How the rumor mill made out with the iPhone X; KGI's Kuo had the best leak of the year in February

If you felt a little blah about the 2017 Apple iPhone line up after today's event, perhaps this was due to the lack of any major surprises. The rumor mill, especially over the last 6 weeks, leaked some pretty good information about what Apple would announce today. And as we moved into September, we finally learned that the 10th anniversary model would be called the Apple iPhone X (pronounced "Ten"). The Apple iPhone 8, which was what the media called the premium OLED equipped model for much of the year, ended up as the name of the iPhone 7 sequel.  And that left the Apple iPhone 8 Plus as the sequel to the iPhone 7 Plus.

One of the biggest leaks of the past year came in February when KGI Securities Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo called the front-facing camera on the tenth anniversary model "revolutionary." With this leak, Kuo had the screen size of the iPhone X (5.8-inches) and stated that the phone would use face recognition to unlock the device, using the front-facing camera. Kuo also correctly called for all of the 2017 iPhone models to top out at 256GB. And folks, that was almost seven months ago.

Other features of the iPhone X that were leaked early include the vertically mounted dual camera setup, which was part of a crude sketch allegedly made by a factory worker. In retrospect, it was a pretty good drawing!

Benjamin Geskin earns a nod for his renders of the Apple iPhone X, and back in June we showed you images of the premium handset that included the infamous notch and the ears to the left and right of it. Perhaps the strangest leak was disseminated a month ago when McDonald's used the iPhone X screen in a Twitter promotion.

And don't forget that the rumors of a stand alone Series 3 Apple Watch also came to fruition. The timepiece has its own LTE radio and does not need to pair to an iPhone in order to connect to the internet.

Overall, we'd say that the rumor mill did a good job this year. Now, it's on to the iPhone 11.