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Apple keynote: all of the news from the iPhone 8 event

September is here, which means it’s a whole new season of brand-new Apple devices, software updates, and emptying your wallets and bank accounts. Is the latest iPhone everything we expect it to be? Is the new Apple TV arriving too late to beat competitors like Amazon’s Fire TV and Roku? Multiple products from this year’s event means it’s going to be an expensive holiday season. Here’s a rundown of everything announced at Apple’s September 2017 event.

  • Nilay Patel

    Sep 12, 2017

    Nilay Patel

    The iPhone X feels like ‘the future of the smartphone’

    We just got a quick chance to play with the iPhone X, Apple’s new flagship phone arriving later this year.

    The thing that a lot of people want to talk about with the iPhone X is its $999 starting price, but when you have the phone in your hand, it feels... worth it. The X is an extremely beautiful device, with a stainless steel band and glass back curving into a 5.8-inch OLED display that stretches all the way across the front of the phone. It’s a bigger display than the 5.5-inch Plus-size iPhones, but with a much, much smaller body. Those bezels — turns out, they’re huge. Happily, the X is also a little thicker and less slippery than the iPhone 7, which was basically suicidal in its ability to fly out of my hands. If anything, the X evokes the original iPhone more than anything, with that stainless steel band and black front. Compared to what Samsung is doing with curved OLED displays on Galaxy devices, it’s very different: for example, there’s still a black border around the display. The phone feels small, but in a different way than, say, the S8.

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  • Sep 12, 2017

    Dieter Bohn and Jacob Kastrenakes

    Here are the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus

    Apple just wrapped its presentation announcing the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus — alongside a whole bunch of other products — and the company has now let us into a demo area to try out the new phones.

    The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus look pretty much the same as their predecessors, but they have a new back cover that’s coated in glass and gives them a somewhat fresher look. They have a sort of subtle opalescent effect too, so it’s not just a glossy, shiny, ultra-reflective look. The glass blends into the sides of the phone incredibly well, better than we’ve seen on other phones. There’s a subtle density to the glass, too, and overall it looks a lot better than the back of the 7.

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  • Chris Welch

    Sep 12, 2017

    Chris Welch

    Apple's first Face ID demo failed, but it wasn't Face ID's fault

    Moments after Phil Schiller got done extolling the accuracy of the iPhone X’s brand-new, ultra-sophisticated Face ID authentication system, Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi came onstage to show how easy and fast it is to actually use. Unfortunately, Federighi’s initial attempt to unlock the onstage demo iPhone X was unsuccessful. The passcode screen popped up. He then picked up a second iPhone X and the feature worked successfully.

    For all we know, this was a one-off fluke that’s not indicative of how well Face ID will actually perform for consumers. In fact, it doesn’t seem to be an error by the company’s replacement for Touch ID at all. The passcode screen that Federighi got on that first iPhone X said “Your passcode is required to enable Face ID.” This is the same screen that would come up on existing iPhones after a device has been restarted — or simply after several hours have passed without authenticating through the lock screen. This is a security precaution introduced with Touch ID that will clearly carry onward with Face ID.

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  • Sep 12, 2017

    Dani Deahl

    iPhone X will cost $999 and won’t come out until November 3rd

    Apple has announced the iPhone X, a top-of-the-line smartphone with an edge-to-edge display. Announced alongside the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, it will actually be on the market more than a month later than the other two. The premium version of Apple’s latest smartphone will start at $999 and come in two configurations: 64GB and 256GB.

    Preorders for the iPhone X will begin on October 27th with shipping planned to begin November 3rd.

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  • Nick Statt

    Sep 12, 2017

    Nick Statt

    Apple shows off breathtaking new augmented reality demos on iPhone 8

    Apple today showed off a handful of new augmented reality demos to show the efficacy of its new ARKit platform and power of the new camera and A11 Bionic chip on the just-announced iPhone 8 and iPhone X. The demos, which ranged from gaming to sports, showed off high-fidelity visuals placed dynamically in the real world, viewable through the iPhone’s camera lens.

    The first, a version of Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade from developer Pixel Toys, showed giant mech suit warriors battling on a real-life basketball court, while another illustrated how the iPhone’s AR capabilities could overlay the faces and names of players and game stats over a live baseball game. Developer Directive Games also showed off more footage of the known AR strategy game The Machines, which is powered by Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 and is shaping up to be a definitive title for the platform’s early days.

