So, the A11 crushes it in benchmark scores. But not in real world use. I'm sorry, but as an engineer and former Apple software tester, if the benchmark score is the only aspect where significant improvement is found, then I would say something went wrong. And cherry picking a couple of limited examples does make a compelling argument for Apple's claims of 70% faster. Not when there are now dozens of side by side comparisons showing the iPhone 8 struggling to stay ahead of the iPhone 7, and not keeping up with a variety of competing phones. A short sample list is below:
"iPhone 8 vs Note 8" by Tech Trinkets: Note 8 win.
"iPhone 8 Plus vs iPhone 7 Plus" by MadMat: iPhone 8, barely.
"iPhone 8 Plus vs Sony Xperia XZ Premium" by Phone Battles: Sony win.
"iPhone 8 Plus vs OnePlus 5" by Phone Battles: OnePlus win.
"iPhone 8 Plus vs Nokia 8" by Tech Trinkets: Nokia win except for games.
"iPhone 8 Plus vs Galaxy Note 8" by SuperSaf TV: Note 8 win except for games.
If the A11 Bionic performed as suggested by benchmark scores, then none of these defeats or close-calls would exist.
The other aspect that bothers me as someone who has purchased every iPhone since gen 2, and currently own the iPhone 7 (128 GB, matte black, on AT&T), is that Apple has gone stale and fallen in the background for mobile media consumption. "Hey Tony, did you hear anything coming out of those earpods? Ya did? Ok, good enough". It's hard to think of Apple without including music and media in our thought process, yet now they are less than second rate, falling behind many others in audio quality. I was hoping, since I'm a professional recording engineer, that someone would come out with a dramatic breakthrough in audio that would rival standing in a studio control room, and go beyond analog headphone capabilities. You would expect Apple to be pioneering there, but who actually does come up with the breakthrough? HTC. The iPhone 8 may excel at very specific tasks, and benchmarks, but if real world use is insignificantly better than the previous model, and user experience is lower quality and less satisfying, does a synthetic score hold any weight?