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iPhone 8

techcrunch.com

36 pointssalimmadjd70 comments

I'm totally underwhelmed by the AR demos.

What the hell was that RTS thing? Walking around an empty table? That's not "augmented". There was nothing to augment!

Its superimposing cgi from the phone onto a video from the camera in real time. Is that not augmented reality?

It's so "little" it's more like projected virtuality. AR used to let you fight in your room and bounce stuff against your walls etc.

What is augmented? Or to phase it another way, what from the real world is integrated into the game?

It is just using the camera and other motion sensors to track movement. It isn't augmented reality in any sense.

In a very literal sense, sure.

But it isn't very interesting, now is it?

What's the point over a rendered plane? Gameplay would be identical.

As well as the demo about the "AR" sky with stars. I remember there was an app [1] working on iPhone 4 that was doing exactly that.

[1] : https://www.engadget.com/2014/08/24/star-walk-2-mostly-impro...

There are many apps - SkyView for example. As you say, they've been here for several years, so I don't understand it either.

This seems to be the tiniest spec bump for a full iPhone release. No huge new killer features over the 7. Undoubtedly, all the new stuff and innovation is being saved for the iPhone X.

Considering this is really the iPhone 7s, that's not surprising.

I've always hated the naming of Apple phones, Samsung and the others do it too.

Just call it an iPhone. What iPhone do you have?

I have the 2017 model. Or early/late 2017 model like people do with their laptops if two are released in the same year.

agreed. just do it like cars.

"I have the iPhone 2017 LE."

"I have the iPhone 2016 SE."

you get two logical identifiers - the year it was released (basically the same thing as the "version") and the "trim" of the phone.

Right now it's a mess - you've got the iPhone SE that describes the trim but not the year and you've got the iPhone 8 that tells you the version but not the "trim" and then you've got something like the iPhone 5S that seems like it's describing the trim and the version but really just describes the version.

iPhone is ok, despite being generic. iPad on the other hand... no number, 2, the new, 4, 1, 2, no number. It is only logical :)

"Bionic chip"... what on earth is this supposed to mean? Are they running out of fancy PR words in the dictionary?

Another word for big little configuration I assume

Augmented Reality?

I thought it was Apple branding deep learning on a chip... so far it's not

ps: annnd it was. I've been cooked.

About the same as "A" followed by a number. Or "Pentium" or "Athlon". They're just marketing names, nothing to be upset about.

I'm not upset, but A1234 looks like a chip name, "pentium" is not a dictionary word, fine. But "bionic" has a meaning, following the dictionary:

bionic |bīˈänik| adjective having artificial body parts, especially electromechanical ones. • informal having ordinary human powers increased by the aid of bionic devices (real or fictional): working out in gymnasiums to become bionic men. • relating to bionics.

Clearly nothing related to this chip. In my book that is crossing the line between PR and BS.

retina display, taptic engine, digital crown - seems right up Apple's alley.

When does the x come out?

Anytime now

It has wireless charging

Yea that is a pretty big feature. Wasn't announced at the time of my comment.

Wireless charging finally made it, probably the biggest user-noticeable feature.

True-tone display is great too (previously on iPad Pro), but I doubt the average user will be very aware, even if they love it.

Remains to be seen how much the processor and camera calibration help with AR.

And yet they skipped over the "S" branding, for this tiny change that would barely even warrant the S.

Apples gone real weird lately.

They couldn't release 7S in 2017, one year after Samsung released their 7S.

Ah, interesting, thanks!

you obviously missed this part: "Speakers are 25 percent louder"

Tim Cooks oversold the thing massively. I expected something innovative, but it's more a evolution than a revolution.

It was so confusing I thought the introduction video was showing old 7 and expected them to be shattered or replaced by the 8.

Phil Schiller spent probably 5 full minutes without an audience reaction (until the sky star map AR thing).

hold on: one more thinging

I think that the X is supposed to be the massively-innovative one, not the 8.

Yeah, they hustled us. he didn't say that iPhone 8 WAS the innovation, he just said iPhone.

Wireless charging is baffling to me. Instead of carrying a small plug and cable around, you carry a... giant disc - and it still has the plug? It would be one thing if it was magic charging that worked anywhere within a few meters of the charger, but I gather that's impossible. You still have to put it on the disc!

I get that it's optional.

I think the idea is you keep the charger plugged in all the time (say, beside your bed) and when you go to sleep you just throw the phone on the charger. Seems kinda convenient to me.

Ikea make furniture with built-in wireless charging. It's not remotely essential, but it's a nice convenience feature.

Oh, I get it, it's just that the feature is often talked about like it's the second coming of wifi. It takes me about a second to plug in my iPhone.

Once upon a time Wifi sounded dumb. It isn't that difficult to cable ethernet, and the performance is better with much less latency. The same goes for things like AirPlay audio and video.

Putting them everywhere, like the kitchen counter, home and office desks, car and bedside table would really lengthen the lives of phone batteries. If it really took only a second for people to do the equivalent of plugging in their phone they'd almost always leave them charging.

I had wireless charging on a Samsung Note. Meh, kinda handy but I wouldn't pay a dollar extra to have it again. Mostly for the same reasons as you: still have to plug something in, still have to carry something in luggage. The only thing saved is plugging a cable into the phone.

