Apple has this morning unveiled its brand new iPhone 8 alongside an additional whizz-bang model known as the X (pronounced ‘ten’ and named after the iPhone’s 10th birthday).
The new handsets were unveiled by Apple’s vice president of worldwide marketing, Phil Schiller (in photo), at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters and, due to so many leaks beforehand, much had already been revealed in the media prior to the launch.
This morning’s announcement included news of the new iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, the premium X model, a new 4G Apple Watch and new 4K streaming on Apple TV.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has called the new models “the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone”.
Here’s all the details from this morning’s announcement:
- The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus are basically the normal yearly updates we’ve come to expect from Apple. They will be available to order from September 22nd.
- You can pre-order the iPhone X from October 23 from Apple’s website. It will hit retail stores on November 3.
- The iPhone 8 will be available in 64GB and 256GB for $1,079 and $1,229 respectively.
- The X, that comes in silver and space grey, will reportedly retail in Australia for $1,579 for the base model, while the 256GB version will cost $1,829.
- And the rumours are true – the home button is gone and the new iPhones now use face recognition to unlock the phones.
- Apple says the phone will still be able to recognise you if you wear a hat, put on glasses or grow a beard. And, the company says it’s virtually unhackable, with only a one in one million chance someone could get into your phone that’s not you.
- None of the phones have a headphone jack, just like the 7 model.
- The iPhone X has a large 5.8-inch display that takes up almost its entire front.
- The X comes with a completely redesigned screen that uses an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display – a first for Apple. The screen takes up almost the entire front of the phone, which also has a glass back.
- Wallpapers are immersive, and colours pop thanks to the phone’s OLED screen.
- There’s an infrared camera and a flood illuminator which shines light onto an owner’s face for the phone’s Face ID facial recognition system, a proximity sensor, an ambient light sensor, a speaker, a microphone, a 7-megapixel standard camera, and an infrared dot projector, which is also used for Face ID.
- The iPhone X’s dual-camera camera system isn’t too different from that on the iPhone 8 Plus, except for its vertical orientation.
- Apple claims it is the strongest iPhone to date and is also water resistant.
