Everything you need to know about Apple’s iPhone 7 Keynote
iPhone 7 & 7+
Shortly after a quick recap of some of the cooler and more significant iOs 10 features, you hear Jonny Ive’s voice describing the new iPhone 7 set over one of Apple’s classic product design videos. And is there anyone better than Ive right now to talk about the design of a new product? He just has the perfect balance of the British accent, clear enunciation, and tone of voice. The video perfectly accented Ive’s dictation, oozing of pure luxury and refinement.
The new iPhone is beautiful, I must say. The jet black as they’re calling it is highly reminiscent of the 3G (my favourite iPhone design, so I am biased) and the latest Mac Pro. They also introduced another black replacing the “space grey” crap that’s been forced on us for years; gold, silver, and rose gold are still here too. The jet black 7+ is definitely the nicest product Apple has released since Jobs has passed and only because its based on Jobs’ original vision for the iPhone.
Beyond its aesthetics, its got a bunch of new features and upgrades to boot. The home button has been redesigned to be force sensitive. Incorporating the taptic engine found inside the newest MacBook trackpads allows the new home button a responsive, real-time and real-life clicking feeling. The taptic engine extends to the entire screen so it can add to the whole iOs experience. Oh and Apple has finally caught up to Samsung and the new iPhones are now water- and dust-proof, hallelujah!
Now the camera on the 7 Plus is where the biggest upgrades come. Both models now have optical image stabilization, a larger f/1.8 aperture that gets 50% more light onto the lens,and a high-speed 12 MP sensor that’s 60% faster and 30% more efficient than the ones found on the previous generation. The phones are also getting a quad-LED flash that produces 50% more light, reaches 50% further, as well as a flicker sensor that reads the flicker of artificial lighting and compensates for it.
Apple also has introduced its own designed image signal processor (ISP) that has twice the throughput of previous versions. It results in a wider colour gamut, improved noise reduction, image stabilization, local tone mapping and more. There are new capture and edit APIs that developers can take advantage of in designing their own apps. The front-facing camera has also been updated to a 7 MP version that has a wider colour capture, auto image stabilization.
Now onto the iPhone 7 Plus Dual Lens Camera which steals the show in my opinion. With two 12 MP cameras, one wide-angle and one telephoto, you get 2x optical zoom and up to 10x digital zoom that is augmented by the dual lenses. They also previewed the portrait feature releasing later on. The mode creates a raw depth map of a picture to provide the desirable effect of blurred backgrounds and sharp forefront objects that usually only very expensive cameras can achieve.
The 7 and 7+ are getting a 25% brighter display with a wide colour gamut, and stereo audio coming from both the newly transformed earpiece/speaker and the usual speaker at the bottom of the iPhone. The new speakers promise to provide double the volume of the speakers on the 6s and 6s+.
The new iPhones are going to benefit from the new A10 Fusion chip with a quad-core CPU and 6-core GPU. There’s two high performance cores that are 40% faster than the 6s and twice as fast as the 6, and two high efficiency cores that are 1/5the power of the previous model. The GPU is 50% faster than the 6s and a whopping 3x as fast as the 6 while consuming two-thirds of the power of the 6s and half the power of the 6. The battery life has been marginally improved on both models as well.
Good news! Apple has finally doubled the storage capacity on both 6s models and both 7 models. The 7 and 7+ both have capacities of 32 GB, 128 GB, 256 GB while the 6s and 6s+ are only missing the 256 GB version. And they thankfully did not increase the price on the 7, keeping it starting at the same price as the 6s ($649 USD) and the 7+ starts at ($769 USD). The Piano Black finish, sadly, is restricted to the 128GB and 256GB version.
Ever since reports have pointed towards it, tons of people have been getting mad in anticipation of Apple axing the headphone jack (myself included) but I think they did a good job of minimizing the backlash they’re going to receive. By including 3.5 mm to lightning adaptors with the iPhone 7 in addition to new Lightning-connected EarPods they are going to get a lot less hate. The audio quality benefits of Lightning-connected headphones will definitely please the audiophiles out there looking for a better listening experience on their smartphones.
The new wireless AirPods and their case they introduced releasing in late October at $159 USD look really sleek and futuristic. The charging case they come with so you don’t lose those tiny things and the only-on-when-its-in-your-ear feature are both legitimately cool. But 5 hours of listening on one charge seems too little, even if there is 24 hours worth of battery life being provided by the chargeable case. The one-step setup across all Apple devices is convenient and easy-to-use, apparently.
