Many people waited impatiently for Apple to announce the next generation of iPhones on Sept. 12. Typically, the release of a new iPhone causes very a great deal of excitement, but that didn’t seem to be the case with the iPhone 8. Not only did Apple announce the iPhone 8, they also announced the iPhone X that was more recently released on Nov. 3. The iPhone X was such an advancement that most people overlooked the new iPhone 8.

The iPhone 8 saw the weakest sales for a new iPhone in years. Between the iPhone 8 and the 8 Plus, they only accounted for 16 percent of the September quarter sales. Last year, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus accounted for 43 percent of the iPhone sales.

People aren’t interested in the iPhone 8 because it’s so similar to the iPhone 7 that was released in Sept. 2016. The changes aren’t modifications that many people are impressed by.

The iPhone 8 has some great new features, but it’s very similar to the iPhone 7. At first glance, the phones look nearly identical. The iPhone 7 and the iPhone 8 run with Apple’s most recent operating system, iOS 11. Both phones have a 12MP back camera and a 7MP camera on the front.

The iPhone 8 is just fractionally larger than the iPhone 7. The back of the iPhone 8 is glass, rather than aluminum, causing it to be 7 percent heavier than the iPhone 7. Apple changed the design to a glass back to make wireless charging possible which was one of the few new improvements that brought people in. Apple didn’t bring on wireless charging until the most recent generation of iPhones, even though this form of charging has been around for years. Samsung had a wireless charging integrated circuit in its Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge devices in early 2015.

Many people hoped that Apple would bring back the headphone jack with their next generation of phones. Although the iPhone 8 is still without a headphone jack, Apple made an improvement on the iPhone 8 speakers. The new stereo speakers are 25 percent louder than those on the iPhone 7.

The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are the fastest phones on the market. Both devices have the A11 chipset which is a microchip with all the necessary electronic circuits and parts for a  given system, such as a phone, on a single integrated circuit. Apple says that its A11 chipset is 25 percent faster than the iPhone 7 at top speed and up to 70 percent faster when just idling. Until the iPhone 8 was released, the iPhone 7 was the fastest phone on the market according to most benchmarks with the A10 fusion chip.

Although the iPhone X created much more talk than the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, they both have the same A11 chip, making the iPhone X no faster than the iPhone 8.

The iPhone 8 is on sale starting at $699 and the 8 Plus is starting at $799, which compares to the iPhone 7 starting at $549, the iPhone 7 Plus starting at $669 and the new iPhone X starting at $999.

Many Apple fanatics were disappointed by the release of the iPhone 8. However, the phone still has many new features that make it stand out among other devices on the market. Which cellular device someone chooses to buy just depends on what they feel is most important to have in a phone.