I have a wireless charger at home, and one in my office. I find it super convenient, even if usb-c has reduced the benefit somewhat. Also solves the problem of where the fk did I place my phone yesterday night...

You don't carry the disc or plug anything... It rests on your desk/nightstand so you can place the phone there without having to plug anything, or unplug anything to check a notification or run to a meeting.

It's not a fundamental change of course... battery lasts long enough you probably could just skip charging instead (other than the night-stand case) and it's only slightly more convenient than plugging in a cable.

It's convenient, but not essential. You don't carry around the wireless charger; you put it somewhere where it would be convenient to set the phone on a regular basis. When I had a phone with wireless charging, the charger was next to my bed. My current phone doesn't charge wirelessly, but I use a magnetically-coupled USB cable with it instead, so I can just yank the phone off the nightstand without damaging the charging port.

I have a magnetic phone mount in my car. When I get in, I put my phone on the mount, then connect it to the charging cable. Just because it's a pain to fool with cables in the car (especially if I remember after I start driving) I've found myself wishing that (1) my phone allows wireless charging and (2) the phone mount doubled as a wireless charging pad.

That's the best use case I can think of.

I really hope someone makes this as that would it so much safer and more convenient not fussing with cables everytime you drive.

Not to mention the energy lost in the process.

Really? I have to pay 1k for embedded photoshop filters for that? They have just enhanced the camera and... that's all? Really? I missed something? Yep - new CPU is good. But... Anything else? The expectations were much more.

I don't think the iPhone 8 will be $1000. That's probably just the X model, but we'll see.

It's USD 699 and up

Just from the livestream it is $699 at 64gb

In EU it will be 1k.

583 Euros for the phone, 276 Euros for extra consumer protections and attendant benefits of living in Europe (for the non-plus 32GB iPhone 8).

Wireless charging if thats something you want.

the rumors were that iphone 8 was being released as a small upgrade with similar price point.

The 1k phone is rumored to be the iphone X and should be announced soon according to rumors

It's 699.

Ah, sorry, the X one appears!

Is it me or have we reached the end of the road of mobile phone innovation? Is this going to be Apple's downfall as something like 70% of their sales are from iphone? We've had many years now of mobile phone enhancements and features but it seems like there isn't a lot more we can do on a phone. The next breakthrough ipod/iphone isn't going to be a phone at all. How many more times can we put a better chip or a better screen or a new camera into a phone at this point and have consumers seriously give a crap? Feels like things are going stale.

I closed the live stream when they started to explain how 'magical' wireless charging is. They don't have to explain that, I've been charging my samsung wirelessly for the past 2 years...

Can I use my Palm Pre charger?

Not sure if you're serious, but no. The Pre charger doesn't use the Qi standard.

I wonder why they didn't call it the 7S.

Perhaps the S models had lower sales?

People tend to associate the S models with the small updates and number bumps with big updates (even though going from old S to new S is just as big an update)

Seems like a small spec bump with some added camera features. Can't say I'm particularly excited about this, I was expecting quite a bit more. I guess we'll have to wait for the iPhone X for the more jaw-dropping features.

Sorry if I missed something, but has it ever been explained why Apple went straight to the iPhone 8 vs. releasing the traditional S iteration, i.e. the iPhone 7S? Is it due to the iPhone's 10th anniversary?

Maybe in preparation to get off the annual release cycle, that has seemed rather forced lately? If this generation stays the latest one longer than previous generations, having it called "7S" instead of "8" would be a permanent reminder of the fast iterations of the past.

Apple's central brand value has been the promise that everything that looks good in an announcement also works good in practice, better be last and best than first and worst. But they are bound to lose that if they force themselves to fill one "new iphone!"-presentation year over year even when the smartphone is mostly done.

This is very interesting if true:

https://thenextweb.com/apple/2017/09/12/apples-new-iphone-x-...

A11 single-core performance is 2x that of Samsung/Qualcomm's latest flagship chips, and equal to Macbook Pro's Intel Core i5-7360u.

It's just one (I think relatively reliable benchmark) but it still gives an idea about where Apple's chips are now compared to where they've been just a few years ago compared to Intel, as well as the other mobile competition.

It's also interesting that their first mobile GPU is so highly competitive with Imagination/everyone else's mobile GPU already.

Whoa, I did not expect them to adopt an open standard for wireless charging.

It has wireless charging and costs $799

What exactly does "water resistant" mean in IP terms?

"We put some rubber at the seams so it will resist water ingress at smallest possible pressure. Please use only pure distilled water only. Do not swim or take shower with it. And in smallest possible print on page 37 of TOS - we do not promise anything really.". I get it, WR is a nice feature but I would not obsess over it.

Not really, the 7 is waterproof up to 30 minutes in 1m of water. I shower with mine all the time and have taken it into a pool and it has worked great.

The iPhone 7 was IP67, no clue if the 8/X will be higher

So it's now 4 years since the iPhone got a major design refresh, unless you get the X, right? Also, no design refresh on the watch. Are the days of Apple as a design-oriented company over?

That's a little provocative of a question, but seriously, plenty of manufacturers have shown that you can make a small-bezel phone for the low low price of $700. Why can't Apple manage it?

(And they don't have a lot to say about the iPhone 8. Better camera, wireless charging.)

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