick was left unrevised at 0.1%. The PCE Price Index jumped 0.4% (consensus +0.4%), while the core PCE Price Index--which excludes food and energy--increased 0.1% (consensus +0.1%). The PCE Price Index is the Fed's preferred inflation gauge.
    • With the September increases, the PCE Price Index is up 1.6% year-over-year, versus up 1.4% for August, while the core PCE Price Index is up 1.3%, unchanged from August. The key takeaway is that the PCE price data won't trigger any major inflation alarm, yet it also won't be seen as persuading the Fed from raising the fed funds rate at its December meeting.

On Tuesday, investors will receive several pieces of data, including the third quarter Employment Cost Index (consensus 0.6%) at 8:30 ET, the August S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index (consensus 5.9%) at 9:00 ET, the October Chicago PMI (consensus 61.0) at 9:45 ET, and October Consumer Confidence (consensus 121.5) at 10:00 ET.

  • Nasdaq Composite +24.4% YTD
  • Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.2% YTD
  • S&P 500 +14.9% YTD
  • Russell 2000 +9.9% YTD

TechCrunch : Square announces the Register, a $999 point-of-sale device for larg

Square announces the Register, a $999 point-of-sale device for larger businesses

Square is expanding its hardware lineup with a new point-of-sale device called the Square Register.

Square’s Head of Software Jesse Dorogusker explained that while the company’s existing products incorporate existing hardware (the Square Stand, for example, turns an iPad into a POS stand), the Square Register is “totally integrated — our hardware, our software, all in the box, all by Square.”

CEO Jack Dorsey added that the Register is meant to address concerns from larger sellers using Square or considering using it. For one thing, he said some businesses felt the Stand was “very consumer-focused,” so they wanted something “more professional.”

More specifically, Dorsey said the Register solves a big pain point by coming with separate screens for the buyer and seller. The Square team thought it was “clever” to design the Stand to swivel back-and-forth (“and it is quite clever”), but larger sellers wanted separate displays, allowing the customer to see each product as they’re being rung up.

The customer display also allows businesses to show off their imagery and branding. It’s detachable to accommodate different countertops. And it supports tap-to-pay, allowing customers to pay with their phone or watch without having to pass it over to the cashier.

Other features include Ethernet and offline support, so that businesses without good WiFi (say at a concert venue, or in the basement of a mall) can still use it without worrying about connectivity, and a five-port USB hub, so that the Register can be connected to other devices.

This isn’t necessarily going to replace the Stand or Square’s other hardware. Instead, Dorogusker said this gives larger sellers “two great choices,” and he added that the real goal is to replace “the giant beige and gray boxes that are out there in the world.”

As for whether Square is shifting away from supporting smaller businesses, Dorsey said they’ll “always be a part of our growth plan and always who we serve.” At the same time, he said the company decided early on that it wasn’t just going to focus on small and independent retailers: “The problem with that is, they want to grow … We can’t be a service that says, ‘Oh, you’re too big for us.'”

The Square Register will cost $999, plus a transaction fee of 2.5 percent and 10 cents per transaction. Dorogusker acknowledged that might sound a little pricey (“You wouldn’t consider $999 an impulse purchase”) but he said larger retailers are already spending thousands of dollars on point-of-sale hardware. Plus, the price is lower than buying two comparable iPads. Square is also offering a financing option where businesses pay $49 a month for 24 months.

Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream is already using the Square Register in select locations. And as part of the launch, Square is hosting a pop-up with Top Dawg Entertainment at the Square Showroom in New York City.

TEchCrunch : The race for the autonomous car is on, and hear FiveAI attack plan

The race for the autonomous car is on, and hear FiveAI attack plan at Disrupt Berlin

There’s no doubt that the competition to develop self-driving cars is hotting up. There are over 1 billion cars, trucks and buses on the planet, and that’s not even including off-road vehicles or heavy construction equipment, many of which could be turned into ‘ground drones’ in the future. This is a subject we’ll be turning to at Techcrunch Disrupt Berlin, December 4-5.

The race to own autonomous driving is fierce. Traditional car manufacturers like Ford and Volvo are facing off against tech companies like Google, Apple and Baidu. Alongside them are the startups like Zoox and Nutonomy. In Europe, one startups that is attracting attention is FiveAI. The firm has raised £26.8 million.

