Apple officially takes the wraps off the iPhone 7
After months and months of rumors, speculations, and leaks, Apple finally laid everything to rest at today's annual September event in San Francisco; where they took the wraps off the iPhone 7, 7 Plus, Apple Watch Series 2 and new beats products. We recently covered the launch of the new iPhone 7 Plus, which you can check out here. However, we'll be focusing on the Plus' smaller brother, the normal iPhone 7.
To start off with the design, the iPhone 7 is almost nearly identical to it's older version, the 6S, with some minor tweaks here and there. First, there is no mechanical home button anymore, it is instead replaced by a single sheet of glass that houses the TouchID fingerprint reader and the new taptic engine that will simulate the presses of the home button, as well as different modes that will respond to a certain 'trigger' such as a new notification.
The iPhone 7 is also now IP67 certified for water resistance, meaning it can take a few splashes or accidental drops of water bottles or other substances. However, it is not IP68 certified like some new Samsung and Sony phones, meaning that while the iPhone can take a few hits of water here and there, it is not as resistant as the IP68 certified phones.
In case some of you were hoping that all those leaks we saw earlier was Apple just faking us out with the removal of the headphone jack, you're going to be severely disappointed as Apple has confirmed that the headphone jack will not make an appearance on the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. If you still need to listen to music via the 3.5mm headphone jack, Apple is including the adapter in the box. If the adapter gets lost, it can be replaced for $9 flat, once it goes live on Apple's website. There is also Apple's new AirPods, which is their take on the Bluetooth EarPods. Those will cost $159 and comes with their new W1 headphone processor. Oh, the AirPods will supposedly last 5 hours on a single charge, as well.
Moving onto cameras, the 7 model still keeps the 12-Megapixel sensor that is found on the 6S, but it now has a wider aperture and most importantly, it has Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) which will aid to make sure that shots are much less blurry. When looking at the front camera, it is upgraded to 7-Megapixels, instead of 5-Megapixels before. There is also auto-image stabilization, but it is not the same thing as OIS, however.
The phone is being powered by Apple's new A10 Fusion processor, which is a quad-core processor that is built on a built on a 64-bit architecture. Apple is claiming that the A10 Fusion is 40% faster than last year's A9 processor. Now, two of the four cores are dedicated to high-performance tasks, while the other two are for "high efficiency" tasks; meaning that those two will conserve battery while handling certain tasks.
Moving onto other specifications of the new iPhone, it now has stereo speakers, with one at the top of the phone, near the speaker and one down at the bottom, where the Lightning port is. The iPhone 7 is also expected to last about two more hours longer than the 6S, although there is no confirmed count on how many mAh's the new battery is. Apple is claiming that you'll get 12 hours of LTE browsing on the 7, with the Plus model getting two more additional hours. Oh, and by the way, Apple has finally gotten rid of the standard 16GB model, and they are now offering storage options at 32GB for the base, 128GB, and 256GB options as well.
As mentioned in our iPhone 7 Plus article, the new iPhones come in two new colors, the new black color option, and the Jet Black option. The latter of which has a more glossy appearance, and is more susceptible to scratches. You will also have the standard Rose Gold, Gold and silver color options too.
While all four major US carriers have announced that they would be carrying the new iPhones, specific details have not been released yet. However, the 32GB iPhone 7 will set you back $649 full retail. If you're going with Apple's custom yearly iPhone upgrade plan, that'll be $32.41 per month. Both of the new iPhones will be available for pre-order on September 9th. They'll be available to pick up on September 16th. Oh, and iOS 10 will launch on September 13th, as well.
Via: | CNET |
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Source: | No source was given |
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Image Credit: | TabTimes |
