The iPhone 8 is one of the most gorgeous smartphones ever created. And absolutely no one is planning to buy it.
Cult of Mac polled our readers after yesterday’s keynote at the Steve Jobs Theater to gauge interest in iPhone X and its two ugly step-siblings. Over 5,400 potential iPhone buyers responded and it looks like the iPhone X is going to be a mega-hit while iPhone 8 sales may suffer.
Here are the results:
People interested in the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus only accounted for 14% of responses. Meanwhile, 57% of Apple fans say they plan to wait for the iPhone X.
Which new iPhone do you plan to buy?
— Cult of Mac (@cultofmac) September 12, 2017
Of course, our audience is a bit skewed toward the more hardcore Apple fans that want the latest and greatest, so iPhone 8 sales will probably do better than this poll suggest. It’s still a worrying sign for Apple though. The company needs strong iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus sales to boost revenues next quarter.
It’s not hard to see why people are lusting after the iPhone X more than any of the other devices. Although the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus have most of the iPhone X’s features, the form factor of the premium iPhone is a huge draw. It’s OLED display with super-high contrast is another big plus. And the ability to shoot Portrait Mode selfies and send animojis are certain to be popular with a younger audience.
The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus hit stores on September 22. Customers hoping to get the iPhone X will have to wait until November 3. That might just cause a few impatient fans to just settle on one of the slightly less futuristic models.
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
35 responses to “Poll results: No one wants the iPhone 8”
I’m sticking with the 8. My payment to the Apple Upgrade program would jump quite a bit and have less storage. My budget doesn’t allow it. It feels almost like the past when I had a two year contract and couldn’t upgrade except for the “S” refresh
Bad apple fan go to the corner
It’s not the wait, it’s a $1,000 for a PHONE. Outside the rarified air of the Steve Jobs Theater (featuring individual reality distortion fields) perhaps the iPhone X, although beautiful, might just lose numbers – a lot of numbers, actually – to the iPhone 8/8 Plus.
Off your meds again eh?
No, it’s $1000 for an incredibly sophisticated mobile computing device that can send emails, browse the internet, take phones, record and play high-definition video, word process and store vast amounts of data, along with thousands of hours of music. There are also fun and useful things called ‘apps’, many of which are free.
Making phone calls is something I do maybe 5 minutes a day on my iPhone.
To be honest, my 6s can do all of that stuff and costs way less. But I get what you are saying.
True but it is slower. Therefor cheaper.
When the phone costs as much as a MacBook it says something to you…
With a 12MP camera that was near bottom of photo quality lists, Pretty sad on $1000 device
You’re about as wrong as you can get and obviously cherrypick the information that you allow to reach your brain to reflect your bias. I’m not a professional photographer but I work with highly sought after ones all the time and it’s never ever been about quantity of pixels as much as quality, which has more to do with sensors, algorithms, processors and software, today more than ever. If you didn’t watch the keynote and didn’t catch portrait mode, you can be excused. If you did and are still sticking to this asinine view even before anyone puts hands on it, what I said before about bias. That one thing is going to result in a sea change in the way portrait photography is done. The iPhone has never been “near the bottom of quality lists” of people that understand photography. You must be reading lists from people that either derive personal satisfaction from taking down Apple or don’t understand that devices are more than a collection of numbers. The iPhones superiority in processing speed doesn’t show up on paper either but does in head to head testing.
#6
Apple iPhone 7 (same score for plus listed at #7)
Very good
Not only site to rank IPhone 7 as “also ran”
Computation Photography is good for ads in reality its gimmicky
My 20MP Carl Zeiss Pureview does not use gimmicks
Portraits are for narcissist most take other shots
12MP is brutal I really thought they would increment to at least 16MP , guess not.
It depends on how you use it. I’d wager that few people use iPhones just as PHONES but for those that do, this is obviously overkill. For people that use them as business tools, it’s not that simple. My iPhone is the one indispensable tool in my arsenal. I might not upgrade to either device because my 6s+ is doing just fine and I have iPad and macBook Pros that do most of my heavy lifting but I might because the camera is probably groundbreaking enough to never have to pick up a DSLR again. I doubt it’s going to lose a lot of numbers to the 8/8+ just because they aren’t all that far off in price over a two year payment plan. Especially for + screen users like myself. I’m not going down in screen size and want more than 64GB if I'[m going to upgrade, so I’m at $950 with an 8+. At that point I might as well go up $200 for a smaller footprint with a bigger screen and revolutionary camera.
