New iPhone 8 Leaks Reveal Apple's Boring Breakthrough
New iPhone 8 Leaks Reveal Apple's Boring Breakthrough
This year's flagship smartphone from Apple is expected to introduce a number of new technologies into the handset. The 10th anniversary iPhone model will likely see a new design and new features announced in September. The biggest visual change will be a curved screen that uses OLED technology for the first time in an iPhone. There's just one problem with this. The iPhone 8's competition will have the same screen technology, and in some cases will have put it on sale five months before Apple.
Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during a product launch event at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California (Photo: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images)
Although Apple's iPhone stands out from a crowded field of smartphones in part down to the exclusive use of iOS as the software platform, much of the technology that the mobile OS leverages can be found "off the shelf" in the supply chains. Memory chips, I/O devices, accelerometers, camera hardware, antennae and many more elements are common across the world's smartphones.
Apple is in a strong position in terms of processors as it designs its own chips, but these still require fabrication in the same factories the handle the order books of rival manufacturers.
And then there is the display, Apple is expected to move to an OLED display for this year's flagship release. OLED offers a number of advantages over Apple's current use of LCD, such as brighter and vivid colors, better contrasts and blacks and reduced power usage. No doubt Apple will wax lyrical about the new screen come the expected launch in September, but as highlighted by DisplayMate's Dr Raymond Soneira, the iPhone's screen will be familiar to many in the industry.
Because of the volume of screens required by Apple, the expectation is that Apple will use one of the existing suppliers of OLED technology to outfit the tens of millions of handsets it will be hoping to sell. Which means that the iPhone 8's underlying visual technology is going to be rather familiar to the competition. Along with Apple, both the Galaxy S8 and Google's follow-up to the Pixel are expected to share the same components from Samsung Display. The presumptively titled Pixel 2 will likely arrive the month after the iPhone 8, but the Galaxy S8 with its curved OLED screen should be on sale in April this year, nearly five months before the iPhone 8.
Apple's iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus (image: Apple PR)
That is not to say these three flagships will have identical screens -- each manufacturer will likely decide on slightly different physical screen sizes, aspect ratios and pixels-per-inch values. Apple will want to keep the wide range color gamut standard of DCI-P3 that can be found in the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus; the move to a fingerprint reader under the glass will also be considered as part of the screen and there is an expectation that the iPhone 8 will promote an "edge-to-edge" display.
While Apple has locked out some technologies for a number of years using exclusivity clauses, there's no indication that it will use anything other than a common OLED base, which means all of the benefits the iPhone 8 screen will have will also be available to its competitors, removing the opportunity for Apple to have a unique advantage.
If Tim Cook is going to make its new screen stand out for the media, it's going to need to power up the reality distortion field once more.
I want to look at one of those areas, specifically wireless charging. The latest news suggests that the idea of wireless charging over an air gap measured in feet is unlikely to happen in 2017's flagship model. Instead, any wireless charging will likely use the inductive method, limiting charging to a few millimeters above a base plate.
This offers Apple an intriguing choice. Does it go with the inductive wireless charging standards used by the competition, or will it be tempted to build a proprietary standard and lock in its customer base?
Wireless charging the iPhone 6 (image: Ewan Spence)
Apple's removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack is a good example of these two competing urges. The 3.5mm stereo headphone jack is pretty much universa,l and while there may be issues around the amount of internal space required and the need for digital-to-analogue converters, the jack has been a mobile standard going back to the first Sony Walkman and beyond. Apple threw that out with the iPhone 7, choosing instead to focus on wireless- or lightning-connected alternatives. Wired headphones looking for a direct connections have to go through the lightning port, and that means manufacturers participating in Apple's "Made for iPhone" licensing program and a tribute to Cupertino.
The flip side is that the wireless solution uses the open standard of Bluetooth, and any Bluetooth audio device is going to connect to your iPhone. That same open nature extends to Apple's own wireless earbuds solution.
The AirPods are not "locked" to Apple products -- they can be easily used with Android-powered smartphones and other Bluetooth media devices. Not all of the features are going to be present (such as reporting back battery life), but the functionality is there. It's just a little bit better when you are on an Apple device.
On one hand, Apple has made itself the gatekeeper for one approach to audio on its smartphone (the wired solution through Lightning). On the other hand, it decided on an open solution with a little extra tweak for loyal supporters.
Apple CEO Tim Cook (image: Getty)
I would much prefer the latter approach to wireless charging in the iPhone 8. I want to see Apple use the Qi standard for charging -- partly for selfish reasons because I have a number of Qi charging pads around my home and office, but also because there is already a significant volume of infrastructure in the real world using the Qi standard.
I've no doubt that Apple will add in some additional hardware and software tricks that can be presented in hushed and reverential tones to make the wireless charging solution in the iPhone 8 "something that only Apple can deliver." I also hope that Apple's solution works with the open standards the industry has worked hard to establish over the last few years, as opposed to a customized solution that can be used to lock customers into Apple's ecosystem.
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