Apple fans rejoice, the next iteration of the iPhone is here. After months of speculation a few days ago Apple officially unveiled the iPhone 7 to the eagerly awaiting press. These new devices can already be detected in our world leading device intelligence, today we'll take a quick look at what the public will get with the latest Apple smartphone.
On the surface the design of the iPhone 7 is almost exactly the same as the last couple of models in the franchise, the iPhone 6 and 6s. This approach isn't working very well for Sony who are seeing their market share plummet. However, Apple probably have the clout to pull this off a while longer, especially considering Apple release new generations twice as slow and with considerably less variant saturation. The biggest external difference is the removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack, a contentious decision that is currently reverberating across the web. The result of this means you won't be able to charge your device and use a set of wired earphones at the same time, the iPhone 7 also lacks wireless or quick charging so it may be time to invest in a Bluetooth headset.
Whilst the dimensions haven't changed from the last generation the iPhone 7 has managed to shed 5 grams of weight and gained an IP67 rating for dust and water resistance to boot, highly prized in certain markets. That's good going considering waterproofing usually adds a lot of weight, we'll simply gloss over the fact that Apple is 3-4 years behind competitors on implementing this feature. Internally we're treated to Apple's new A10 Fusion chipset with comes equipped with a quad core CPU, 2GB of RAM and as yet undisclosed GPU, Apple claim gains of up to 50% performance across the board when compared to the iPhone 6S. Unfortunately it's the same 4.7-inch IPS, 1334x750px display as the iPhone 6, simply dwarfed by what competitors can currently offer.
After losing the photography crown a few years ago Apple have had to work hard to recover. The camera is the same 12MP sensor but with a significantly larger f/1.8 aperture and the software based stabiliser has finally been replaced by optical image stabilisation, both welcome additions. The dual LED flash from the iPhone 6 has been upgraded to a four LED flash with dual cool and warm tones, these camera improvements should vastly improve low light photos, which has notably been the weak point in the iPhone's photographic capability. Front camera also receives a small boost, up to 7mp from 5mp. Other notable features include a new 450Mb modem, up from 300Mb, new home button with hap tic feedback and new storage options, 32GB, 128GB and 256GB but still no MicroSD port.
In conclusion whilst there some long overdue feature additions, better performance and increased storage options it still lags behind the competition. The gap between the iPhone 7 and its predecessor seems to be smaller than between other generations, it's widely believed that the 2017 model will receive a design overhaul to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, this model may in large just be keeping up appearances. Price wise you'll have to part ways with $649 for the cheapest 32GB option, $749 for the 128GB and $849 for the 256GB. The Apple iPhone 7 is already available for pre-order, comes in five colour-ways, rose gold, gold, silver, black and jet black and will hit stores on the 16th September.
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