The Cambridge-based firm is building its own autonomous driving system. It will then use that AI-based platform to take on Uber and other transportation services with a fleet of self-driving taxis. Its investors include Lakestar Capital, as well as Amadeus Capital Partners, Notion Capital and Kindred.

The person behind this big vision is Stan Boland, CEO and Co-founder. Boland previously co-founded and was CEO of two VC-backed communications silicon and software companies, Element14 and Icera. These companies were bought by Broadcom and NVIDIA for an aggregate value of over $1 billion. He also has a great Cambridge pedigree, graduating in physics from the University of Cambridge back in the day.

Boland’s view is that no one single global vendor is going to win the whole autonomous market, and in fact, it will likely be split up into regional players. Maybe even “city by city battles” he’s previously said.

That will make for an interesting discussion when he gets on stage at Techcrunch Disrupt Berlin which takes place December 4-5 at the historic Arena Berlin in the heart of Berlin, Germany.

At Disrupt you’ll see the Startup Battlefield competition, in which a handful of startups pitch our judges with the hopes of winning the coveted Disrupt Cup and a massive cash prize. And you’ll get to chat with representatives from scores of promising startups in Startup Alley, see amazing on stage content, and unwind after a long day at the show with a cocktail and some new friends at the Disrupt after party.

>>> Aston Martin to decide on dual-track procedure at beginning of 2018 - report

Aston Martin to decide on dual-track procedure at beginning of 2018 - report (translated)
30 OCT 2017
Aston Martin, the luxury UK car group, will decide on whether to launch a dual-track procedure at the beginning of the year, Italian language weekly Milano Finanza reported. The report cited sources close to Aston Martin saying that a decision would be made after the car group's FY17 results had been examined.
The report said that private equity firm Investindustrial, which controls Aston Martin, will be encouraged by Italian luxury car maker Ferrari's performance since listing in October 2015. However, the financial investor would consider selling a stake rather than pursuing a listing.
The report added that Aston Martin posted revenues of GBP 410m (EUR 465) in IH17, up 94% on 1H16. Pre-tax profit was GBP 21m compared to a loss of GBP 82m.

Wired : THE FIRST FIRST IMPRESSION OF THE IPHONE X (Stephen Levy)


How do you show off the most anticipated product in years? That was my dilemma with the iPhone X. Since my unit was one of the first few released into the wild, it naturally drew a lot of curiosity when I pulled it out of my pocket and gave it a dewy-eyed glance to wake it from slumber. Yes, this is the one—the iPhone that will hasten millions of upgrades, the one that’s made you ignore the hardly-knew-ye iPhone 8, announced on the same day as this one. After expressing proper admiration for its bright screen and svelte bezels, people would ask me, “What’s it do?” and I’d have to choose something that might indicate why Apple was charging $1000 for this baby.

I could show them more of the dazzling high-resolution screen that covers just about the entire surface of the device. I could snap some photos, demonstrating how you could now use the artsy portrait mode in the selfie-friendly front camera. Or I could show how I was slowly mastering a new set of gestures that would reprogram my muscle memories previously optimized for a home button, an appurtenance strikingly missing from my glass-encased X. But what I ultimately chose was an animated piece of shit.

That’s right—Apple’s creepy update to the iconic poo emoji. The iPhone X (pronounced “ten,” not as in X-ray) includes this mildly naughty character as one of 12 possible “Animojis” in its iMessage app. When creating a text, you can choose one of these, recording your message with audio and video. The iPhone X picks up your facial expressions and voice and morphs them onto the Animoji, as if you were Ellen DeGeneres voice-tracking Dory. Though seemingly frivolous—and, at least until the novelty wears off, kind of fun—these Animojis actually draw on some of the most technologically sophisticated advances of the iPhone X, the traits that make it unique: facial recognition, exotic sensors, an advanced camera, and powerful chips that drive graphics and machine learning. (With typical bombast, Apple has bestowed pulse-quickening names on those inventions: TrueDepth camera, A11 Bionic chip, neural engine.) At the moment their apotheosis is to imbue one’s persona into the face of a robot, a chicken, an ET, a panda…or a fecal avatar. But that’s only the start.

