It's no secret that smartphones have tended to get sleeker and less obtrusive over time. Screens are growing, but bezels are shrinking. In a very real way, the boundaries between us and our information -- our apps, our contacts, our very desires reproduced in pixels -- are melting away. Apple has sensed the industry shifting around it, and it made the iPhone X in response to that. But, in a bid to make the transition less jarring, Apple also made the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus.

They're familiar-looking phones that mostly operate the way people expect them to. They're conventional. But that doesn't mean they're inherently lacking -- far from it, in fact. While I suspect all iPhones will look like the iPhone X soon enough, the 8 and 8 Plus are expertly built, high-performance devices for people who want to ease into Apple's vision of the future. And who knows? These just might be the last conventional iPhones Apple makes.

Hardware

Like it or not, the iPhone X has dramatically changed Apple's approach to smartphones. Apple has painted us a picture of what its mobile future looks like, so is it any surprise the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus seem dull by comparison? To be clear, it's not that they're poorly designed. It's just that the iPhone's aesthetic hasn't changed much since the debut of the 6 and 6 Plus three years ago.

Rounded edges, camera humps, Lightning ports, volume buttons -- they're all exactly where they've always been. More recent carryovers include IP67 water resistance, capacitive home buttons, stereo speakers and a distinct lack of headphone jacks. The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are nothing if not familiar -- whether that's a bad thing is really a matter of taste, but I would've preferred a new look.

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