Apple iPhone 8 Plus long-term review

Frustrations, niggles, annoyances

We've covered off a number of our frustrations, niggles, and annoyances before getting here but also we have to cover iOS 11. We can't remember a release of iOS in recent memory that had so many issues. It's been rumored that in future Apple will modify its development and release approach to ease the burden that it places on its engineers to smooth out the peaks and as a result deliver higher quality features. It's been speculated that we may even see this new approach manifest itself later this year with the release of iOS 12. Here's hoping but for now here are whats frustrating us.

With the launch of the 'Plus' models Apple enabled several apps to work in landscape mode, alongside an extended keyboard. Several generations later, Apple still hasn't enabled all of its apps to work in landscape mode, for example, the Clock app. Additionally, iOS 11 removed the extended keyboard from landscape mode which we used extensively - why? Makes it less usable. We can't help but feel that the extended keyboard didn't work on the iPhone X's screen aspect ratio resulting in it being pulled altogether.

Selecting the camera app from home screen now needs a very exaggerated swipe.

iOS is still littered with visual glitches, ranging from cut-off screens within Reminders to losing icons within Safari. When combined these take the 'polish' off what is otherwise a great product.

What happened to the extended keyboard in iOS 11? • Bookmarks icon goes solid blue • Display glitches are all to frequent

Auto-brightness can sometimes have a mind of its own, with us having to adjust our brightness manually constantly.

The phone sometimes gets stuck in the wrong orientation, and the accelerometer stops responding. It also results in pictures being taken in the wrong orientation too for a similar reason - the camera often gets confused which direction we're keeping the phone in - landscape or portrait.

Quite often the screen lights up during a call and stays like that for the duration of the call. We haven't looked into the reasons for that, but it seems some app notifications wake it up. And on an unrelated note - there is this final niggle - Apple, can you please silence all app notifications during a call - it's immensely annoying and distracting to get notified of emails, messages, and whatnot straight in your ear while you are taking a call.

With the iPhone 7 Apple removed the mechanical Home button and instead of moving inward when you press it, the Home button detects the presence and pressure of your finger with feedback being given by the haptic engine to fool you into thinking that you're pressing a physical button. Moving from an iPhone 6s Plus to the iPhone 8 Plus we discovered that this 'trick' is very effective when you're holding the phone. But used on a flat surface or in a car dock the haptics don't provide the right feedback, and as a result, you end up pressing for too long and activating Siri. Of interest, it was during this review that we discovered that this is dependent on whether you use a case or not and the type of case you use.

We miss a tactile hardware shortcut for starting the camera before we've even had a look at the screen. We really appreciated this convenience while using the Galaxy and the Pixel phones. And when you think of it - the quick double press of the Power key was left unused on the iPhone for years before the iPhone X came along and even there its potential is underutilized.