iPhones 7 Unveiled!
Some new, some boring. Apple seems to have entered a holding pattern for 2017.
This past week Apple released the much awaited iPhone 7, along with the iPhone 7 Plus.
Visually, the new iPhones don’t look any different from the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. They maintain the same aluminium body and even share the same screen sizes: a 4.7-inch (1334x750 pixel resolution) display on the iPhone 7, and a 5.5-inch (1920x1080 pixels resolution) screen for the iPhone 7 Plus.
The critics of the tech world have a lot to say about the devices, but the sales have already been shooting through the roof. Before we divulge into anything else, let’s talk about the smartphones in concern.
Let’s first put all the specs on the table.
iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus: Specs
The phones run on Apple’s own A10 fusion chipset; which is the best that the company has right now, and comparable with the processor powering all the flagships in the market this year. RAM wise, the smaller phone has 2 GB and whereas the Plus model carries 3 GB of RAM.
The phones come with three memory options: 32, 128 and 256 GB. The memory is, of course, not expandable, given the Apple legacy. They run on 1,960 mAh and 2,675 mAh non-removable batteries, respectively.
Fortunately, the antenna bands on the back have finally been moved and are now barely visible on the top and the bottom edges.
Operating system as is the norm, each year’s flagships herald the launch of a new iOS version. So it is in 2016 too. The iPhones 7 ship with iOS 10.0.1 — again the best there is that the company currently has to offer. The phones come with an uprated fingerprint scanner called TouchID.
Cameras are where it’s most at, with the iPhones 7.
The bigger 7 Plus packs a dual camera on the back, while the smaller brother doesn’t.
Explanation: The iPhone 7 Plus sports a dual camera set, both of which are 12 megapixel, with f/1.8 and f/2.8 apertures, respectively.
The smaller brother is left with a single 12 megapixel rear camera, with a f/1.8 aperture.
The front shooter on both the phones is a 7 megapixel camera, with a f/2.2 aperture.
The photography features include phase detection autofocus, 2x optical zoom, quad-LED (dual tone) flash, Geo-tagging, simultaneous 4K video and 8 megapixel video recording, touch focus, face/smile detection, and HDR (photo/panorama).
All in all, the cameras overall are great, but one shouldn’t let them drive the buying decision.
What’s New?
Well if the you jumped past the specs because you really couldn’t see anything spectacular or new, I understand!
Yet…. don’t let appearances and the Press fool you!
The latest iPhones, just a year short of hitting the decade on the market, seem to be subjects of radical changes with this edition. The first of these major changes is the removal of the audio jack from the device entirely. The second of these major changes is the conversion of the physical home button, into a virtual one.
How does the removal of the audio jack flow with the customers, is an obvious question.
What Apple is trying to do with this is to bring forward their Earpods, a wireless earbud that would take audio technology to the next level altogether. These are due to be released in October, and will reportedly be available for USD 159; quite a costly audio gear it is, even for the ones willing enough to give into the change. But of course, switching to the earpods in a go is not going to be easy, and neither is not having an audio jack on your phone.
To make this transition easier, Apple has smartly included two things in the box with the phone. The first of these is the converter, which basically is a Lightening connector that plugs on the one end into the iPhone, and on the other end functions as an audio jack for your earphones.
The second of these accessories in the box is a pair of wired earbuds, with a lightening connector. So, in simple terms, if you want to use your audio gear with a regular audio jack with the iPhone 7, it is not going to be impossible, it would just be a little inconvenient to hook it up with a connector, and make sure you don’t lose the tiny thing. The users would also now not be able to charge their phones and use wired audio phones on it at the same time since there is only one Lightening adapter which is to be used for both the things.
As for the home button, there isn’t anything quite revolutionary in the change there. One of the first things to wear out on most iPhones has been the home button, and this transition from the physical button to a force-sensitive virtual one might be a good thing after all. It is yet to be seen how much more durability it adds, though.
Talking of durability, what is worth mentioning is the new water-resistant design that the iPhone 7 sports. This is something that has not been seen earlier in an iPhone, though is has been seen in most flagships this year, and a few devices last year.
If Apple is just playing catch-up there or has their water-resistance technology made any headway with the others in the market is yet to be seen.
The phones also get dual speakers for the first time, ever. This is through changing the setup in the earpiece speaker so it is loud enough to be an external speaker in its own right. This might work to fulfil the wait for better external audio on iPhones.
Critics, Reviews and More
The devices are reportedly tremendously fast on their feet; almost double the processing speed of the two-year-old iPhone 6, if not better.
They are snappier; obviously through the faster chips this year, and also better and more optimised software that super-charges the entire interface and user experience.
The cameras are extremely good, and have of course improved from the previous version. On the iPhone 7, there’s a significant improvement (contrary to what you may have so far believed). What’s different is not the hardware of the camera, but the fact that the camera set now includes optical image stabilization, which helps your photos stay clear even with shaky hands.
The battery life has also improved and not reportedly has about two more hours of juice.
What has been disappointing to many has been that Apple has made virtually no changes in the external design of the phones in the last three years, other than tweaking with the antenna bands (this time around. They didn’t make any changes whatsoever on the iPhone 6s, last year!). This does make them look somewhat out-dated when put alongside the radical likes of Samsung and others.
Display? Well Apple gave OLED panels a miss again this year, and native resolution is moored far behind their flagship Android counterparts which feature 2560x1440 pixels resolution. Yet… as always, Apple’s displays perform just as well (and may be even better) than other devices with spec-tacularly better screens (I am sure you got my word-play there, with the hyphen and all). No one really knows how Apple manages it, but they’ve juiced the LCD panel again, and thus you don’t really feel any bit shortchanged by not having an OLED panel on the phone.
The Bottom Line
I am going to go out on a limb here and state what has been like an elephant in the room with the entire iPhone 7 launch. There has been a lot of debate that most of the features that the iPhone is sporting have already been seen in other devices by other companies, including Samsung, Sony, and LG. Then one hears of the things that Apple is still playing catch-up on. Another debate is centered around the removal of the audio jack, with some calling it a revolution, and some calling it the crazies.
Aligning with any particular view on that is a subjective choice, and not on for me to endorse. Short of all the debate, the phones are solid. They, of course, have a few things that could work smoother, but then which new devices doesn’t?!
The bottom line is simple; the devices are great. If you are someone who does not own an iPhone 6s or any other flagship from the last year, or year and a half, then the purchase could be called a smart one. But if you are someone who does have the iPhone 6s or 6s Plus from last year, a smarter decision would be to wait for the newer iPhone the next year, especially given it’ll be their tenth anniversary and we can sure expect a bang there (fingers crossed, yet again!).
The smartphones are available in a very limited order, and earlier today the company announced that the iPhone 7 Plus is sold out globally, in all it’s colours, and the iPhone 7 is sold out in the (new) Jet Black colour.
The iPhone 7 Plus 32 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB will reportedly cost INR 72,000, INR 82,000 and INR 92,000 respectively, while the iPhone 7 32 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB will reportedly be priced at INR 60,000, INR 70,000 and INR 80,000 respectively.
The phones are now available for preorder in India, but delivery timelines vary.
Originally published at Chip-Monks.
