2017 iPhone 8/8+ anticipation and rumors thread =) (1 Viewer)

[Clinton McClure]

Clinton,

Just out of curiosity as I am an AT&T customer...

Why are you switching to Verizon?

AT&T no longer supports the area in which I live and we couldn’t get a phone signal without standing on our front lawn. Even then, it was only one bar and half the time, the call would drop. With Verizon, we have full signal for cellular and 4G LTE, even inside our home.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

AT&T no longer supports the area in which I live and we couldn’t get a phone signal without standing on our front lawn. Even then, it was only one bar and half the time, the call would drop. With Verizon, we have full signal for cellular and 4G LTE, even inside our home.

That's a good reason.

I was once a Verizon customer. However, as you may remember, the first iPhone was released on AT&T exclusively. Many of us were forced to switch. Was not happy with the service at first, but all these years later I am highly satisfied with them. I love their rollover data and somewhere along the line they gave me an extra 6GB worth a month at no extra charge. Hard for me to justify going back to Verizon.

 

[Sam Posten]

Love this:
http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-8-camera-review-india

 

[DaveF]

That's a good reason.

I was once a Verizon customer. However, as you may remember, the first iPhone was released on AT&T exclusively. Many of us were forced to switch. Was not happy with the service at first, but all these years later I am highly satisfied with them. I love their rollover data and somewhere along the line they gave me an extra 6GB worth a month at no extra charge. Hard for me to justify going back to Verizon.

Verizon has rollover data.

I switched from VZW ago ATT to get my iPhone 4. For the iPhone 5s, and when they could finally do data + voice, I switched back to VZW. I travel for work and I wanted the best national coverage which was generally VZW.

My coverage at home isn't good from either carrier. Fortunately VZW now supports wifi calling which helps in the house. ATT does too I think, so,
I could switch back if i wanted.

 

[dpippel]

I travel all over the western U.S. a lot, and Verizon is the hands-down winner for reliable coverage in remote areas. Friends with AT&T or T-Mobile are always cursing their carriers when I have service and they don't.

 

[Nelson Au]

Guys, just a quick anecdote. I live and work here in Silicon Valley. So the tech world is my life so to speak. The local news has a reporter at a flagship Apple Store in Palo Alto on University Ave. this is just a few miles from Steve Jobs home. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the usual excitement and lines that form at this store is not there. There was one person in line early this morning. As I left for work, a few friends joined him. He was interviewed and a little dissapointed the usual excitement and fun wasn't there. He is there for a iPhone 8. But this really tells us that the real interest is in the iPhone X most likely. I was hoping demand for the iPhone 8 would be good and take pressure off the iPhone X. I guess we'll see how the day goes. Maybe the sales will be brisk but the pre-orders are down 70% according to the reporter there.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I was the first on line at my local UPS hub to pick up my Apple watch this morning.

Only 4 others showed up by 9am.

Most everyone was there for iPhone 8. I got quite a few "I can't justify the cost for the X"

Despite some heat being taken off the X, from what I am reading, it will be in such limited supply that Apple expects the bulk of orders to go out in 2018.

 

[Cranston37+]

Just in case anybody doesn’t want to feel left out - there is now an Android app that simulates the notch

 

[DaveF]

My plan is working: everyone wants the X and I can order the 8 without having to wait months!

Except now I kinda want the X...

 

[Ted Todorov]

I travel all over the western U.S. a lot, and Verizon is the hands-down winner for reliable coverage in remote areas. Friends with AT&T or T-Mobile are always cursing their carriers when I have service and they don't.

I was a T-Mobile customer in 2007 & switched to AT&T for the iPhone. Last year I switched back to T-Mobile. In NYC it's fine, and if you travel abroad, T-Mobile changes your life: you are getting essentially free service worldwide. (Calls 20c a minute, but FaceTime & texts are free as is slowed down data). I thoroughly recommend them.

Verizon or Sprint I wouldn't touch under any circumstances - Verizon was my landline, Internet & original cellphone service and they were way beyond horrible and I had to get the NY State attorney general's office involved get Verizon to stop charging me for the Internet/landline which I had left (after it broke down and they couldn't be bothered to fix it). They are still every bit as horrible in NYC: they promised FIOS for the entire city within 5 years, and a decade later, my UWS block still doesn't have it and probably never will, which allows the pure monopoly - Spectrum (formerly known as TWC) to charge unbelievable amounts - but, they really do work properly and generate Internet that is much faster than FIOS: my downspeed is ~315 Mbps (which is why I'm not worried about 4K streaming in the future...)

 

[DaveF]

"iPhone 8 Is World's Fastest Phone (It's Not Even Close)" (https://www.tomsguide.com/us/iphone-8-benchmarks-fastest-phone,review-4676.html)
Let's start with Geekbench 4, which measures overall performance. On the multicore portion of this test, the iPhone 8 hit 10,170. That's 54 percent faster than the score from Samsung's Galaxy Note 8 — currently the fastest Android phone.

 

[Ted Todorov]

So, I decided it wasn't worth waiting two (or four) months for the iPhone X and got an iPhone 8+ on my annual upgrade program. Also, the joy of mob free experience at my local Apple Store, and my chosen T-Mobile version in stock. Last year on day 2 or 3 of release weekend the iPhone 7 was available, but AT&T only and not the color I wanted, and tourists couldn't get the no SIM version for their country. This year, even the SIM free ones were available right away. 5 person line Sunday morning, that had gone up to 15 behind me by the time I had gotten my phone. On early Friday afternoon when we got our Watches, the line was zero.

