Apple announces the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus

Apple just unveiled the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus at its press event. It looks a lot like the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, but with a glass back. The iPhone 8 still has a single camera while the 8 Plus has a double camera.

It comes in silver, space grey and a new gold finish that looks like a mix between gold and rose gold. These phones are sealed to be water and dust resistant. Apple also announced the iPhone X at the same conference, a new, premium model with a screen that fills the front of the device. Read more in our separate post.

There’s a new retina HD display. It has true tone technology like the most recent iPad Pro. It adapts to ambient light. Speakers are 25 percent louder and have deeper bass. Inside, it has an A11 Bionic chip. It is a 64-bit chip with two high performance cores that are 25 percent faster than the A10 in the iPhone 7, and 4 high-efficiency cores that are 70 percent faster than the ones in the A10 (the A10 only had two high-efficiency cores too). The GPU part is 30 percent faster.

he camera sensor and processor are band new. It works better in low light condition, it has some noise reduction technology. The two sensors on the back of the iPhone 8 Plus are f1.8 and f2.8 apertures — it is brighter than the iPhone 7 Plus. There are new color filters too, which should make colors pop more according to SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller.

Apple then explained portait mode. It detects depth so that it can intelligently change the lighting effect on your face independently of the background. When it comes to video, it supports faster frame rates. You can expect 4K videos at 60 frames per second. For slo-mo videos, your 1080 videos will have 240 frames per second. So it should be even slower motion.

These cameras and the A11 Bionic chip have been calibrated for augmented reality. Schiller demoed the MLB At Bat app. Now, you can point your phone at the field and it’ll tell you who’s playing right now in front of you. Directive Games showed a demo of a tabletop game that takes advantage of ARKit. You can move your phone around to see the game unfolding on the table in front of you. It looks quite convincing, but it’s unclear if game developers are going to take advantage of ARKit or if it’s going to end up being a gimmick like the Wiimote.

The iPhone 8, just like many Android phones out there, now supports wireless charging. It should work with many third-party wireless chargers as Apple is using a common standard.

The iPhone 8 is going to start at $699 for 64GB. The iPhone 8 Plus is going to cost $799 and more. Pre-orders start on September 15th. The iPhone 8 will be released on September 22nd.

iPhone 8? Why would Apple call it that?

Commentary: Many seem confident that Apple will soon present two phones called iPhone 7S and iPhone 7S Plus and an iPhone 8. Is that the best Apple can do?

Many people seem to know the name of these babies, even before the babies are born.

And before the parents have said anything -- even whether there are three of them at all.

Apparently, it's going to be iPhone 7S, iPhone 7S Plus and iPhone 8. 

The first two are supposed to be updates with some allegedly exciting extras, such as wireless charging and better cameras. The last one is said to be the radical redesign, with an OLED screen and without a bezel.

The received wisdom has it that Apple has followed such supposed numerical rules many times before. An odd year gets an S phone. A totally new phone gets the next number up.

I have numerous reasons to be skeptical.

Not least is my imagined first line of Tim Cook's announcement: "We have some great new phones for you today! Some feel a bit old, but the last one's really exciting!"

Would Apple really name its phones so that two feel like last year's and the third is the only one you should be excited about? Wouldn't the company prefer that each one be part of a new family, so that each can harbor its own level of excitement?

This year is the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. The newest phone is said to actually be substantially different from the last. (At last.) 

Why, then, would Apple think without substantial difference about what it should be called? 

Many people skipped the last upgrade, as the iPhone 7 resembled iPhone 6 just a little too much, especially in terms of physical design. 

Why not make them feel they're getting a substantial novelty by calling all the newest phones iPhone 10s? 

Certainly, that's one of the possibilities that my colleague John Falcone floated when he looked at the rumored choices.

But I have more reasons why the currently rumored names feel dull. 

Why would you launch two phones with the iPhone 7 moniker, when Samsung, by the time Apple announces, will have already launched two phones called Galaxy S8? 

Why not, at the very least, call your updated phones iPhone 8 and 8 Plus -- or even iPhone 9 and 9 Plus -- and make the newest phone the iPhone 10? Or why not just call them all iPhone 10s?

Yours is only a 7? Oh, dear.

At the crudest psychological level -- and, as we've surely noticed in recent times, human psychology has some highly crude aspects -- wouldn't you rather have a 9 or a 10 than an 8? 

More Technically Incorrect

If Apple calls its phones 8's, just like Samsung's, it's almost a subliminal admission that each brand's respective phones really aren't too dissimilar. It's like BMW releasing its 3-Series cars and then Audi releasing cars also called 3-Series. 

And there I was thinking marketing was about differentiation.

Some fancy that the newest, top-of-the-line, possibly very expensive phone will be called iPhone Pro. Just as the iPad now has an iPad  Pro.

I'm anti-that. Apple wanted to position iPad Pro as a computer-alternative. The Pro part tries to convince you of that.

The mere thought of a phone that's now primarily a business tool immediately takes some excitement away from what has always been a personal device. Business is not about excitement. I'm naive enough to be fond of excitement.

Then again, perhaps that's precisely where Apple is aiming. It wants its phones to be more productivity machines and less objects of joy and delight. 

Some smart money will therefore surely go on the first two phones being iPhone 10 and iPhone 10 Plus and the fanciest one iPhone 10 Pro. 

This is all, though, theoretical entertainment. You could even argue that it has to be the iPhone 8 series because the number 8 is lucky in China.

But what if there aren't three phones? What if there are only two? What if there are four? What if the fanciest phone won't be available for six months?