Yesterday, Apple introduced the 2017 versions of the iPhone. There are three models. The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus are incremental but nevertheless nice upgrades from the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. The iPhone X (pronounced "10") is a radical new design, featuring a gorgeous, edge-to-edge screen that is larger than the screen on an iPhone 8 Plus even though the device itself is closer to the size of an iPhone 8. If you are a lawyer or other professional who uses an iPhone to get work done, these are amazing devices. Here are the details of each model that stood out to me.
iPhone 8
I'll start by discussing what is new compared to the iPhone 7, but I know that many of you will be upgrading from older models, so I'll discuss that too.
Like the iPhone 7, the iPhone 8 features a 4.7" screen. And at 5.45 inches x 2.65 inches x .29 inches deep, the iPhone 8 is virtually the same size as the iPhone 7. The main improvements in the iPhone 8 are that it is faster and has wireless charging.
Faster. The iPhone 8 uses Apple's new A11 processor, which can run 30% faster than the A10 in the iPhone 7 — and even faster for apps that use multiple processors at one time. The A11 will also let the iPhone 8 work better with artificial intelligence applications, such as augmented reality.
Wireless charging. The size of the iPhone 8 is essentially the same as the iPhone 7 — so much so that cases designed for one will work with the other. But now, the front and back of the iPhone 8 is covered in glass (50% more durable than the iPhone 7), and there is an aluminum band around the side. The design looks really nice. With this new glass casing, the iPhone can now be charged by any device that complies with the Qi standard (pronounced "Chee" and based on the Chinese word for natural energy). Qi is not an Apple design; it is a standard that has been out for many years now. Thus, you can already buy many products featuring a flat top; just put the iPhone 8 on top of that surface, and it starts to charge.
Apple itself plans to its own Qi charger next year called the AirPower, which will let you charge an iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods just by placing them on the AirPower.
I can see it being nice to have a Qi device on your desk at work or on a counter at home. Just set down your iPhone and the iPhone will charge while it is sitting there. Having said that, it's not like it is that hard to plug in an iPhone to a Lightning cord or a dock. Eight years ago, you could purchase a Touchstone for wireless charging of a Palm Pre. Qi technology has also been around for a while. And yet, wireless smartphone charging has not been a big thing yet. Is that just because the iPhone didn't support it? Or is that because it is only a slight convenience and not worth the extra expense? I honestly don't know, but with wireless charging available as an option for all of the 2017 iPhones, I guess we will find out soon enough.
By the way, I believe that wireless charging will work even if your iPhone is in a case. Apple says that all of its new iPhone cases work with wireless charging, so I presume that this will also be true for third-party cases.
Faster charging. Apple hasn't commented on the speed of wireless charging, but I presume it is slower than using a cord. I've mentioned in the past that you can use a USB-C charger to charge an iPad Pro much faster. With the iPhone 8, you can use a USB-C charger to get up to a 50% charge in only 30 minutes. Thus, my guess is that the iPhone 8 gives you easy-and-convenient wireless charging, faster USB-to-Lightning charger, and even faster USB-C-to-Lightning charging.
True Tone display. Like the iPhone 7, the iPhone 8 features what Apple calls a Retina HD display. The iPhone 8 adds True Tone, a technology that automatically adjusts the display based on the light around you. True Tone makes the screen look better and easier to read, whether you are in bright sunlight or in a dark room. (True Tone is already on the iPad Pro.)
Better camera. The new A11 processor has an image signal processor which allows the camera to take even better pictures, especially in low light. And if you want to take 4K video, you can now do so at 60 fps instead of 30 fps on the iPhone 7. The flash is also better.
Bluetooth 5.0. While the iPhone 7 included Bluetooth 4.2, the iPhone 8 has the new Bluetooth 5.0 standard. While Bluetooth 4.2 has a range of up to about 30 feet, Bluetooth 5.0 has a range of up to about 260 feet. It is also faster, making it possible to send higher quality audio over Bluetooth. And it can work with two devices at once, which I suspect means that two people could use wireless headphones such as AirPods with a single iPhone, or you could have two wireless speakers connected to one iPhone.
Price. A year ago, the iPhone 7 came in 32 GB ($649), 128 GB ($749) and 256 GB ($849). This year, the iPhone 8 comes in 64 GB ($699) and 256 GB ($849). You can either pay the full price, or you can make monthly payments either with the Apple iPhone Upgrade Program (which gets you a new iPhone every year) or an installment plan with a carrier.
