What can we expect from the iPhone 8?

MANILA, Philippines – It has already been 10 years since Apple changed the smartphone game with the release of the original iPhone. While it’s unlikely the company’s upcoming model will be as groundbreaking as the original, many consumers expect big things as iPhone celebrates its 10th anniversary.

As always, speculation is rampant about what the future holds for the eighth-generation iPhone, including its name and release date. Here is a quick look at what features leakers say the upcoming iPhone will have, along with some still-unanswered questions.

iPhone going full screen?

One of the most widely reported rumors about the new iPhone is that it will feature an OLED screen that stretches to the device’s edges, similar to what Samsung has touted for its new Galaxy S8 models.

The most obvious advantage of this is it gives you more screen to look at when watching videos or browsing the web. It also gives the phone a cleaner and sleeker look, with minimal unused space on the screen side of the phone.

It also raises a handful of questions and concerns. First, with the screen stretching to the very bottom of the phone, what will become of the iPhone’s familiar home button? The best guess is that it will disappear, but it’s not known what, if anything, will replace it.

There are similar concerns about how the phone’s ear speaker and front-facing camera will work if they’re essentially embedded behind the new large screen.

Fingerprint reader on the move

With no home button on the front of the phone, the rumor has been that Apple is trying to implement its fingerprint reader on the OLED screen itself. However, a number of reports say the company has had trouble embedding the fingerprint reader into the screen, meaning it could move to the back of the phone for generation 8.

This speculation has some fearing Apple may have to temporarily ditch the fingerprint reader altogether and use other forms of biometric security, such as facial and/or voice recognition.

It has some worried that the company may come up with some sort of fingerprint reader dongle, similar to the headphone adapter it included with iPhone 7, which got rid of the traditional headphone jack.

Repositioned camera lenses

The iPhone 7 Plus made a big advancement with dual camera lenses, which rest horizontally in the upper left corner of the phone. The new iPhone will still sport two camera lenses, but leaked images show them situated vertically this time around.

There’s no word on what effect, if any, the new positioning will have.

Those same images have caused some to believe the new iPhone will not have the traditional volume buttons on the side of the phone. That said, it could be possible that the buttons simply aren’t visible in the leaked images.

What about the name?

Conventional wisdom says the new phone will be called iPhone 8, but Apple may decide to go a different route during its 10th anniversary year. Some speculate it will be called iPhone Edition, which could make sense for a couple of reasons.

First, it wouldn’t diminish the value of the iPhone 7 and 7s models quite as much. Folks are much less likely to buy an iPhone 7s if they know the iPhone 8 is already on the market. A revised name could give the phone a little extra cachet and prestige in its 10th year on the market.

What’s not known is when the phone will actually roll out. There have been rumors of delays for a variety of potential reasons, but what does that really mean when a release date was never announced in the first place?

One thing you can most likely count on is the way Apple will release the phone. Expect the company to have one of its standard press events showing off the new phone, with the actual release shortly after.

Many iPhone lovers will be on board with the new phone no matter what it has in store. The big question will be whether the new edition will be enough for Apple to maintain or increase its share of the smartphone market or catch up to Samsung. – Rappler.com

Kayla Matthews is a writer with a passion for new technologies and their applications to daily life. She writes about AI, bots and apps for sites like MakeUseOf, VentureBeat and Motherboard. To read more posts from Kayla, follow her on ProductivityBytes.com.