Ten years ago, Steve Jobs stood on a stage in San Francisco and promised, “Apple is going to reinvent the phone.”

That turns out to have been the understatement of the decade.

Though Apple certainly wasn’t the first to make a mobile phone, or even the first to use touchscreen technology, the iPhone’s blend of slickly designed hardware and software changed the way we all thought about and used our phones. Since then, Apple has sold more than 1.2 billion phones. The iPhone 7, released last year, is the top-selling phone in the world. And analysts predict the iPhone will become the world’s first trillion-dollar smartphone by the end of 2018.

Now Apple is hoping to reinvent the phone all over again.

CEO Tim Cook, speaking for the first time at the Steve Jobs Theater on Apple’s new campus, introduced the device to do it: the iPhone X (pronounced “10”).

“We do have ‘one more thing,'” Cook said, echoing the famous line Jobs had uttered time and again at product unveilings over the years. “We have great respect for these words and we don’t use them lightly.”

A decade after the first iPhone’s 2007 unveiling, “it is only fitting that we are here in this place, on this day, to reveal a product that will set the path of technology for the next decade,” Cook said during the nearly-two hour presentation, calling the iPhone X, “the biggest leap forward since original iPhone.”

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Priced starting at $999, Apple’s new flagship iPhone crams the company’s sharpest-ever, 5.8-inch screen inside a body that’s smaller than last year’s iPhone 7 Plus. The new gadget supports wireless charging for the first time and features a new Apple-designed chip called the A11 Bionic.

Oh, and the iconic home button that’s sat at the bottom of the screen since the first iPhone is now gone. In its place is new facial recognition technology called Face ID, which unlocks the device using sensors and cameras that Apple collectively calls “TrueDepth.” Apple says FaceID is more secure than the Touch ID fingerprint recognition used on its other iPhones.

Apple will begin taking preorders for the iPhone X on Oct. 27, and it expects the phone to hit store shelves Nov. 3.

Not just the X

The company also introduced two new successors to last year’s iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. Instead of following its usual strategy of adding an “S” on to the names of updated models, Apple is calling the new versions the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus because, Cook said, “This is a huge step forward for iPhone.”

The new iPhone includes upgraded chips, called the A11 Bionic, which offers 30 percent faster visuals than last year’s A10. The phone also has faster chips designed for faster autofocus, better low light photos and augmented reality apps, which overlay computer images on the real world.

Perhaps the biggest change is the inclusion of Qi, a wireless charging standard that means people can charge their iPhones merely by placing them on a specialized mat in an airport, at a cafe or in their car.

The iPhone 8 is priced starting at $699, and the larger iPhone 8 Plus costs $799, both $50 more than last year’s entry-level model, though Apple did double the amount of storage for those prices. The phones will be available Sept. 22. Pre-orders through Apple’s website start this Friday, Sept. 15.

No matter what people think of the design or tech specs, Apple actually doesn’t need to wow anyone with the iPhone to be a hit. The company’s well-regarded iOS software and hardware have helped make it one of the world’s biggest and most profitable companies. Thanks in large part to the iPhone, which accounted for nearly two-thirds its revenue last year, Apple has more than $250 billion in cash, which makes it worth more than all but 45 of the world’s countries richest countries.

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New iPhone 8 and iPhone X unveiled: Pictures from the Apple event

The iPhone isn’t just the single most successful phone in the world. The technologies Apple adopts and the ideas it builds into the phone set the tone for the entire tech industry. Consider the App Store, opened in 2008 with the release of the iPhone 3G. The store created a boom that’s helped power some of the world’s largest companies, including ride-hailing giants like Uber and Lyft. Entire industries from health to education to communications have also been remade.   

With the iPhone X, Apple’s hoping to hit a similar note with its iPhone X. The company is positioning it, for example, as the biggest change since the first iPhone in 2007. And one new technology in particular, “augmented reality” that overlays computer-generated images on the real world, is one of the hottest trends in tech today.

The big question hanging over Apple is whether its price tag is worth it. On the plus side, these new technologies are a high-water mark of Apple’s design and represent a big shift forward for the iPhone.

Patrick Moorhead, president of Moor Insights & Strategy, called the iPhone X “truly an engineering marvel,” and not just a late copy to the competition. “Apple did it their way by perfecting the experience, and on their timeframe,” he said.

But at the same time, many of these technologies are already available from competitors. The edge-to-edge glass screen has been used in phones from Samsung and Essential, the startup founded by Android creator Andy Rubin. And wireless charging has been around for more than a decade.

But Apple says the iPhone does these things better. “Every year we say this is the best lineup for the holidays, but this year is really special,” Schiller said.

Apple Sept. 12 iPhone event live coverage: Follow CNET’s live blog in real time.

iPhone X, iPhone 8: Everything we know about Apple’s new iPhones.