I’ve had this phone since last Tuesday. Apple had given me this early peek in part because I was one of the first pre-release reviewers of the original iPhone. Given that history, we all thought it would be interesting to get my impressions of what the company clearly believes is the next milestone in a journey that has pretty much altered our relationship with technology. Sure, with every single iteration of the iPhone, Apple has claimed that it’s the best one the company has ever made. But for this anniversary edition—coming at a time when critics are griping that the company had tumbled into an innovation trough— they’re pushing for something higher. Tim Cook calls the iPhone X “the future of the smartphone.”
But that first iPhone was a black swan. The challenge and delight of my first ride with it came from glimpsing how a wonderfully designed pocket computer could perform a multitude of tasks, including, if AT&T was willing, completing a phone call. That iPhone also set a bar for game-changing that no corporation could realistically hope to clear. So how could the iPhone X be more than Apple’s usual stab at topping the previous version? After all, it’s still a smartphone. That’s what I set out to ponder—and what led me to focus so intently on that rank Animoji.

There’s plenty to admire in the iPhone X straight from the unboxing. The biggest change stares you in the face: that screen, that screen. I love the larger displays of the iPhone Plus line and Android units like Google’s Pixel 2, but the phones are too frickin’ big. They are bulky in my pocket, and making calls is like holding a frying pan to your cheek. The iPhone X is a big screen in a compact form factor—Cinerama in a phone booth. Though the device itself is only slightly bigger than the standard iPhone 8, its screen is roughly the same size as that of the iPhone 8 Plus. When you take into account its “Super Retina” capabilities (another Barnum-esque name concocted by Apple’s marketers), that screen will persistently reassure buyers that emptying their wallets for an iPhone X wasn’t folly. I found the display a noticeable, and greatly pleasurable, advance over my “old” iPhone 7, whether watching The Big Sick, streaming a live football game, or simply swiping through Instagram.

Covering the entire surface of the phone with the screen has consequences. There’s no getting around the fact that some of the sensors, camera lenses, microphones and speakers need to be forward facing; Apple addresses that by lining them up on a blacked-out notch on the top of the screen—kind of the Area 51 of the new iPhone. (Conspiracy theorists note: When you take a screenshot, The Notch disappears!) It’s an aesthetic setback (what would Steve Jobs have said?), but you get used to it, like watching a play when someone with big hair is off-center in the row ahead of you—a tiny distraction in your peripheral vision that you eventually get past.
Filling the phone surface with the screen has another effect: There’s no longer room for the home button, an integral part of the iPhone interface since the start. Its sudden removal is one of those jarring deletions that Apple is famous for, and it requires some relearning. But that’s not necessarily bad: Any upgrade which doesn’t require new behavior is almost by definition not terribly dramatic. Plus, Apple hates buttons. In any case, Apple now requires us to swipe upwards to get to the home screen. That was easy enough. A little trickier is the swipe-and-stop required to get to the carousel of open apps; it took me awhile to get the hang of pressing down on one of the little cards representing an app in order to evoke a minus sign that allowed me to close it.

I knew I’d mastered the gestures when I found myself trying to use them on my iPad. Oops. My finger no longer drifts to the home button, but pathetically swipes upwards, to no avail. And now there’s that awkward moment when I expect the iPad to unlock itself when the camera looks at my face.