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  • Tom Warren

    Sep 12, 2017

    Tom Warren

    Apple announces Animoji, animated emoji for iPhone X

    Apple is introducing a new Animoji feature in iOS 11, which are animated versions of the popular emoji found on the iPhone. Animoji will use the Face ID hardware face-scanning features of the iPhone X to create custom 3D versions based on your own facial expressions.

    Animoji will be available directly within the Messages app for iOS 11, and it will be able to immediately pick up facial expressions and animate accordingly. You can edit emoji in fullscreen, and they’re all animated in real-time before you send them as a message. Recipients will receive them as looping videos with audio, and they look like they’ll be a lot of fun to send and receive.

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  • Shannon Liao

    Sep 12, 2017

    Shannon Liao

    The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus start at $699 and $799, and are available on September 22nd

    Apple has unveiled the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus at its annual September event today, and thankfully, the less expensive iPhones of the three announced today won’t totally break the bank. The iPhone 8 will start at $699, while the iPhone 8 Plus starts at $799. Both will have 64GB of storage. That’s a price bump of $50 for both models, up from the 32GB models of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, but it’s worth noting that the 7 didn’t have a 64GB option.

    The iPhone 8 has a 4.7-inch Retina display, while the iPhone 8 Plus has a 5.5-inch Retina 1080p display. They will both be upgradeable to a 256GB model, which will cost $849 for the 8 and $949 for the 8 Plus. (Pricing will also vary by carrier.)

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  • Russell Brandom

    Sep 12, 2017

    Russell Brandom

    iPhone X will unlock with facial recognition instead of the home button

    There’s a new way to unlock an iPhone. Onstage today, Apple’s Phil Schiller unveiled the iPhone X, with one big surprise: no home button. Because of its edge-to-edge display, the iPhone has no place for a conventional home button, relying instead on a complex facial recognition system called Face ID to unlock the phone.

    Face ID will replace Touch ID, the home button sensor that’s enabled fingerprint logins since 2013’s iPhone 5S. Users can wake the phone by swiping up from the bottom instead of hitting the button.

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  • Sep 12, 2017

    Vlad Savov

    iPhone X announced with edge-to-edge screen, Face ID, and no home button

    The long-awaited and extensively leaked special edition iPhone is finally upon us, and it’s called the iPhone X (pronounced “iPhone 10”). This new super flagship phone from Apple features an edge-to-edge screen with a notch at the top to accommodate the front-facing camera and new Face ID sensors. It’s also, along with the new iPhone models, one of the first iPhones to support wireless charging.

    Apple CEO Tim Cook teased the introduction of the new device with the following words:

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  • Ashley Carman

    Sep 12, 2017

    Ashley Carman

    Apple's AirPower wireless charging mat can charge an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods at the same time

    Apple is keeping its wireless future dream alive and is finally letting users charge their iPhones wirelessly. The new iPhones the company announced today — the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X — all support Qi wireless charging, or the same standard as Samsung devices. Yay for harmony.

    Although Apple made a big deal of the news at the event, it didn't announce any actual wireless charging hardware for the phones for this year.

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  • Andrew Webster

    Sep 12, 2017

    Andrew Webster

    The studio behind Journey is making an Apple TV game

    Thatgamecompany is a studio best known for poetic, emotional adventures like Flower and Journey — and now the team is bringing its next release to Apple TV. Creative lead and studio CEO Jenova Chen was onstage today at Apple’s latest keynote to show off Sky, billed as a “romantic adventure game.” It looks in keeping with the studio’s past work, with lush environments to explore and comparatively minimalist game elements. It’s also is being designed in part with the Apple TV in mind. “Everything can be done with one finger on the Siri remote,” Chen says of the game.

    In a blog post on the studio’s site, thatgamecompany provided a bit more detail on just what Sky will be like.

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  • Chaim Gartenberg

    Sep 12, 2017

    Chaim Gartenberg

    iPhone 8 and 8 Plus announced with wireless charging, True Tone display, A11 Bionic processor

    Apple has officially announced the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, which are updated versions of last year’s iPhone 7 and 7 Plus models featuring with faster processors, a True Tone display, and upgraded cameras.

    The jump from the iPhone 7 to the iPhone 8 is pretty significant, marking the first time since the iPhone 3GS was released back in 2009 that an iPhone model hasn’t received a spec-boosted “S” variant. Apple may be moving up numerically, but the new iPhone 8 models look to continue the same rough design the company has been using since 2014 from the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

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  • Kaitlyn Tiffany

    Sep 12, 2017

    Kaitlyn Tiffany

    Apple will sell 4K movies for same price as HD

    At Apple’s annual fall hardware event today, CEO Tim Cook announced the first (long-rumored) 4K version of Apple TV. The company’s finally catching up with Roku and Google’s Chromecast, which added 4K support last fall. This move from Apple is even a few months behind Amazon, so it’s unsurprising and about time. It was preceded by Cook explaining the “history of TV” from black and white to 4K, the latest “key inflection point.”

