I just wanted to rhyme, sorry.

A review of the iPhone 8

Every iPhone always seems to be better than the one before; and if not that, it’s more expensive at least. I remember that one day before I moved from my Black Berry Pearl to the Apple world, my father said “if you’re patient and give me a month, I’ll get you the iPhone 3g“. Of course, I am everything but patient, and settled for a knock-off version where the apple bite was on the left, and the phone was called “iPhun 3g”.

I should have waited.

Flash forward a few years and I tend to buy an iPhone every 2 models, i.e. iPhone 4s, iPhone 6s, and previous patterns suggest I’ll be getting the 8/8s… but is it worth it?

iPhone 8

Back to glass

Remember the 4s? The first phone to ever have Siri? It was all fun and games till your iPhone fell and the entire glass body would shatter (happened to a friend of mine and not me. I promise). Well, the iPhone 8 is bringing sexy back. It looks silky clean, but not too sure it’s for the clumsy-at-heart.

Water and Dust resistant

Yes, you can have your iPhone fall into the water, but beware. The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are “IP67 certified”, which is another way of saying that you can have your phone fall into the toilet while you’re telling someone that “you’re busy with something” and that’s the reason you can’t Face Time at the moment; but make sure to take it out soon … or throw it away.

Wireless Charging

I’m not excited, you are.

Amen, for now we will no longer need to buy 20 charging cables every year. On the other hand, if you’re the type of person who charges and uses their phone in bed, you can always go back to the 2016 way of charging phones. If that’s not enough, Apple has finally incorporated fast charging. Get your fancy USB C cable and have your iPhone charge 50% in 30 MINUTES.

Retina HD

Every time Apple releases any new product, they claim it has an even better retina display. This makes one wonder if they have a retina masterpiece already built but are releasing them 1 by 1 each year, or people are just getting smarter at Apple. Anyhoo, their new True Tone feature adjusts white balance to match the light around you and you have a ton of more colours and lighting and all that fun stuff.

Better camera

Frankly, the iPhone 8 Plus camera looks way more appealing than the iPhone 8’s.

Since this camera is already so popular with everyone, how could Apple possibly improve? “A11 Bionic” – give it to Apple to come up with some fancy names for some of their products. With a 12MP wide angle camera, you now have more control over your photography (specially by adjusting the lighting on some of these images).

iOS 11

It’s finally public for the mortals. In the past I have covered iOS 11 since I was courageous enough to enroll in the beta program. Flash forward many months, and I can’t be any more in love with this operating system; specially with the 6s onwards 3D touch functionality.

The customizable control panel, augmented reality functionality (particularly on the iPhone 8), a more helpful Siri, productivity on your native apps (notes, mail), do not disturb while driving mode… If you haven’t downloaded it already, I don’t know what you’re waiting for.

So… Should I upgrade?

I guess I could have just answered this question instead of writing this entire blog post; but hopefully some of you are still with me at this point.

Personally, I do like the iPhone 8. I like it’s sleek glass body, and I fancy all the features I’ve mentioned above. Wireless charging, much better camera functionality.. these things appeal to me.

That being said.

The iPhone 8 just feels like an iPhone 7 revamp – an iPhone 7s if you may; just… not really the 7s. Past tendencies have showed us that Apple makes the “s” version of their iPhones better than their predecessors. 4 to 4s got Siri; 5 to 5s got touch ID; 6 to 6s got 3D-Touch; and with the ~limited amount of upgrades on the 8, I feel it’s just slightly better than the 7.

To be fair, it does seem like the Apple team spent most of their time eating fruits – and working on the iPhone X (which I’ll review after this one!). The appealing part of the iPhone 8 would definitely be the price; since it seems relatively cheaper than the previous models (considering the fact that it STARTS at 64 gb).

All in all, if you have the 7 or 7s, I’d say wait – either for the X, or for a future model. I personally have the iPhone 6s and with iOS 11 on it, it’s all the futuristic vibe I need, really.

Apple could have done better, but then again, they could have done a lot worse.