Worth the upgrade? If you are currently using an iPhone 7, the new features such as the faster processor and wireless charging will certainly make the experience of using an iPhone even better, but it is probably not a major upgrade. But if your iPhone is two or more years old — such as if you are using an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6s — the iPhone 8 is a major upgrade. The processor speed increase will be even more dramatic for you, meaning that your new iPhone will seem even more responsive. The Retina HD screen first introduced with the iPhone 7 looks much better. Unlike the iPhone 6s and earlier models, the iPhone 8 is rated IP67 for water resistance, which means that you get complete protection against dust, and in theory the iPhone could be up to 1 meter deep in water for up to 30 minutes and it would still work. I don't encourage you to drop it into water, but if it gets a little wet, it should be fine. And you will also get much better speakers, a much better camera, and other new features. It will be a great upgrade for you.
iPhone 8 Plus
The iPhone 8 Plus includes all of the features of the iPhone 8, but it is larger: 6.24 inches x 3.07 inches x .30 inches deep. (It is also heavier, at 7.13 ounces versus the iPhone 8's 5.22 ounces.)
For me, the larger size of the Plus model has been a disadvantage; I have always found the larger size holder to hold and fit in a pocket. Thus, I have never purchased a Plus model.
But if you can live with the larger physical size, you get to appreciate the Plus advantages: (1) a larger 5.5" screen, (2) a second lens for the camera, which not only gives you an optical zoom feature, but also lets you take pictures using Apple's cool portrait mode (which blurs the background much like an SLR camera), and (3) longer battery life.
The camera on the iPhone 8 Plus is better than the iPhone 7 Plus in one way: you can now use what Apple calls Portrait Lighting to adjust the lighting on a person's face when you take a picture. This is a digital effect using the more sophisticated A11 processor and the dual-lens system — it's not like there is an actual flash producing the different lighting effects — but even so, this feature looks powerful and useful. Andrew Orr of The Mac Observer did a good job of describing the different Portrait Lighting modes:
One of the highlights of the new cameras is called Portrait Lighting. This emulates professional studio lighting by using facial detection and depth maps. These are combined into Portrait Mode to present five different lighting options: Natural Light, Studio Light, Contour Light, Stage Light, and Stage Light Mono.
Natural Light is what you’d expect. It takes a portrait of your subject with a blurred background and the face in focus. Studio Light brightens up the face more. Contour Light gives your subject’s face more dramatic shadows and highlights. Stage Light gives a chiaroscuro effect that puts an artificial black background behind your subject. The subject’s face is sharply lit as if a light were shining on them. Finally, Stage Light Mono is the same as Stage Light, but in black and white.
The iPhone 8 Plus costs $100 more than the iPhone 8. Thus, you can get a 64 GB model for $799, or a 256 GB model for $949.
iPhone X
I've always thought that folks like me who have been jealous of the larger screen, better camera and better battery life of the Plus models, but who didn't want a larger phone, had unreasonable expectations. After all, how you can you get a bigger screen without getting a bigger phone?
Apparently, the answer is that you remove virtually all of the bezel on the phone — including the bottom part of the iPhone which has featured a button since the very first iPhone was introduced ten years ago. With this beautiful new edge-to-edge screen, you get an iPhone which is only slightly larger than the iPhone 8, but which features an even larger screen than the iPhone 8 Plus.
The new screen is not a complete rectangle. There is a slight notch at the top center, which Apple uses for a bunch of cameras and other sensors. (More on that in a moment.) But you get much more screen space to get your work done.
With the iPhone X, you get all of the features of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, plus the following additional features:
The screen. On my goodness, the screen. I've already mentioned that it is larger, so you will be able to see even more of your emails, your documents, your spreadsheets, etc. allowing you get get even more work done even on a small device. The 5.8" screen is even larger than the 5.5" screen of the iPhone 8 Plus.
I remember when the original iPhone came out and BlackBerry users worried about the lack of a physical keyboard. Of course, the reason that the iPhone design was better is that it is wasteful to devote half of the front of the device to a keyboard that you don't need to use all of the time. Similarly, the iPhone X eliminates the waste of a bezel around the phone, replacing it with an edge-to-edge screen. It took ten years to get here, but the iPhone X seems like the design that the iPhone has always wanted to be.
The screen also looks better, featuring what Apple calls the new Super Retina HD display. This is first iPhone to use an OLED HDR screen, which means that blacks look darker and colors look brighter. The iPhone 8 has a 1400:1 contrast ratio; the iPhone X has a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. The folks who were able to see it in person yesterday said that it looked fantastic.
Face ID. By replacing the bottom part of the iPhone, which used to have the home button, with more screen, Apple needed to come up with alternatives to the home button. One change is that instead of pressing the button to see your apps, you swipe up from the bottom of the screen to see your apps. Another change is that instead of holding down the home button to bring up Siri or double-tapping the home button (on the lock screen) to bring up Apple Pay, now you hold down the (larger) side button to bring up Siri and double-tap that side button to bring up Apple Pay.