    Senior VP Eddy Cue then announced a whole slew of 4K HDR content that will be compatible with the new Apple TV, including films from major studios like 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate, Universal, Paramount, Sony, and Warner Bros.

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  • Chris Welch

    Sep 12, 2017

    Chris Welch

    New Apple TV 4K announced, launches September 22nd for $179

    Apple has just unveiled a long anticipated upgrade to its Apple TV set-top box, which is now capable of playing movies and TV shows at 4K Ultra HD resolution. Tim Cook said TV is at an “inflection point” with the mainstream adoption of 4K. The new Apple TV hardware puts the company on equal footing with Roku, Amazon, and Chrome, all of which already offer devices capable of 4K streaming. The latest Apple TV will be available on September 22nd for $179 with 32GB of internal storage or $199 with 64GB. Preorders start September 15th.

    In addition to 4K, Apple is embracing HDR with this latest Apple TV with support for both Dolby Vision and HDR10. These high dynamic range technologies allow for brighter highlights and an expanded range of colors on television sets that also have HDR. The difference can be striking — sometimes even more so than the jump in resolution to 4K.

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  • Nick Statt

    Sep 12, 2017

    Nick Statt

    Apple’s watchOS 4 due out September 19th with better heart rate monitoring

    Apple today revealed the release date of watchOS 4, the next iteration of its Apple Watch mobile operating system, during its annual fall hardware event. The software, first announced back in June during WWDC, will come out on September 19th, coinciding with the third-generation LTE-equipped Apple Watch Series 3. The software, while not as big of a change as the jump to watchOS 3 last year, will come with new Siri features, a set of new watch faces, and some improved fitness tracking capabilities.

    The company also took time to detail some new features that weren’t talked about back during WWDC, including a slew of new heart rate monitoring features. The company’s smartwatch, which Apple COO Jeff Williams says is the most used heart rate monitor in the world, will now show your heart rate on the Apple Watch’s face, so you can view it at a glance when you raise your wrist.

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  • Sep 12, 2017

    Ashley Carman and Lauren Goode

    New Apple Watch announced with LTE

    Apple announced its Apple Watch Series 3 today, the first to include LTE connectivity. This means that you can now stream music, make phone calls, and send texts without being tethered to your phone.

    Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, calls the new device "the ultimate expression of Apple Watch." Aside from the LTE watch, Apple CEO Tim Cook also declared the Apple Watch the "number one watch in the world" (likely in terms of revenue), beating out Rolex, Fossil, and Omega. Cook also said the device experienced 50 percent year-over-year growth, though Apple was characteristically cagey about sharing unit sales numbers.

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  • Tom Warren

    Sep 12, 2017

    Tom Warren

    Here's our first look inside Apple's new campus

    Apple’s new spaceship campus, named Apple Park, opened to employees back in April, and today it hosts hundreds of reporters as the company unveils its new iPhone X hardware. We’ve seen plenty of renders, press images, and drone footage before, but today we’re getting a closer look at just what Apple Park looks like from the ground. As is typically Apple, there’s a lot of attention to detail at Apple Park, and the company is hosting the media in its Steve Jobs Theater, a 1,000-seat venue that sits outside of Apple Park’s main ring on a hill that overlooks the main campus.

    Inside the theater itself there’s a glass elevator that rotates as it descends so the door is always facing the right way, and beautiful views across towards the visitor center and surrounding parklands. Originally envisioned by Steve Jobs, Apple Park includes 2.8 million-square-foot of space, and features the world’s largest panels of curved glass. That glass is on display today, as attendees walk into the theater, and spot the many ceiling mirrors up above.

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  • Sep 12, 2017

    Vlad Savov

    Apple’s iPhone X will stand for ‘exclusive’

    iPhone X mockup
    iPhone X mockup
    Image: Jonas Daehnert

    Today’s iPhone launch, coming a full decade after the release of the original iPhone, will feature a device quite similar to Apple’s first ever smartphone. The newest iPhone, whose name has already leaked out as iPhone X, will be like the original in that it will be higher in price than most people are used to paying for phones, it will be constrained in availability due to the difficulty of its manufacture, and it will serve as a status symbol for its owners. Some will purchase it to signal their wealth, many will acquire it as a totem of their Apple fandom, and almost all will desire it simply by virtue of its limited availability and exclusivity.

