Apple officially unveiled the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus in their press event on Tuesday, Sept. 12th. The brand new phones are the updated versions of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. The design is more or less the same.
But there are, of course, upgrades under the hood.
What Changed?
At first glance, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus look just like their predecessors – the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. This time, however, the new generation phones have a glass back.
The iPhone 8 is still sporting a single camera. But, the 8 Plus now has a dual camera!
Color wise, these brand-new phones are available in space gray, silver, and new gold finish. The latter is a combination of rose gold and gold hues.
You’d be glad to know as well that these devices are dust and water resistant.
Retina Display and Two-Tone Tech
Both the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are equipped with a shiny, new retina HD display. They also have true tone technology, the same thing you’ll get from the latest iPad Pro. What this tech does is enable the phone to adapt better to ambient light. Which means whether you use it indoors or outdoors, you’ll experience an awesome display.
Aside from that, the new iPhones also boast improved color accuracy and a cinema wide color gamut. Total eye candy as far as screen display is concerned. All of these are complemented by the smart 3D Touch.
Under the Hood
The new iPhones are equipped with an A11 Bionic chip. This is a 64-bit chip that has two performance cores. The cores are 25% faster than those in the A10 chip, which is used in the iPhone 7. Additionally, the A11 has 4 high-efficiency cores. These are 70% faster than the previous-generation chip. By the way, the A10 only had two high-efficiency cores. The new A11 chip promises an even better performance overall.
The new A11 chip promises an even better performance overall. And as for the GPU part, Apple claims that it is 30% faster than before.
Camera
The camera on the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus is also brand new. Apple showcased its wonderful features quite effectively during the event. The camera now works even better in low light conditions. It is also amped up with noise reduction technology. In other words, there will be less of those grainy images taken at night.
As for the camera sensor, they are new too. And even better than the one in the iPhone 7. As mentioned, there are also two cameras on the iPhone 8 Plus. The sensors there are f1.8 and f2.8 apertures. Meaning they are brighter than iPhone 7 Plus.
It was further revealed that the camera comes with new color filters. Expect the colors on your images to be more vivid. Aside from that, users will love the current portrait mode. The camera will actually detect depth. The processor will then intelligently adjust the lighting effect on your face. This does so independently from the lighting in the background. That means portrait pictures taken with the new iPhones will be more dramatic and beautiful.
Augmented Reality Upgrade
What’s really neat about the cameras are that they are calibrated for Augmented Reality. This works in conjunction with the A11 chip. According to Phil Schiller, Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Marketing, you can simply point the camera at the field. It then tells you who is playing in real time, right there in front of you!
To prove this, Directive Games did a demonstration during the press event. They demoed a tabletop game, which utilizes ARKit. Users can move the new iPhones this way and that, pointing at the table.
They can then see the whole game being played out in front of them. It was quite cool to look at and pretty convincing, too.
The AR configuration is definitely a great feature. Still, it remains to be seen if more game developers will take advantage of ARKit in the future. This will determine the number of options one can use the AR-calibrated camera on.
Video
The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus also perform better in the video category. The camera on these phones now supports faster frame rates. Shiller announced that we can expect 4K videos at 60 fps. Definitely a considerable improvement from the previous generation.
Also, when it comes to slo-mo mode, 1080 videos will display at 240 fps. In other words, slo-mo will definitely be slow motion.
Other Great Improvements
iPhone 8 now supports wireless charging. Great news for anyone who values convenience. Even better news is that Apple used a common charging standard. So, the phone will work with other third-party wireless chargers.
How Much?
Okay, so how much are the new iPhones?
A 64 GB iPhone 8 is priced at $699. The iPhone 8 Plus, meanwhile, is $799 or more. Pre-orders will start tomorrow. And the devices will officially start selling on September 22nd.