There’s some fancy new tech inside these bad boys too. They have a W1 chip to provide reliable wireless connectivity, beam-forming microphones that reduce external noise, infrared sensors to detect when the AirPod is in your ear and a motion accelerometer that responds to your touch, enabling Siri with but just a double tap.
Apple is also introducing a new line of Beats with the same technology powering the AirPods The Solo3 Wireless (40 hours on one charge), Powerbeats3 Wireless (12 hours), and beatsX (8 hours) arrive later this fall.
Apple Watch Series 2
The big feature Apple’s promoting for the new watch is the upgrade from splash-proof to swim-proof. Apple really wants you to swim — they’ve provided a swim tracking feature to work inside their fitness tracker. There’s the standard CPU and GPU upgrades that every generation of Apple products receives, 50% faster CPU performance than the last one, and 2x faster graphics which is much needed for the slow-to-load device. A doubly bright display, the brightest Apple has ever shipped, is supposed to allow for easier reading in the sunlight. There’s also built-in GPS so your not tethered to your iPhone for walking or running. Oh and Pokemon GO is coming to Apple Watch for those of you who are still addicted.
Style-wise, there are a few new bands, a ceramic white option for the Edition (4 times harder than stainless steel they note) and new bands for their collaboration with Hermes. Apple and Nike also team up for the Apple Watch Nike Plus with a new band that features contrasting inner- and outer-facing colours with perforations throughout; designed with runners in mind.
Something Apple has never done before is upgrade the processor of an previous generation product to the same specifications as the one they’re introducing in a new one. The OG Apple Watch is being rebranded the Series 1 and gains the same CPU as Series 2 and nothing else and a price drop to $269 USD (all Series 2 models start at $369 USD). You can pre-order the new models on September 9th, watchOs 3 comes out the 13th, and they will be available for purchase come the 16th. The Nike Plus model, however, is not releasing until late October.
Everything Else
Super Mario Run
Apple and Nintendo finally team up to bring the lovable Italian plumber to the largest mobile gaming platform. Super Mario Run will be quite similar to previous Mario games other than the fact that you just tap on the touch screen to interact with each level, no other controls and no need to hold anything to go through a level, Mario just runs! It is also the first one-handed Mario game which is useful for on-the-go gaming. Super Mario Run will be coming to iOs first in time for the holidays this year.
Apple is working hard on Education
Something smart they’re doing to hook kids on Apple products is getting them to use them at school as their default device. Children are impressionable and humans are creatures of habit, so introducing Apple early and often in a child’s life is going to influence them to lean towards Apple products in the future. Not to mention, Apple products are easy as hell to use so they are the perfect introductory products to get tech in classrooms more ubiquitously. The only problem with tech in the classroom I see is that learning is usually the last thing being done on a tablet or iPhone; something I have experienced first hand.
I do see Apple’s efforts in education as to be in earnest as they say the right things and do the right things. By helping educate people and get them interested in coding and technology at a young age, they are preparing a new generation of talent for the tech-heavy future we are in store for. An added benefit of their efforts is that they will have a large crop of talent that is Apple-biased to hire from in the future.
iWork Real-Time Collaboration
Real-time collaboration finally reaches Apple’s productivity suite. What has been available on and essential to the Google Docs and Drive experience is now being copied over at the iWork and iCloud ecosystems. Nothing special here. Not to mention the woman introducing these new features talked them up as if they were the most ground-breaking thing to happen to slide decks. She also spoke as if the intended audience were a bunch of 5 year olds.
The Stats
- 17 million paying Apple Music Subscribers — up 2 million from WWDC in June
- 140 billion apps downloaded on the App Store — 106% year on year growth
- The App Store more than doubles the revenue of the Play Store
- Apple through ConnectED will be donating 50,000 iPads to students
- 500,000 games in the App Store
- Pokemon GO has been downloaded 500 million times worldwide and GO users collectively walked 4.6 billion kilometres while playing the game
- Apple is the second most popular watch brand on the planet in terms of sales in 2015, despite it only being available for 8 of the 12 calendar months
- 1 billion iPhones sold worldwide
- The new Apple ISP computes over 100 billion operations in 25 milliseconds.
