Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus announced : big changes to hardware, not to design
Apple iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are now official. As expected, the new models have evolved a lot w.r.t hardware and software but there is not much of a change in how the iPhone looks (since the iPhone 6). Powered by the Apple A10 chip, the new models come with similar design except for a small change. The antenna lines are now placed along the top and bottom part of the frame. The phones are also water resistant. The Apple iPhone 7 Plus also comes with a dual rear camera setup. There is no date mentioned for India release data though. The Apple iPhone 7 is priced at $649 for base 32GB variant and iPhone 7 plus is priced at $769 for base variant. Apple iPhone 6s and 6s plus will also start with 32GB for base variant from now. Those in USA can pre-order the iPhone 7 from September 9th and the shipments will start from 16th.
The timing couldn’t be better for Apple. Samsung has just started massive global recall of Galaxy Note 7 units due to exploding battery and those who are going to opt for refund (in cash) now have a worthy alternative in Apple iPhone 7 Plus. Though the company received -ve feedback when early prototypes showed the lack of headphone jack and that the design is more of an evolution, the overall packages is just good enough to elevate the sales of iPhones. Apple has also announced that iOS 10 is now ready
Wireless revolution is here
AirPods is the brand new wireless headset from apple that are powered by Apple W1 chip. The InfraRed sensors detect when one puts the AirPods in ears and start playing music. The built in motion accelerometer enables touch gestures like double tap the AirPods to access Siri. The built in microphone has noise cancellation. On a single charge, the AirPods will work for 5 hours. The special case has built in battery that lets you use AirPods for up to 24 hours. Pairing the AirPods is extremely simple. All you need to do is open the carry case and your phone connect the AirPods. You can use a single AirPod like a headset or you can use both for music playback etc. Beats has also announced new earphones that are powered by Apple W1 chip.
Much better Battery Life
The new iPhone 7 and 7 plus come with much improved battery life, here is the stats
R.I.P 16GB model
Another major change, a much welcome one is that there is no 16GB variant and the base variant comes with 32GB storage. Those who want more storage can opt for 128GB or 256GB storage variants. Given that the OS takes more than 8GB of storage and given how bigger the apps are getting, there was not point in continuing with 16GB onboard storage (as there is no microSD card slot for memory expansion).
Pressure sensitive home button
The iconic clickable home button is now ‘true 3D touch button’. The new home key will not depress/click when you press hard. Instead, the action depends on how hard you press the button, making this a proper 3D touch input button. With this Apple has added new functions for quick actions, messages, notifications, ringtones (powered by Taptic Engine API).
You can give you phone a bath
This is a much needed and a massive addition. Apple iPhone 7 and Apple iPhone 7 Plus now come with certified water and dust resistance. Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus come with IP67 water and dust resistance standard.
Performance
The all new Apple A10 Fusion chip comes with quad core cpu where cores are arranged in big.LITTLE configuration. Two high performnace cores are 40% faster than those on Apple A9 chip and are more power efficient while the high efficiency cores consumer 1/5th the power of the primary cores. The GPU is also 50% faster than the GPU on A9 chip.
New Cameras
Optical Image Stabilization is now added to iPhone 7 camera. The new sensors are 60% faster, 30% more energy efficient. The new two tone flash now has four LEDs that work in tandem with flicker sensor and adjust the flash according to the flickering of external light source. The new ISP designed by Apple can do 100 billion operations every time a photo is taken and this is done in just 25 milli seconds. Here are key features of iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus cameras.
iPhone 7 : 12mp lens, OIS, f/1.8 aperture, 50% more light, six element lens, 12mp sensor, 60% faster, 30% more energy efficient, two tone flash with quad LED (50% more light), flicker sensor (reads flickering of artificial lighting and compensates), new apple designed ISP has twice the throughput of previous version, 100 billion operations every time photo is taken and done in 25 milliseconds, video image stabilization, edit live photos right after capturing, 7mp FaceTime camera,
iPhone 7 plus rear camera setup: two 12mp lens, one is wide angle 28mm prime lens, other is telephoto 56mm lens to enable 2x optical zoom and create depth sensing. A new new style will be added as software update that will blur the background (on-the-fly) to create super clear subject in the foreground.
New Colors
Two brand new colors. The Jet Black comes with high gloss finish while the black color comes in matte finish. Other colors include Silver, Gold and Rose Gold.
New speakers
There are now two speakers on iPhone 7. One speaker is at the bottom and the second speaker is at at the top. The speakers are twice louders and come with increased dynamic range.
R.I.P 3.5mm jack
What many feared turned out to be true. Apple says that one needs courage to do something like this and we totally agree. The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus does not come with a 3.5mm audio jack. The bundled earphones come with lightning connector. Apple says that there are 900 millio lightning connector devices available in the market. Both the phones does not come with a 3.5mm headphone jack and this is going to cause lot of debate. You can go with bluetooth headphones or if you want to use your existing 3.5mm headphones, Apple is bundling lightning to 3.5mm adapter with every iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
