In The Shadow Of X

Apple iphone 8 / 8 Plus

- James Lu

Apple has stuck to the same look for the iPhone since the iPhone 6 series. The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus do look different from the rear, thanks to a new glass back that enables wireless charging, but from the front they look virtually indistinguishable from any iPhone in the past four years.

Despite the popularity of Apple’s Rose Gold color, surprisingly, it isn’t available on the iPhone 8. Instead we’re back to Silver, Gold, and Space Grey. It’s also worth noting that despite their names, the colors on the rear of the phone aren’t metallic at all, so Silver is more of a light grey color, and Gold is a creamy beige. You do get the full metallic color on the aluminium frame that goes around the side, on the ring around the Touch ID home button, on the ring around the camera module, and of course on the Apple and iPhone logos.

One other minor change that you may not notice at first is that the only word on the back of the phone is ‘iPhone’ - there’s none of the usual “Designed in California, Manufactured in China” or any of the other regulatory words and symbols. I like this new minimalist look, but it’s not clear if it will be uniform in all countries when the iPhone 8 ships, as different countries may have different rules about this kind of thing. We know that the Singapore version at least will sport this cleaner look.

The new iPhones are actually slightly heavier and thicker than last year’s versions (glass is both heavier and thicker than aluminum) but it’s not a huge amount - just 0.2mm thickness added to both phones, with 10g / 14g more for the 8 / 8 Plus.