Apple sent out invitations for an event on Sep. 12 at its newly opened spaceship campus in California. Titled “Let’s meet at our place,” the event, to be held at 10 a.m. at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, is expected to launch the tech giant’s iPhone 8.
The phone is the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. Besides the iPhone 8, Apple is also expected to unveil a new Apple Watch, Apple TV, and more details about its HomePod speaker, The Telegraph reported.
Overhauled design
The 10th anniversary iPhone 8 is expected to have an overhauled design, facial recognition technology, and a new advanced camera.
Given the traditional pattern of Apple launches, the iPhone 8 will be on sale by Sept. 22, the Friday of the following week. Besides the 10th anniversary iPhone, Apple is also expected to announce the iPhone 7S and iPhone 7S Plus, Gizmodo reported.
The overhauled design comes with an expected stiff price tag of $1,000, Fortune speculated. Although Apple has not officially released a price point, because of the speculated four-figure price tag for the new phone, the website predicted that the iPhone 8 would not trigger a must-have mentality wherein people line up the night before the sale to get a unit.
Ho-hum improvements
The design overhaul, including wireless charging, would make the anniversary iPhone exciting and a significant departure from previous improvements in the iPhone which observers described as ho-hum.
Included in the anticipated new features are an OLED edge-to-edge display and the new facial recognition feature that will replace the Touch ID home button, Mashable reported.
It would also justify the expected boost in price by more than $300 since the iPhone 7 costs $649. The anticipated $1,000 tag price of the iPhone 8 is said to be a psychological price barrier in the smartphone industry.
Fortune predicts the $300 higher price would result in more Apple fans settling for the cheaper iPhone 7S or switch instead to an Android device at half the price of the iPhone 8.
It would be the first event to be held at the Steve Jobs Theater which can seat 1,000 people. The facility sits outside the main ring of Apple Park that overlooks the main campus.
The facility is mostly underground, The Verge noted. Apple Park sits on 2.8 million square feet of space, the bulk of which is open space. The campus includes an R&D facility, on-site Apple store, two miles of running and hiking paths, and one of the biggest solar energy installations in the world.
