During Apple's big product showcase in its new Apple Campus in Cupertino, California, the company unveiled the new iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, which are the updated versions of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus that were released last year. Upgrades of the new phones over their predecessors include upgraded cameras, a True Tone display, faster processors, and wireless charging.
Design-wise, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus followed the design that Apple has employed on the iPhone since 2014 – the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. This means that they look more like an iPhone compared to the more powerful iPhone X that was unveiled alongside them.
The new phones will sport a glass back, which aside from aesthetics, also enables them to be charged wirelessly using an inductive charger. This does not work through the aluminum frames of previous models.
The display also gets an upgrade for the new iPhone. They adopted the True Tone technology that Apple offers on the iPad Pro, which intelligently adjusts the screen based on the ambient light in the room.
The iPhone 8 has a 12-megapixel rear camera that is bigger and faster. It also now sports image stabilization. The iPhone 8 Plus, on the other hand, gets a better, dual camera setup with apertures of f/1.8 and f/2.8. It also comes with a feature called Portrait Lighting, which allows users to apply lighting adjustments on portrait photos.
Video recording has also been improved, the new phones supporting 4K recording at 60 frames per second. The slow motion videos is now capable of recording 1080p resolution videos at 240 frames per second.
The new phones will also be able to support Augmented Reality (AR) from apps developed using Apple's ARKit platform, which was released earlier this year.
The iPhone 8 will start at $699 for a model with 64 GB internal storage, while the 8 Plus starts at $799 for a 64 GB model. Both phones will be available via pre-order starting Sept. 15, and will be released on Sept. 22.
