iPhone 8: Features, Technical Challenges, and Competitor Benchmarking

This report provides a detailed analysis of the iPhone 8, focusing on its features, customer requirements, and the technical difficulties encountered during its development. The report begins with an introduction to the iPhone 8 and its launch, followed by an examination of customer expectations and the company's efforts to meet them, including the A11 Bionic chip and Siri enhancements. It then delves into the phone's key features, such as the LED display, camera capabilities, and processor performance. The report also explores the technical challenges Apple faced, particularly in optimizing the processor, Touch ID, and Siri functions. Furthermore, it includes a benchmarking analysis, comparing the iPhone 8's performance against its main competitor, the Samsung Galaxy S8. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and offering insights into the iPhone 8's market position and performance.

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Requirements of the customers..................................................................................................2
Feature of iPhone 8....................................................................................................................3
Technical difficult in creating these features.............................................................................4
Benchmarking iPhone 8’s performance against its core competitors........................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7
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Introduction
Apple Inc. had launched iPhone 8 on 12th September, 2017. Along with iPhone 8 they
had also launched iPhone 8 plus (Hong, Wynn-Williams & Wilson, 2017). This model
incorporates advance touch senor and the company also worked on making Siri (voice
recognition system) in the better way. Apart from this, the company also worked on the major
performance issues in this phone. In the previous version of the phone, users had faced
various issues related to the slow performance of the phone (Hart-Davis, 2017). In this report,
there will be discussion about the perspective of the customers for buying this phone, features
of the product, technical difficult in creating these features and competitor analysis.
Requirements of the customers
Product iPhone is counted among those products in the world which have the
immense loyal customer base. It can be said that users of the iPhone do not just like their
iPhone but they love its interference, designing, user friendliness, security features, etc. For
retaining their loyal customers, Apple always work on the feedback received by their
audiences. The management made this model by considering the requirements of their
customers. They had analysed that people are impressed and admire the design of all the
Apple products but they are not satisfied with the processor and Siri functions. Thus, while
designing iPhone 8 the management had took care for both the requirements. In iPhone 8, the
company has upgraded his chipset to A11 Bionic with 2GB RAM as per the requirement of
their audience. However, it can be analysed that the company has not successfully fulfilled
their buyer’s requirement with iPhone 8 (Jalil, Ferenczy & Shields, 2017).
Before September 2017, customers was expecting that the company will fulfil their
requirements of high speed up processing and will enhance the response time of Siri with
upcoming model iPhone 8. However, when this model launched in September 2017 then as
always people admire its design and its processor. In the initial 0 to 6 months, customers did
not faced any problem with the processing speed but they had analysed that Siri’s response
had not been improved very much. After 6 months, customers started experience that
processor speed of iPhone 8 is going slow and applications are taking long time in
responding. Moreover, it is suggested to the company that instead of releasing 2 iPhone in a
year, release one model in 2 years and work on the technical aspects of the phone. Many
customers even tweeted to Tim Cook that Apple should on the performance of the phone
rather than focusing on releasing upgraded versions with fabulous designs every year. Even
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though, the loyal customer base of the company is still attached with the brand which is the
positive sign (Kelly, 2017).
(Author)
Feature of iPhone 8
This model incorporates a LED display then OLED screen. The camera of the phone
is able to shoot videos at 4Kmode with 7MP f/2.2 apertures face time HD camera. Instead of
clicking on the camera button to capture photos, users have the option to use Siri to click
pictures. For example: in other phone users have to click on the camera button to click
pictures or they have to set timer for auto clicking pictures. In this model, users have the
option to just say “Siri, click” and voice recognition of the phone will automatically capture
the picture. Apart from this the camera of the phone also have various features such as wide
colour capture, auto image stabilization, 1080p HD video recording and flash light (internal
flash is also present in the phone for capturing selfies) (Marczewski, 2018).
On the performance part, the phone has A11 Bionic processor that is fast and can also
handle multitasking (Meng, Jiang, Wang, Zhang & Xiang, 2018). The company has built this
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processor so that all the operations of the users can work in the systematic way without the
occurrence of any problem. Moreover, the phone has the batter of 1821mAh. In this model,
the company has degraded the battery as compare to its previous model. In iPhone 7, there is
the batter capacity of 1960mAh. Like always, this model also incorporates fabulous design
and structure that is able to fascinate its customers base. In this model, the company has work
upon the performance of the phone with upgraded screen colour. However, after 6-8months
of the release, the users had faced the same performance issue like they faced in other models
of the iPhone. It can be said that iPhone’s are lacking on the performance or speed issues rest
of all they have best camera quality with other best features (Meng, Jiang, Wang, Zhang &
Xiang, 2018).
