Don’t want to spend $1,000 on the iPhone X? Well, Apple’s still got a few brand new iPhones for you.
During its first-ever keynote from the Steve Jobs Theater today, Apple unveiled two new iPhones, the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, which are essentially the sequels to last year’s models, only without as many whiz-bang features as the iPhone X.
The new iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus come with glass back enclosures with an aluminum band joining the front and rear to enable wireless charging, improving on everything about the iPhone.
It’s made with aerospace grade aluminum and comes with a gold finish. The Retina Display has been updated with True Tone technology so that the color adapts to the ambient light around you. There are new stereo speakers as well that is 25% louder than the previous generation.
A11 Bionic chip
Photo: Apple
Powering the new iPhone 8 is an A11 Bionic chip. It’s the most powerful smartphone chip Apple has ever made with a six-core CPU. The four high-efficiency cores are 70% faster than on the A10 chip. Graphics are 30% faster over the A10 and its designed for machine learning tasks.
The chip is used to take better pictures too. It has built-in noise reduction. The camera sensors are larger and faster. It’s still 12MP but has deeper colors and better saturation. The two new sensors have f/1.8 and f/2.8 apertures for wide and zoomed pictures providing more natural bokeh with Portrait Mode.
There’s a new feature called Portrait Mode Lightning. The cameras create a depth map to detect the lighting and then uses AI to compose the lighting so that faces are brighter or the background is darker. You can swipe through different lighting effects.
iPhone 8 also comes with some big video upgrades. 4K video can be shot at 60fps. 1080p slo-mo video can now be shot at 240fps, double the frame rate of the previous model.
Perfected for AR
Photo: Apple
Apple deeply integrated the iPhone 8 cameras with augmented reality. There are new gyroscopes and accelerometers to deliver the best experience for motion tracking. It does real-time lighting estimation too.
iPhone 8 supports wireless charging via third-party accessories using the Qi open wireless standard. Apple’s official charging pad will be available next year but you can use dozens of other company’s products in the meantime.
The storage capacity is being doubled to 64GB and 256GB. The iPhone 8 starts at $699. You can get the iPhone 8 Plus for $799. Both devices go on sale September 22.
