As far as rumors can tell, everything about the iPhone 8 is new. Its display, for the first time ever, will be OLED. It'll be bezel-less as well, similar to the Galaxy S8, Xiaomi Mi Mix, and the Essential phone. The design is believed to be radical — unlike any iPhone released previously.
iPhone 8: Radical Design, Radical Removals
New things also pave the way for certain removals. Rumors say the iconic home button will be removed in place of gestures, which means Touch ID will no longer be a marquee feature of the iPhone. This is perhaps the most contested rumor of all because while it makes sense, it's not rational. Why would Apple remove a crucial feature its customers and many point-of-sale stores have increasingly been adapting?
Rumors alleging Apple will ditch Touch ID have been surfacing for months now. In July, Bloomberg said the company was hoping to replace it with facial recognition technology, but it wasn't a sure thing yet. There are also some who claim that Apple will debut an in-display fingerprint reader that, in theory, would work just as well as a tactile reader. Samsung tried the same thing for its Galaxy S8 but failed.
The Wall Street Journal seems to be the first high-profile publication to report that Apple won't include it at all. Apple ran into production issues trying to embed Touch ID into the iPhone 8's screen, the report claims. Such handicaps, including some related to OLED display supply, pushed back production by a month. Apple then decided to just get rid of the fingerprint sensor and rely on facial recognition instead.
iPhone 8: Extended Supply Shortfalls
Issues in manufacturing could lead to possible "extended supply shortfalls" post-launch. It wouldn't be the first. Reports come up each year saying there's only going to be a limited supply of the newest iPhone, and they tend to be accurate most of the time.
At times that means only a single color is available at launch, other times units are actually in limited supply. The iPhone 8 being a huge step out of format in design and parts, it's easy to imagine for the phone to have trouble in the manufacturing stage.
It's also possible for the iPhone 8 to launch at a later date than the other rumored iPhones, the iPhone 7s and 7s Plus. This means interested customers might not all get their hands on an iPhone 8 later this month, the next, or, worse, early 2018.