The best news: the switch over (using iCloud backup/restore) works amazingly well: I did it at home, and it asked me at the very start if I wanted to load my info from my iOS 11 running iPad, I said yes, and that meant I didn't even have to type in any passwords - it was pure magic.

One bug: my phone number transfer (which I thought was already been taken care of before I left the Apple Store) somehow had failed - I went to my local T-Mobile store, and they fixed in a few minutes. Unfortunately they couldn't fix the same phone number problem with my new LTE Apple Watch, (they claimed it was T-Moble server issue, but I doubt it, because my wife's LTE Watch was working fine, as had mine prior to the iPhone 7 to 8 upgrade). So I'll have to deal with Apple later today to fix that (I unfortunately got the new Watch on Friday & iPhone on Sunday, should have done it in the opposite order, but on Friday I had decided on the Watch, not on the iPhone).

 

[Johnny Angell]

My plan is working: everyone wants the X and I can order the 8 without having to wait months!

Except now I kinda want the X...

Apple's plan is working.

 

[Ted Todorov]

https://daringfireball.net/2017/09/iphone_x_supply_is_going_to_be_tight

Looks like the 8+ was definitely the stress free purchase option

 

[dpippel]

And then there's this:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...be-as-bad-as-we-thought/ar-AAsuZSw?li=BBnbklF

 

[DaveF]

Bought a silver iPhone 8 Plus last night (and space grey for 8+ for the wife) at Target. Some thoughts on purchasing:

• Target has the best purchase deal.
  • Buying with the Target Red Card gets 5% back on charged amount. We charged $750 per phone, for close to $40 discount per phone.
  • We financed the remaining $50 over 24 months (about $2/mo total per phone). With the financing, Target sends us $15 coupons every three months for two years, another $120 savings per phone.
  • Buying at Target saves us about $160 per iPhone with no trade-in and no changes to our service plan.
• Target is a not a good place to setup a new smartphone: Target wifi is 2Mbps, adequate for browsing when shopping but woefully anemic when iCloud backups, iOS downloads, and iCloud restores. In hindsight, I should have bought the phones, got the SIM card installed, but not powered them on until I got home.
• The young woman helping us, working for the contract shop that sells cellphones in Target, was superb. We had a sequence of problems due to paying off our two year Verizon contract early, but that not propagating through the system and preventing Target from selling us a phone until we went a Verizon store and in person made them fix it so our contract showed as completed.

Thoughts on setup:

• The iOS 11 setup process is superb.
• Upgrade your old phone to iOS 11 before buying a new iPhone.
• Make sure you have a current iCloud backup before buying a new device
• Definitely have that old phone on hand to assist in setting up the new phone.
• Don't try setting up a new phone from iCloud backup unless you're on fast wifi (2Mbps is inadequate. 50Mbps goes pretty well.)

On the 8+

• The stickiness of the glass (love me some glass) has me thinking I'll be caseless with this iPhone too.
• In a world without the iPhone X or Samsung Galaxy 8, I'd be unenthused about the phablet size of the 8+. I went in eyes wide open for the camera. But, can't say I'd love it.
• But with the new bezel-less smartphones, the 8 Plus is looking, well, a little gross. Or maybe dated, to not be so pejorative. It suddenly looks and feels dated. I always have that expensive new purchase anxiety. But I expect I'll actually have buyer's remorse when my friend(s) get their iPhone X's. My hope is that the X is in super short supply and no one has them until January.
• I waited until 2010 to buy my first iPhone (the 4). Then three years later to get the 5s. Then two years and change for the 6s -- they were in very short supply for several months. I expect I'll be upgrading in 12 months from the Plus to an X.

On iOS 11

• Overall I like the graphical refresh of text and icons.
• I haven't had a chance to play with the new camera stuff except at an Apple Store. But I expect these will be great.
• From pre-release reporting I thought there would be gobs of AR apps day one. But the AppStore shows a paucity of apps. I was hoping to play with this stuff straight off.
• Can't say I'm a fan of the new App Store. I don't want a five page article on what the developer had for breakfast before I can see the price.
• I'm struggling still to learn the new Control Center. And on the iPad the Dock is killing me; years of muscle memory lost.
• Likewise the multi-tasking. I keep swiping from the right and nothing happens. Had to search the new multitasking UI, and am trying to get used to that.
• Files I think is going to be a nice, but I'm still in the adjustment period
• To my lost apps, I pour out 32 bits for you!
• I think I like the unified Notification Center and Lock Screen approach.
• I'm looking forward to iMessage payments. I won't use it often, but I expect it will be very useful when I need it.

I've got a backlog of iOS 11 articles to read to find the tips and tricks I'm missing, and find what new features and tweaks will be useful for me.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Dave,

Congrats to you and your wonderful wife on your new phones!

 

[Cranston37+]

Dave,

If you are going caseless with it, you reeeaaally should think about AppleCare...

 

[DaveF]

Dave,

If you are going caseless with it, you reeeaaally should think about AppleCare...

I don’t buy extended warranties. But I should re-examine either the warranty or case for an $800 pocket computer.

 

[Cranston37+]

I don’t buy extended warranties. But I should re-examine either the warranty or case for an $800 pocket computer.

Repair of the glass back is $399 so yeah, protect it, man!