But Apple also needed a way to replace the Touch ID fingerprint sensor in the home button, and Apple decided to instead use Face ID, which authenticates that you are really you by recognizing your face. The TrueDepth camera analyzes more than 30,000 (invisible) dots on your face to create a precise, 3D depth map of your face. After you teach the iPhone X what you look like, you can simply look at the screen to unlock the phone, or to authenticate yourself to use Apple Pay.
Apple said yesterday that Touch ID had an error rate of 1 in 50,000, whereas Face ID has a error rate of 1 in 1,000,000. That certainly sounds good, and I look forward to seeing how it works in practice. Apple says that Face ID is smart enough to keep working if you put on glasses or makeup, grow facial hair, etc. Apple warns that if you have an identical twin, or even a sibling who looks a lot like you, Face ID may make mistakes. (So Apple joked yesterday that if you have an evil twin, you might want to use a passcode instead of Face ID.)
Face ID currently only works with one face. I have one of my wife's fingerprints stored in my iPhone 7 Touch ID, and she does the same for me, so that we can pick up and quickly use each other's phone when necessary. With the iPhone X, that won't work.
I think of Face ID as a way to get around the lack of Touch ID so that you can have the bigger screen. Nevertheless, I'm intrigued to see if Face ID might be even better than Touch ID. Whenever you pick up your iPhone to use it, of course you are going to look at it. If the act of looking at it also unlocks your phone, saving you the trouble of using your fingerprint, that sounds great.
The Face ID technology appears to have some other advantages. For example, if the iPhone senses that you are still looking at the screen, it can be configured to keep the screen lit. This technology can also improve the camera, so let's turn to that next.
Better camera. If you have never used a Plus model iPhone, the iPhone X camera will be a big improvement because of the dual lens system on the back, including a telephoto lens. I'm really looking forward to that. But the iPhone X is even an improvement over the iPhone 8 Plus because the telephoto lens has an f/2.4 aperture instead of an f/2.8 aperture, which should allow you to take sharper pictures with less blur even with less light. And unlike the iPhone 8 Plus, both lenses on the iPhone X have optical image stabilization, resulting in sharper pictures and less shaky videos.
Not only is the camera on the back better, but the front-facing camera is also better — I presume in part because this camera needs to be good for Face ID to work. As a result, you can now take portrait pictures using the front camera. Now only does this mean that you can have better selfies, but it also allows for some new technologies. For example, Apple showed off a demo of impressive Snapchat filters which can digitally change your face in real time. And Apple is also updating its Clips app so that the new front-facing camera can immerse you in 360º animated landscapes. And you can now create an animated emoji which apple calls an animoji; the iPhone analyzes more than 50 muscle movements in your face and then mirrors your expressions on panda bear, cat, alien, unicorn, rabbit, or even the poop emoji.
Better battery. Even though the iPhone X is close to the size of the iPhone 8, Apple says that the battery lasts about two hours longer. Thus, you can enjoy additional battery life without having to use the much larger Plus model.
Price. The iPhone X costs $300 more than the iPhone 8 and $200 more than the iPhone 8 Plus. Thus, you can get the 64 GB model for $999, or a 256 GB model for $1149.
Availability
You can place pre-orders for the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus as soon as Friday, September 15, with the first devices shipping a week later on September 22. But Apple needs a little more time to finish the iPhone X, so pre-orders don't start until Friday, October 27, with the first units shipping a week later on November 3, 2017.
My guess is that Apple will have far more demand than supply for the iPhone X, and that very few folks will get an iPhone X on or close to November 3. I hope that I am wrong, but I predict that getting an iPhone X during the 2017 holiday season will be almost as hard as getting a Cabbage Patch doll during the 1983 holiday season.
Conclusion
One of the reasons that I love using a 12.9" iPad Pro is that I love using a high-quality large screen to read and annotate documents, look at exhibits, or even just surf the Internet or look at photos and videos. Having a larger and better screen helps me to be more productive, and have more fun, with my iPad.
Using that same logic, I've always understood the appeal of the Plus model of the iPhone, starting with the iPhone 6 Plus introduced three years ago. But in practice, that Plus-size iPhone just felt too big in my hand and against my face when on the phone — making me feel like Maxwell Smart using a shoe phone to place a call.
Thus, for me, the iPhone X seems like the perfect solution: all of the advantages of a larger Plus model, but in a size that is much closer to a non-Plus model, which I have been using for many years. Add to that the best screen that Apple has ever shipped with an iPhone — and I suspect that best screen that has ever shipped with any smartphone — and this device seems fantastic. Yes, it costs $300 more than the iPhone 8 (or $200 more than the Plus model), but it seems very much worth it to me to have the best possible screen for a device that I am going to look at every single day, multiple times a day, both to get work done and also for entertainment.