Want to buy new iPhone 8 & iPhone 8 Plus? Here's Apple's India plan

The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus will go on sale starting September 29 at 6 PM onwards through offline retailers and online e-commerce platforms

Apple has updated its marketing and sales strategy to make an impact in India, the world’s third largest mobile phone market after China and the US.

The iPhones shipment used to reach Indian shores after a huge time gap and the actual sales of devices used to start even later. This time, the new iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus will launch in India just a week after the US launch. The premium iPhone X will be rolled out in India along with the international roll out.

What else has changed is the launch timings. The new iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus will go on sale starting September 29 at 6 PM, unlike the previous iPhone launches that used to go on sale at midnight in India. Apart from online sales through e-commerce platforms, the new iPhones will be available for purchase through offline retail stores and the sale will commence at the same time through online and offline channels.

To market the launch of much-awaited devices of the year, Apple has pooled in more than 10,000 retailers country-wide to ensure timely availability of the new products for prospective buyers. Also, the new iPhones will launch along with cashback offer on Citibank cards, which assures Rs 10,000 cashback on iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus and Rs 15,000 cashback for customers who buy the iPhone along with Apple Watch Series 3 together.

Let’s take a look at the features and specifications of the new iPhones:

iPhone X

iPhone X

With a glossy stainless steel frame body covered on the front and back by a glass design, the iPhone X has a rather wide 5.8-inch Super Retina OLED display. The glassy back is accentuated by a vertically placed 12-megapixel dual camera set-up, which supports optical image stabilisation (OIS). On the front, a new 7-megapixel TrueDepth camera enables auto image stabilisation and precise exposure control, and brings the portrait mode to the front camera for stunning selfies with a depth-of-field (Bokeh) effect.

The iPhone X dual camera set-up boasts a ƒ/1.8 aperture on the wide-angle camera and an improved ƒ/2.4 aperture on the telephoto camera for better photos and videos. A new quad LED True Tone Flash offers twice the uniformity of light and includes Slow Sync, which brings more uniformly lit backgrounds and foregrounds.

The cameras on the iPhone X are custom-tuned for the augmented reality (AR) experience. Each camera is individually calibrated with new gyroscopes and accelerometers for accurate motion tracking.

The camera also delivers the highest quality video capture ever in a smartphone, with better video stabilisation, 4K video up to 60fps and 1080p slo-mo up to 240fps. The Apple-designed video encoder provides real-time image and motion analysis for optimal quality video.

With iOS 11, iPhone X supports HEIF and HEVC for up to two times the compression and storage for twice as many photos and videos.

The iPhone X is the first Apple device to do away with the iconic home button and replace that with swipe-based gestures. With the home button replaced by swipe-based gestures, the power button takes the command to bring Siri on, and the unlocking is made possible using the innovative Face ID, which recognises your face, even in dark, and unlocks your device.

Another interesting feature of the iPhone X is the Animoji. These animated emojis identify users voice and facial gestures to animate emojis; they can be sent to other iPhone users through the messaging app.

The iPhone X will be available for pre-orders from October 27 (Friday) and will go on sale a week later from November 3. In India, it will cost Rs 89,000 for the base model with 64 GB internal storage.

iPhone 8 & iPhone 8 Plus

iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus

The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus have an aluminum frame with a glass-back design. The glass finish uses a seven-layer colour process for precise hue and opacity, delivering a rich depth of colour with a colour-matched aerospace-grade aluminum bezel; and is water- and dust-resistant.

The iPhone 8 sports a 4.7-inch screen, whicle the iPhone 8 Plus has a bigger 5.5-inch Retina HD display. Both smartphones feature stereo speakers and are powered by Apple’s A11 Bionic chipset, with a six-core CPU design with two performance cores to work 25 per cent faster, and four efficiency cores that are 70 per cent faster than the A10 Fusion. The A11 Bionic also integrates an Apple-designed GPU with a three-core design that delivers a graphic performance that is up to 30 per cent faster than the previous generation. All these also power new machine learning, AR apps and immersive 3D games.

The iPhone 8 sports an improved 12-megapixel camera, assisted by an Apple-designed image signal processor that delivers advanced pixel processing, wide colour capture, faster autofocus in low light and better HDR photos. The new quad LED True Tone Flash with Slow Sync results in more uniformly lit backgrounds and foregrounds. The camera records 4K videos of up to 60fps and 1080p slo-mo up to 240fps.

The iPhone 8 Plus features dual 12-megapixel cameras that support the Portrait mode with Portrait Lighting, bringing studio lighting effects to the iPhone and allowing a shallow depth-of-field effect in five different lighting styles.

With iOS 11, both iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus support HEIF and HEVC for up to two times the compression and storage for twice as many photos and videos. 

The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus will be available from September 29 in space grey, silver and a new gold finish in 64GB and 256GB capacity models.