I’m glad the article mentions how this is skewed because of hardcore fans. I’ve noticed in other online communities such as Reddit and Twitter as well as talking to some people in person there are a good amount of people who like the iPhone 8/8 Plus. I’ve also noticed that there is a good chunk of the iPhone population who aren’t going to upgrade period because the iPhone 8/8 Plus isn’t a big enough jump or because the iPhone X is too expensive. Also people don’t really want to wait. I’m still torn between getting the iPhone 8 Plus or waiting for the iPhone X I suppose time will tell for me.
Personally the face recognition creeps me out so I’ll be going with the 8.
I went back and forth. Decided that the iPhone X didn’t have enough value to justify the price tag and will go with the 8 plus. I wanted to get the X but the face id doesn’t seem fully baked yet so I’ll wait on second gen. Also the main functional difference is animoji. Didn’t push me over to the X side
“It’s still a worrying sign for Apple though.”
Sorry, stop kidding yourself. No one knows Apple’s customer base better than Apple and the fact that Apple went ahead and released the iPhone 8 means that Apple is pretty confident that it will do quite well.
Yup Animojis sell to the simple
Straight 8’s the one for me. The plus to too big and the x is too much.
I stick to the antiquated idea of updating every two years rather than every year, and since I bought an iPhone 7 when it came out, I will be waiting until next year.
But if I were to buy this year, I would buy the iPhone 8. Here’s why:
• I like the size.
• I like having an actual home button (go ahead and call me old fashion, I don’t care…I’m 22 and I like physical buttons).
• I like Touch ID
• I can’t afford to spend $1K+ on a phone when I need to buy a new computer as well soon.
Defining an idiot
Someone that buys a phone like the 8 if they already had a 6 and 7 before
Purchasing a 275 phone for 1000
Millions will buy iPhone 8 models, i mean even iPhone 7 / 7+ still selling very well. Its hard to sometime remember that we tech people aren’t the mass who are buying these new phones.
yeah, I’m gonna probably stick with the 8+(from 6s)….I just want the camera and bigger phone. I love the design of the X, but I’d rather wait for the second gen where everything is perfected(not an early adopter due to prior experiences…also waiting for next AirPods too)
My iPhone 7 will do me.
I have had the iPhone 7 Plus since it launched last year and will be getting the iPhone X. I bought a Samsung Galaxy S8 in July just to see how I liked the size and not having a home button, then sold it. I found I could live without the home button and liked the 5.8″ screen (which will obviously be the same size on the X, but slightly wider, since the GS8 had curved edges and X has straight ones). But I’ll be laying our all cash for it through Apple instead of financing it. But I’ll really only be paying $820 after taxes, since I own my 7 Plus 128GB and will be getting a $425 Apple Store gift card when trading it in through the Apple Renew program.
I’m sticking with my SE. Sure, there are a few features I wish it had, but I just hate larger phones and couldn’t even get on with the 6s. If they made a smaller X style phone in the future, I would be incredibly happy but I seem to be in the minority
I’m part of that minority! I’m going to swap my knackered 6S for an SE – held out for either a spec bump or price reduction and got the latter.
The reason my 6S is knackered? The form factor. The size is not right for one-handed use – too easy to fumble and drop it. I know a huge amount of people with 6/6S/7 who have cracked screens and scuffs from dropping them.
I want an iPhone SE2 with oled that cover all the front.
I am not a fan of the round sides of the new model phones.
A better poll would have shown the two GB variations of the iPhone X, as I’m thinking the 64gb might have been a lot of the 57 percent
A much better poll would be .
Is Apple lost enough for you to leave the eco?
I would rather wait for the IPhone X price to be reduced rather than buying Iphone 8
Disappointed to see that iPhone X is for rich people. It is following the steps of the Macbook Pro. Very expensive items that are not top performers. I’m slowly moving away from Apple.
slowly? what’s the hold up?
The price isn’t that far off for plus users. Once you hit $800-950, what’s another $200 over 2 years? That notch bothers me a lot though, especially in Safari, although I can see the appeal of true edge to edge for some things. It seems like a dead simple solution would just be the ability to toggle a black border on and off at will. Especially with OLED.
Non tech geeks don’t read the poll and they are the target market for 8. You know, those that still have 5/S/6/S.
Well, according to sales, Apple is selling out of many models of the 8/8+ as they are pushing delivery dates back a couple of weeks, so they sold out of their initial allotment of certain models/colors/storage levels.