The iPhone 7 specs and features were officially announced today at the Apple Event. The iPhone, over the years, has become an industry gold standard. Tim Cook kicks off the launch of the iPhone as he hails the device as ‘the phone by which all other phones are compared’. Tim says that the iPhone transformed the way we do things every day. He calls it a cultural phenomenon, touching lives all around the world. Tim Cook then gives out a really impressive number, saying that the reason we see so many iPhones out there in the markets is because there over a billion iPhones have been sold so far.
After a small talk about the iOS 10, the world’s most advanced OS, it was said that it deserves the world’s best smartphone. Phil Schiller then starts talking about what the world was waiting for – the iPhone 7.
Phil begins by saying that the new generation of iPhone devise have a gorgeous new design. After a video showcasing a major design innovation, Phil says that he has a 10 point agenda, which would help the world know everything about what their upcoming smartphone has to offer! Let us take a look at these 10 points about the iPhone 7:
- Design: The new iPhone comes out with a new and refined design. Phil says that the company has been working on a new finish called ‘jet black’. This features a glossy, black Apple logo on the back. The smartphone comes out with a high gloss finish, as well as a stainless steel Apple logo. There has been a lot of thought put behind the development of the design of the new iPhone, and it is indeed looking really good.
- Home Button: Hailed as ‘the quintessential apple design’ – simple yet powerful, the home button now does much more than ever before. Similar to the force-touch trackpad in the macbook, the pressure-sensitive iPhone button too has been improvised to perform much better than ever before. A It is even more responsive to pressure and gives tactile feedback too.
- Water and Dust Resistant: Reengineered from inside-out, the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus smartphones are both water resistant as well as dust resistant. The devices come with IP67 protection standard. Most noticeably, this was the first time in the night that Apple made a mention of the iPhone 7 Plus.
- Camera: As we all know, the ‘shot on iPhone’ campaign is everywhere and millions of beautiful pictures are being taken by iPhone users all over the world. The company has now decided to give a major boost to the way we know the camera to be. The iPhone 7 camera features Optical Image Stabilization, 3 times longer exposure compared to the iPhone 6s, an f/1.8 lens allows 50% more light in sensor.
A new 12MP sensor, which is 60% faster and 30% more energy efficient than the iPhone 6s is introduced with the new smartphone. It releases with a Quad LED two-toned flash, which allows 50% more light.
A flicker sensor has also been introduced which reduces the flickering of artificial lighting. Low light photography has been improved. In addition to that, live photos now get video stabilization features. The front camera comes out with a 7MP lens. This is an improvement from the 5MP camera in the previous iPhone devices.
The iPhone 7 Plus smartphone features two 12MP cameras built-in on the back. One has the wide angle 28mm lens, the other comes with a 56mm telephoto lens. This helps the iPhone users zoom in a manner similar to the DSLRs. Now there’s a new button called 1x users can tap, to get the telephoto lens. 1x to 10x zoom allowed. Beyond 2x it’s a software zoom, however the quality of the zoom is 4 times better.
When it comes to the camera, perhaps the most popular improvement is that of the addition of shallow depth of field. A depth map of every image is taken, the camera can take an image map of the people in focus using machine learning, and blur the background. It shows deep depth preview in real time while taking the picture – even high end DSLRS can sometimes not do it.
Apple commented that they are not saying that they want to replace the DSLRs, however, this is indeed the best camera ever created in a smartphone. As of now this depth technique is in a developmental stage, but it will be released as a software update for all the users later for free.
- Retina HD Display – A 25% brighter display, along with 3D touch, a wider color gamut, has been introduced with the iPhone 7. Ian Spalter of Instagram talked about how the vibrant images brought life to a photograph.
- Speakers – Built-in speakers in the iPhone are used for a number of things. However, this was a time for change. iPhone, for the first time ever, has introduced stereo speakers, one at the bottom and one at the top. This helps give the device twice the volume than compared to the 6s/6s plus.
- Earpods – Apple Earpods are the most popular earphones in the world. They are now going to be lightning connected. Lightning was originally designed to be a great digital audio connector. With over 900 million lightning enabled devices in the world right now, this might just be the perfect time to switch. For those who do not want to buy a lightning-connected earpod, Apple is providing a Lightining to 3.5mm adapter which will come with the box for both the smartphones.
- Wireless Audio – A major problem which no one has tackled till now. As per Apple, it makes no sense to tether devices with unnecessary cables. The team at Apple has worked hard to create a better wireless experience. A new product, Apple ‘airpods’ was introduced at the event.
This is based on the belief that the future is wireless. These airpod earpods run on Apple’s W1 chip – which offers efficient, consistent, reliable, and high quality playback. It knows when both the earpods are in a user’s ear. Motion accelerometers respond to touch, siri can be accessed with double tap. They provides the users with 5 hours of listening on a single charge. A wireless charging case comes with 24 hours of wireless charging life. Users can charge both, the case and the cable with a lighting cable together.
Connecting these airpods to the iPhone too, is quite easy. Simply opening the case of the airpods would prompt a user’s iPhone/Watch to connect. Users can switch between devices. This is one of the simplest connection mechanisms ever - No buttons, no switching, no pairing/unpairing.
- Apple Pay: Over 90% of wireless transactions are made with Apple Pay. In iOS 10 its even easier. The company said that Felica technology is included in the new iPhones and Apple Watch Series 2 devices. The company will soon roll out apple pay in Japan. While no date has been given, it was announced to come out in October.
- Performance: The iPhone 7 is the fastest smartphone in the markets. It comes out with an A10 Fusion chip which features four ores - two high performance cores, 40% faster than the A9 in 6s/plus. Twice as faster as the A8. Other than these two, it comes with two high-efficiency cores, which run on 1/5th of power when compared to the high performance cores.
Gaming has also received a major boost with the iPhone 7. It offers the users with a console level gaming experience. The frame rate which is being offered to the users is incredible. Vivid Colors help the gamers get a much better experience than ever before. In addition to all of this, the smartphone also touts the longest ever battery life in an iPhone device. It is actually 2 hours more than the iPhone 6s and one hour more than the 6s plus on an average.
The iPhone 7 features a 4.7 inched screen for while the iPhone 7 Plus comes with a 5.5 inched screen. The company again stressed on the environment friendly manner these smartphones are made in, and that they are easily recyclable.
Finally, talking about the cost, Apple said that the cost of the iPhone 7 is the same as that of the iPhone 6s, which is $649. The iPhone 7 Plus comes out with a $749 price tag. The smartphones both come in Silver, Gold, Rose Gold, Black, Jet Black variants. The storage space at hand is that of 32GB, 128GB, and a new, 256GB variant has also been introduced this year. The Jet Black variant of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus would feature only 128 and 256GB of storage space.
