
iPhone 8 - salimmadjd
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/12/apple-announces-the-iphone-8-and-iphone-8-plus/
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Tomte
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!

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

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Tomte
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.

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ben174
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.

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

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

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felippee
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.

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

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agumonkey
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

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khedoros1
I think that the X is supposed to be the massively-innovative one, not the 8.

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

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chris_7
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.

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froogle
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.

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chris_7
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.

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rz2k
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.

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more-entropy
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.

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c0nducktr
I don't think the iPhone 8 will be $1000. That's probably just the X model,
but we'll see.

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more-entropy
In EU it will be 1k.

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khedoros1
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).

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taylorswift_
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.

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LeonM
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...

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ecommerceguy
Can I use my Palm Pre charger?

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

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

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dan1234
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)

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halfcheck
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.

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tradesmanhelix
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?

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usrusr
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.

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mtgx
This is very interesting if true:

[https://thenextweb.com/apple/2017/09/12/apples-new-
iphone-x-...](https://thenextweb.com/apple/2017/09/12/apples-new-iphone-x-
already-destroying-android-devices-g/)

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.

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

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chirau
It has wireless charging and costs $799

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

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Yizahi
"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.

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davidcbc
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.

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aetherson
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.)

