You may recall from last week the exclusive iPhone 8 renders from Gordon Kelly at Forbes. Now, Gordon is back with even more detailed renders that, he says, give us the best look at the iPhone 8 final design. These renders appear to be a lot more polished than what we saw last week. Let’s jump in a take a closer look at some of the finer details of the supposed iPhone 8 final design.
The most noticeable difference is at the top of the display. I commented last week that I thought the cutout for the screen was a little awkward looking. This newest render is much more polished and more accurately reflects that kind of attention to design that Apple is known for. We still see the cutout in the display at the top of the device but the screen blends into the cutout very well. it almost looks like a thin bezel that displays battery and connection info. This solution is actually a nice way of handling the move toward a nearly bezel-less future. There will always be a need for a top bezel to hold the earpiece and the front facing sensors. Rather than make a thin bezel that stretches across the entire top of the device, Apple has made part of their “bezel” functional for displaying basic stats. It’s a very clean solution of making the new OLED display work with the cutout.
If you were holding out hope that Apple would bring back the headphone port, this look at the bottom of the iPhone 8 final design render should kill those hopes and dreams pretty quickly. Unfortunately, the 3.5mm headphone port is in the past as far as Apple is concerned. Two consecutive years of devices without the feature should be a pretty good indication that 3.5mm headphones are never going to get love from iPhones moving forward. Of course, you can always buy an adapter.
iPhone owners will notice that the power/lock button has been made larger. There could be a variety of reasons for this change. Maybe people kept missing the “tiny” power button when they tried to turn on their device and Apple decided to address that problem with the iPhone 8 final design? Unlikely, but possible. More likely, however, is that this is the new home for the Touch ID sensor. You may have noticed that the beloved home button is dead and gone on the iPhone 8. Rumor was that Apple was trying to embed the Touch ID fingerprint sensor underneath the display but running into problems. If they were unable to solve the embedded Touch ID problems then the rumored “Plan B” was to use the power button as a new home for Touch ID. “Plan C” was to not include Touch ID at all but, with the rumored problems surrounding their new 3D face scanning technology which allowed users to unlock their phone by scanning their face; not including Touch ID would probably be a mistake. When Apple officially announces the iPhone 8 final design, we will get a better idea as to why the power button has grown.
One more interesting tidbit about the iPhone 8 from Gordon Kelly’s latest article that I had not previously heard much about is the new battery design. Apparently the iPhone 8 will have a new L-shaped battery which allows the device to store more power in a smaller form factor. This would be great news for those who always feel the need to carry around an external battery pack. Plus, that big, beautiful OLED display will probably suck up battery life at a pretty good pace, especially for you power users.
With more and more leaks coming, we should have a clear picture of the iPhone 8 final design soon. Until then, these renders are probably as close to the real thing as you can get without an official announcement. Gordon Kelly is a pretty well-respected Apple analyst and he likely wouldn’t go ahead and release these renders without confidence in their accuracy.
Whether you’re an Apple fanboy or not, you have to admit that this new direction for iPhone design is a step forward. It remains to be seen if the new design will be enough to convince people to pay the price. With the iPhone 8 rumored to start at $1,100 or more; it might take more than just a nice design to get people to open up their wallets and dip into their piggy banks. What do you think? Is the rumored iPhone 8 final design worth the cost?
Images Credit: Nodus/Gordon Kelly
