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.
There are a bunch of ideas that keep getting tossed around, some of which I like and think are more likely than others:
- iPhone X: The thinking here is that it’s been 10 years since the first iPhone was released, so Apple might position this as a “10th anniversary edition” of the phone, hence “X.” That, or the letter X is just cool. I’m not particularly fond of this guess for a couple reasons. First, next year won’t be the 10th anniversary, and Apple will still need something to call this phone. Second, Apple just took the “X” out of macOS’s name last year. And third, there are already way too many phones called X.
- iPhone Edition: This one seems very possible. Apple already calls the high-end Apple Watch the Apple Watch Edition, and this new phone is very much supposed to be a high-end version of the iPhone, so there’d be some consistency. I don’t personally love the Edition branding, and I wonder how well it sits with potential buyers. Getting an “Edition” product certainly makes you feel special, but Apple got a bit of backlash when its first Edition watches started at $10,000. So that’s something it’ll have to walk around.
- iPhone 8: This is what everyone is calling the new phone, but I don’t think anyone really believes this is what Apple is going to name it. Here’s why: Apple is also supposed to release two other phones — smaller updates to the 7 and 7 Plus — at the same time. If those were named 7S and 7S Plus, they’d seem a lot less appealing next to the iPhone 8, which would sound like it’s a whole year newer. I suspect that whatever option Apple choses, it’ll try to avoid making those other phones sound like lesser options.
- iPhone Pro: This is probably my favorite guess and the one I think would make the most sense. Apple’s MacBook and iPad lines already have higher-end Pro versions, so it would follow that the iPhone line will get a Pro iteration as well.
- iPhone S II Epic 4G Touch: Okay, fine, this isn’t a real suggestion. But it’s entirely possible that Apple will invent some new suffix that it’s never used before to get the update across.
I’m personally most fond of a combination of two of these guesses — something that Apple pundit John Gruber suggested early last month: iPhone 8 Pro. In that situation, all of the new phones would be iPhone 8s, since the other two phones are supposed to see minor design updates as well. So you’d be left with the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and 8 Pro, which seems like a pretty reasonable naming scheme.
Of course, Apple has had plenty of strange naming situations in the past. Just look at its iPad lineup from last year: it included the numbers 2 and 4, but was missing the number 3 and there was no product just called “iPad.” Point being, these things can be tough to perfectly guess.
Poll
What should the $1,000 iPhone be called?
This poll is closed
- 24%iPhone X(1359 votes)
- 14%iPhone Edition(798 votes)
- 11%iPhone 8(635 votes)
- 39%iPhone Pro(2242 votes)
- 12%Something else(682 votes)