    When Apple launched the original iPhone, it was wildly different from the devices we called “phones.” In 2007, Nokias with T9 keypads were doing battle with BlackBerrys sporting full, three-dimensional QWERTY keyboards. Today, it’s no longer possible for any company to break so far from the norm — the mobile market moves too quickly, leaks are abundant, and phone designs are too mature for such revolutionary change — but Apple’s goal with the iPhone X is to indeed signal a new path for mobile devices. Sure, the Cupertino company will have the usual iterative updates to its lineup in the shape of iPhone 8 and 8 Plus models, but the X version will be the one that tells us where Apple wants to go.

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  • Chaim Gartenberg

    Sep 12, 2017

    Chaim Gartenberg

    Apple iPhone 8 event: start time, live stream, and live blog

    After months of speculation and anticipation, we’re only a few hours away from Apple’s big event where the company is expected to announce the new iPhones, along with updates to the Apple Watch and Apple TV.

    The spotlight is expected to be firmly on the iPhone X, a new, top-of-the-line model that’s rumored to feature the first radical redesign of Apple’s smartphone in years, ditching the home button entirely for a bigger, bezel-free, edge-to-edge OLED screen. The new model is said to pack some new face-scanning technology that will allow you to unlock your phone merely by looking at it, as well as the long-awaited introduction of wireless charging to an Apple device. It’s also expected to cost an eye-watering $1,000 or more. The X is rumored to be ditching the TouchID fingerprint sensor entirely, according to a recent report from The Wall Street Journal.

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  • Chaim Gartenberg

    Sep 11, 2017

    Chaim Gartenberg

    iPhone Upgrade Program customers can now trade in phones through the mail

    iphone 7 camera

    Apple seems to be making it easier to trade in iPhones through the iPhone Upgrade Program with a new mail-in kit option, as spotted by John Angarano over at the MacRumors forums.

    Apple launched the iPhone Upgrade Program two years ago alongside the iPhone 6S as an alternative for customers looking to upgrade their phone without being tied to any one carrier. But if you were looking to upgrade your phone to a new model, you had to schedule an appointment in an Apple Store to trade in the old phone, something that seems to finally be changing with the new mail-in kit.

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  • Lauren Goode

    Sep 11, 2017

    Lauren Goode

    Apple iPhone 8 event: what to expect

    Dieter Bohn

    Apple’s upcoming September 12th event is more than just its annual hardware event: it marks 10 years of iPhone launches, which first shipped in June 2007 and is undeniably Apple’s most important product. So, it’s not surprising that many of the early reports and rumors about this event have been focused on the iPhone. Will it have an OLED display? Will there will be a “pro” version of the phone? And just how much will it cost?

    But over the past decade, there have been just as many other notable product developments for Apple, on its path to becoming the world’s most valuable tech company. It created the App Store, and the app economy. It shipped the long-rumored iPad. It got into wearable computing and health and fitness tracking with the launch of the Apple Watch. Its “services” business became one of the fastest-growing areas for the company.

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  • What should the $1,000 iPhone be called?

    It seems like nearly every detail has leaked about the flashy new iPhone that Apple is going to announce next week. But there’s one thing that’s stayed under wraps through every supply chain report, firmware leak, and news story: the phone’s name.

    Everyone’s been calling it the iPhone 8, but chances are, it won’t be named that. This phone is supposed to sit apart from the regular iPhone, so it’ll probably be given a more distinct name to make it stand out.

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  • Sep 6, 2017

    Vlad Savov

    Three things that will never be the same after the iPhone X

    Concept iPhone 8 mockup
    Concept iPhone 8 mockup
    Image: Benjamin Geskin / Twitter

    If you listen to Apple’s inflationary marketing spiel, every time the company launches a new iPhone, it “changes everything.” The prosaic truth, however, is that most iPhone releases aren’t all that revolutionary. Apple, like everyone else, sometimes takes multiple iterations to complete its most ambitious goals. But as we face up to the culmination of another year of hyped-up iPhone speculation, I do see three particular ways in which the new iPhone X flagship will indeed be the harbinger of massive and irrevocable change.

    Most Verge readers will by now be fully habituated to seeing phones like the Galaxy S8 and Note 8, LG G6 and V30, or the Mi Mix and Essential Phone showing off a modern phone design with negligible bezels around the screen. But while geeks can already take them for granted, the vast majority of people still haven’t seen one of these bezel-deprived screens in person, and their first encounter with one will be — prepare to feign surprise — on the iPhone X.

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