The iPhone has reached yet another round of reiteration, but Apple has surprisingly skipped the “s” name like it has been doing for the past couple of years. Instead of the iPhone 7s, Apple has launched the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, the direct successor(s) to the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus launched last year.
The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus still retains the same old design of Apple’s iPhones since the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. It has ditched the “s” variant this time round, but like the past iPhones, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are none other than standard and incremental upgrades over their predecessors.
Design however, has been switched up from the aging aluminium chassis. The iPhone 8 series now sports a glass back design to bring in wireless charging support. Long rumored to be in the iPhone, Apple has finally brought in the technology with the iPhone 8 series. Surprisingly, the wireless charging tech is Qi charging standard instead of an exclusive Apple proprietary technology. This means that the iPhone 8 will be able to charge via current Qi standard wireless chargers.
On the display front, the iPhone 8 now features a more true to life and accurate True Tone display. The new display will be able to produce more accurate screen colors according to the ambient light of its surroundings. Underneath the hood we see an upgrade in the iPhone’s processor as usual. The iPhone 8 is powered by a brand new A11 Bionic chipset. It features cores which are up to 70 percent faster than the older A10 chip. Apple now has its own GPU that will consume only 50 percent power than that with the A10 processor, also 30 percent faster.
The iPhone 8 too features a slightly improved 12MP camera, featuring a larger image sensor. The Plus variant boasts new cameras on its dual rear camera setup as well. The upgrade comes with a bunch of new and nifty features on the iPhone 8 Plus’ camera app, which allows users to tweak the lighting in Portrait mode. The camera now supports 1080p slow mo video in 240 fps, and 4K video in a more impressive 60 fps, which Apple claims to be the best quality video capture ever on a smartphone.
Apple has finally hopped onto the Augmented Reality bandwagon, a technology which has been experimented for quite some time in the industry. The iPhone 8 series will be the first iPhone to support AR technology, which will work via its camera, new accelerometer and gyroscope.
The iPhone 8 will begin at $699 while its larger sibling the iPhone 8 Plus will be available starting at $799. Both prices are for the 64GB storage variants with prices for the 256GB models in tow. Both phones will be available for pre-order at selected regions on the 15th of September.