iPhone X 2018 Release Date & Rumours

It actually doesn’t feel that long since the iPhone X was launched and I got to see it in the flesh with family and friends having gone out and picked on up, but that’s probably due to the announcement predating actuals sales by almost two months, however the rumour mill has started once more - focusing on what Apple will be announcing around mid-September.

Apple is of course famously tight lipped about the products it announces, with few people outside the Cupertino based organisation knowing all the details about what they’ll be announcing.

That said, there are a few rumours to get started with.

Size & Design

The current iPhone X is only available as a 5.8” model, with the all screen design helping to make it feel smaller than those dimensions suggest. This year however, it’s expected that the iPhone X will launch an iPhone X 2018 (or iPhone X2 perhaps) in this original form and a iPhone X Plus form coming in at a huge 6.5”. 6.5” again seems huge, but with that 83% screen to body ratio it should feel a little smaller in the hand.

Of course, we also expect both models to keep the notch design as it has proved popular last time around.

We also expect to see high end (read expensive) OLED screens rather than LCD TFT.

Processors & Battery Life

Phonearena suggests that the iPhone X will come with a 7nm A12 chip with significant improvements in performance and power draw. The A12 chip is rumoured to be 20% faster than the current generation of chip with 40% better power consumption. From a design perspective this should enable Apple to keep the device dimensions down (or even free up space for a smaller, more space efficient battery) whilst maintaining or improving battery life. Here’s hoping for genuine two day battery life.

eSim Support

We’ve been expecing this for a while across the mobile industry but it hasn’t taken off (most probably due to resistance from carriers to adopt the technology). It does seem weird that so much of what we do is 100% digital that we still need to physically load a sim card into our devices to make them work and that moving network requires replacement of that physical chip.

Anyway…

iPhone X 2018 may in fact be adopting eSim technology from this year meaning it’ll be much easier to switch networks (once you’re out of contract).

Stay tuned for another blog post about how eSim will work and how it’ll change the way you buy your mobile phone.

Camera

The last iPhone X came with a dual camera that generated some excellent image quality results. On Doxmark the iPhone X scores 97 versus the top scorer of 109 for the Huawei P20 Pro. The main difference between the iPhone X and the Huawei P20 Pro? The Huawei flagship has three cameras, one of which is monochrome for capturing great quality images in low light. Even looking at the Pixel 2 which scores a single point above on Doxmark’s tests, the iPhone X they adopt significant software and AI enhancements to drive that quality measure.

In order to lead the pack in terms of image quality it looks as if three cameras could be the way to go. Let’s see if Apple do this this year.

UK Pricing & Availability

We expect the new iPhone X to be announced in September, on sale in November and to be one of the most expensive phones ever released in the UK.

Sim free list price for the current model is around £959 to £999, expect the new model to break £1000 on launch and an iPhone X Plus to be around £100 to £150 more expensive still. Almost £1200 for a new phone.

Ouch, but is it going to be worth it? For some, most definitely.

Let us know what you think about these predictions in the comments.