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Watch the iPhone 8 event in 13 minutes
As expected, today's event at Apple's new Steve Jobs Theater was jam-packed. Three brand-new iPhone models, a new Apple Watch and a 4K Apple TV were the news of the day, and the whole event was nearly two hours long. Don't have that much time to watch the entire keynote? We've got you covered with this supercut, showing all the highlights of the day. Don't worry: We skipped over that semi-painful chat about Apple's retail stores -- sorry, I mean Town Squares.
Comparing the iPhone X, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus
There's always a lot to consider after an iPhone event, and today we're looking at three new phones. The iPhone X is the new flagship, offering up an edge-to-edge screen and TrueDepth front camera for unlocking your device with Face ID. But those who were looking forward to something less dramatic along the lines of a 7S will be right at home with the 8 and 8 Plus. If you're curious about what each respective device is offering under the hood, check out our handy table pitting the latest iPhones in a head-to-head spec battle.
The new iPhones vs. the iPhone 7: What's changed?
This year's iPhone anniversary event has given us not one or two, but three new handsets to ponder over. The iPhone X is the star, offering us an edge-to-edge screen and a new front-facing TrueDepth camera. But we're still getting a new pair of numbered phones, the 8 and 8 Plus, for those who like to go a little more traditional, so to speak. If you're currently mulling an upgrade from your 7 or 7 Plus, we've made it a little easier by having the new phones face off in two tables -- one comparing the 4.7-inch devices and another for their bigger siblings, with the iPhone X making an appearance in both. Of course, specs aren't everything, so we'll have a review (or two) for you later this year for all the phones we saw today.
iPhone 8 and 8 Plus hands-on: Familiar, but not too familiar
While the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus aren't a complete redesign like the iPhone X, there's still plenty to dig into here. For starters, the new phones take the glass-backed design that is also in the X -- a move that makes them work with wireless charging. But from the front, they're basically indistinguishable from all of Apple's phones all the way back to the iPhone 6, which first came out in 2014. The larger bezels are still in place here, as is the home button, something that should make change-averse iPhone users happy.
Apple's AirPower tech wirelessly charges multiple devices at once
Apple isn't just adding Qi wireless charging to its latest iPhones; it's trotting out a charging standard of its own. AirPower is built in partnership with Qi, but can top up multiple devices at once. At the September 12th presentation, Apple illustrated AirPower topping up an iPhone X, an Apple Watch and AirPods (with a new charging case) all at once. That's more than a little handy if you're traveling and would rather not lug around multiple adapters and cables. However, you'll have to wait to try it out.
Apple's iPhone 8 and 8 Plus start from £699 in the UK
The iPhone X might have been Apple's banner handset announcement, but that doesn't mean the numerical launches are any less important. The new iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, showcased today, are sturdier, come with a new A11 Bionic processor (which is 25 percent faster than the A10 chip), sport upgraded Retina HD displays, utilise improved dual camera sensors that work better in low light and support a new shooting mode: Portrait Lighting. It took a while, but the new iPhones also support wireless charging. Apple's been careful to support the Qi standard, so if you're switching from an Android device, you might already own the necessary hardware. When the new handsets go up for pre-order on September 15th there will only be two variants: 64GB and 256GB. The iPhone 8 will set you back £699 and £849, while the iPhone 8 plus will be sold for £799 and £949 respectively. That's a significant markup on the £599 you might have paid for the iPhone 7. As is standard for Apple device launches, the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus will officially launch a week later, meaning you could have one in your hand as soon as September 22nd.
Apple's new iPhones use AI 'Portrait Lighting' to improve shots
Apple's iPhone 8 and 8 Plus cameras are similar to those on the previous models, and the new iPhone X has a similar dual camera arrangement to the 8 Plus. While the hardware hasn't changed dramatically, there are some interesting new software features, though, most notably one called "Portrait Lighting." Taking advantage of the camera's multi-focus feature, it can separate you from the background and blur it out, as before, but now uses AI to examine the contours of your face and "light" you in a variety of flattering or dramatic ways.
Apple's iPhone 8 and 8 Plus wrap more power in a glass-backed design
Today, Apple is likely to announce more phones than it has at any event in its history. The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are two major parts of today's showcase, and after all those tantalizing leaks, we finally get to hear all about them. You won't have to wait much longer to handle one either: Both iPhone 8 models, which mark a return to glass-backed design, with a powerful-sounding new processor inside, will go on preorder September 15th, with a launch date of September 22nd. For the bigger handset, you'll get to pick storage configs with 64, 128 and 256GB options with prices start at $799, while iPhone 8 shoppers will get 64GB and 256GB options, with an entry-level price of $699. And yes, all three colors (silver, space gray and gold aluminum) will be coming to both phones. Let's take a look.
Watch Apple's iPhone X event right here!
You should probably read along on our liveblog (that's here), but if you like your Apple events in live video form -- and trapped in the same company's Safari browser -- you should probably mosey along to here, where Apple will be piping out all that molten iPhone news. You know what to expect, right? It all kicks off at 10 AM PDT. Mere minutes from now!
iPhone X may pack a 6-core processor
This weekend's huge iOS 11 leak continues to spill the beans on the iPhone X... and the latest tidbits may be particularly relevant to performance junkies. Twitter user Longhorn has found that the processor in the iPhone X, and likely the step-down iPhone 8 models, will be a six-core chip. It's not clear how many of these will be higher-powered cores versus energy-saving secondary cores (Longhorn suspects only two are high-speed cores), but it looks as if they might all be usable at the same time. That would be a big step up from the A10 Fusion in the iPhone 7, which only allows the high- or low-speed cores to run at any given moment.
The next iPhone creates animated emoji from your facial expressions
You may already know that the next iPhone will use face detection for all kinds of clever tricks, but here's one you probably weren't expecting: customized emoji. The 9to5Mac crew has discovered that leaked "gold master" iOS 11 firmware includes references to 'Animoji,' or 3D emoji that you create using your facial expressions and voice. Pick one of the familiar non-human faces in the emoji library and it'll map your eye, mouth and cheek expressions to that character -- you can make a robot smile or have a dog raise its eyebrows. Even the poo emoji can be animated. This comes across as a gimmick (we can see many people dropping this once the novelty wears off), but it shows what's possible now that Apple has face tracking at its disposal. And there's more to the leak than just emoji.
What to expect from Apple's iPhone event on September 12th
Another September, another iPhone event, right? Well, not exactly. Apple celebrated the iPhone's 10th anniversary earlier this year, and all of the rumors have pointed to a radically new and potentially very expensive smartphone to celebrate that milestone. It's all but certain we'll see this new phone, but that's hardly all that we expect Apple to reveal next Tuesday, at the first event in the company's brand-new headquarters. We could see two additional iPhones, Apple Watch updates, an upgraded Apple TV, details on the forthcoming HomePod speaker and possibly more. Apple often likes to surprise us, after all. Here's what we think Tim Cook and company will bring to the table on Tuesday.