That’s because on the iPhone X, the Touch ID fingerprint identification is replaced with another big change, Face ID, wherein the characteristics of your face, after a few billion operations by Bionic chips and neural engines, become a physiognomic password. Does it work? Pretty much. It seems reliable at fending off intruders. I have thrust my phone into several people’s faces—though considerably fewer than the million punims that Apple says I’d have to try before a false positive—and it has not fallen for any of them. I even offered up my own head shot to the camera: no go. How it has dealt with my own real-life face is another matter. There have been times when, despite a clear view of my face, the iPhone X has ghosted me. (Apple tells me that perhaps I wasn’t making what the iPhone X considers eye contact. I wouldn’t want it to turn on every time my face was within camera range, would I?)
Eventually I devised a strategy. When waking my iPhone I think of it as De Niro’s mirror in Taxi Driver. You talkin’ to me? Well, I’m the only one here! I then see if the little lock icon on the screen has released its latch. Alternatively, a good way to see when you’ve been recognized is to notice the generic messages on the lock screen saying “you have a notification” from Facebook, Gmail, or wherever. When you and your iPhone X make that turn-on connection, those flesh out with the actual content of the message. (This feature—withholding potentially private alerts until the phone was unlocked—had previously been available as an option but now is the default.) In any case, once I got the hang of it, I found I could dial down the De Niro and get it to unlock more naturally, though I am still mystified that sometimes it goes straight to where I left off and other times asks me to swipe up. And I really liked Apple Pay with iPhone X—having to double-click on the side button and then use Face ID was a clearer way to do transactions.

The iPhone X camera also represents a major upgrade. Since I’m not a photo buff, I’ll leave it to others to determine whether the X’s camera is superior to others claiming the mobile photo crown. I can report that the photos I did snap look super sharp, and when I took a series of shots looking out of the Backchannel office window at 1 World Trade Center, the telephoto lens captured clearer images than my previous phones. And, naturally, I tried out the portrait mode in selfies—yep, they work.

Unlike the case with photography, I am an avid fan of increased battery life and thus appreciate the iPhone X’s alleged two extra hours of power between charges (compared to an iPhone 7). I had no time to assess this scientifically, but can verify that my unit powered through the usual late-afternoon low-battery doldrums and still seemed to have some juice when it came time for nighttime charging. That charging occurred on a wireless pad—though, at this point, adding another gadget to the house just to free myself of plugging in a cable seems a dubious trade-off.

After a few days with the iPhone X, I can begin to make out its themes. It’s a step towards fading the actual physical manifestation of technology into a mist where it’s just there —a phone that’s “all screen,” one that turns on simply by seeing you, one that removes the mechanics of buttons and charging cables. A decade hence, when it’s time for the iPhone 20 (XX?), we’ll already be on the road to what comes after the smartphone; the X might be a halfway point to that future. And that’s why, despite the fact that the iPhone X at present is no more than a great upgrade to the flagship device of the digital age, I can’t easily dismiss Tim Cook’s effusions that this is more than just another iteration.

It’s no accident that some of the most impressive expressions of the new phone’s technology is in the realm of augmented reality, where the digital world adds layers onto the physical one. We can get a glimpse of this from those remarkable Animojis—like that scatological doppelganger that I used as a demo—as well as the first few augmented reality apps that run on the new camera inside the X, as well as the Apple ARKit for developers. (Some of these apps, the ones that don’t take advantage of the facial recognition capabilities, also work on the iPhone 8.) A game called The Machines transmogrifies your kitchen table into a battleground where superheroes cavort. An Ikea app lets you place virtual furniture in your living room. Insight Heart is a total bonkers experience that lets you zoom into the body of a virtual human and then extract and examine a huge, bloody, beating 3D heart, suspended in your living room like a fugitive from a horror movie. It’s the most Magic Leap-y thing I’ve ever seen on a phone. And a beta of a new Snapchat feature uses Face ID technology to scarily layer masks and floral haberdashery onto your face, making Animojis even weirder.

Though the next truly disruptive device will be something other than another slab of glass and silicon—AR glasses, anyone?—it’s possible that the iPhone X will be remembered as kicking off a new wave of apps that take us a step closer to making technology truly invisible. Built-in machine learning, facial recognition, and higher resolution cameras might unlock ideas for previously untenable applications. Persistent, reliable face authentication could open the door for personalization with apps (and probably freak out some privacy activists). Even wireless charging, which I find mostly useless now, becomes transformative when charging pads sprout on tabletops in every restaurant and surfaces in every conference room.

Remember, as cool as the original iPhone was, it didn’t really begin changing the world until Apple let third-party software developers take advantage of its innards—stuff like the camera, GPS, and other sensors. Maybe something similar, albeit not on such a grand scale, will happen with the iPhone X. Those who shell out the cash for this device will enjoy their screen and battery life today. But the real payoff of the iPhone X might come when we figure out what it can do tomorrow.