Technical difficult in creating these features
In this model, the company has faced difficult in transforming the functioning of the
processor, touch id and Siri functions. All of these features are related with the technical
aspects. Likewise, on the designing and finishing of the phone the company did not faced any
challenges. Here, not only in iPhone 8 but in all the products produced by the Apple
including iPad, iTV, macbook, iWatch, etc. the company do not faces any challenges in
giving great and luxurious design. The major challenges on which the company always work
before launching their product is on technical aspects. In iPhone 8, the company has
incorporate A11 Bionic chipset with Hexa-core processor. This processor is fast and can
conduct more functions in systematic way. In iPhone 7, there is A10 chipset with Quad core
2.34 GHz processor. This A11 Bionic is the speeded process as compare to A10 process.
However, the major challenge in creating this feature is arisen because of the speed. In
iPhone 8 the company had the view to make speed up model that can work in the systematic
and without being facing problem in running various applications at one once
(Mohmedhussen & Altaee, 2017).
Apart from this, in iPhone 8 the company had also faced problem in making Siri
running more systematically and to act faster whenever user command it. For example: Siri
functions take response time of 0.89 seconds to respond in older versions. In this model, the
company had desired to launch Siri with upgraded features. Due to only 2GM RAM in the
phone it was a challenge for the company to reduce the response time because it they put all
the RAM function on the Siri then other functions such as running multiple applications can
be slow down. Thus, the company had decided to speed up Siri with only 0.82seconds
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because if they speed up Siri’s response time more than other functions cannot work in the
smooth and effective way. Even after utilizing A11 Bionic with 2GB RAM users of iPhone 8
are facing difficult in running applications. As this difficult do not occur in the initial stage (0
to 11 months). User faces difficulty in running applications after a certain time period
(Ridderman, 2018).
Benchmarking iPhone 8’s performance against its core competitors
Benchmarking test of iPhone 8 is conducted by the Geekbench software. In
the same time, when this model was launched (September 2017), Samsung Galaxy S8 also
launched (April 2017). This model had outperformed Samsung Galaxy S8 in terms of
designing and security features. A lot of this is because of Apple's A11 Bionic chip, a six-
centre CPU, and another Apple-structured GPU (Terry, 2019). The A11 is about 25% quicker
than its forerunner, the A10, in single-centre preparing. Be that as it may, when taking a
gander at complex, multicore preparing, the A11 beats the A10 by about 80%. Although,
another competitor of the company Microsoft also produces phones, computer software’s,
various next generations’ products, etc. but in the phone segment Microsoft is always
defeated with extremely large ratio as compare to iPhone 8 (Sun, Kong, Khan & Pecht,
2019).
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Conclusion
It is concluded that the company had tries to work on their customer’s requirement in
iPhone 8 by offered them A11 bionic chip set with 2 GB RAM. Customer’s had two initial
requirements that are related with speed and with enhancing the response of Siri. The
company had offered with better processor with enhanced response time of the Siri but still
after spending 6 to 12 months with iPhone 8, customers has analysed the processor of the
phone is responding slow. Apart from this, in this study it is also concluded that the
benchmarking of this model had been conducted by the Geekbench software.
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References
Hart-Davis, G. (2017). Teach Yourself Visually IPhone 8, IPhone 8 Plus, and IPhone X.
Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Hong, S. C., Wynn-Williams, G., & Wilson, G. (2017). Safety of iPhone retinal photography.
Journal of medical engineering & technology, 41(3), 165-169.
Jalil, M., Ferenczy, S. R., & Shields, C. L. (2017). iPhone 4s and iPhone 5s imaging of the
eye. Ocular oncology and pathology, 3(1), 49-55.
Kelly, S. (2016). The iPhone economy: how this innovative product affects global economy
through its sales and add-on markets. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons
Marczewski, A. (2018). Moving from iPhone (iOS) to Android (Samsung S8). Abingdon:
Routledge
Meng, W., Jiang, L., Wang, Y., Li, J., Zhang, J., & Xiang, Y. (2018). JFCGuard: Detecting
juice filming charging attack via processor usage analysis on smartphones.
Computers & security, 76(1), 252-264.
Mohmedhussen, A. N., & Altaee, W. I. (2017). Comparison of Android and iPhone
Operating System. International Journal of Computer Applications, 975(1), 88-97.
Ridderman, L. (2018). The Effects of a Factory Reset on an iPhone 8 Plus (Doctoral
dissertation). Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Sun, Y., Kong, L., Khan, H. A., & Pecht, M. G. (2019). Li-ion Battery Reliability–A Case
Study of the Apple iPhone®. IEEE Access, 7(1), 71131-71141.
Terry, B. (2019). Beginning of the New Smartphone Era. Marriott Student Review, 3(1), 10-
12.
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