Apple Announces iPhone 7, 7 Plus, Available September 16

Making good on their press invite sent several weeks ago, Apple recently announced their new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus smartphones along with new Airpods wireless headphones and Apple Watch 2.

While the outer appearance of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus hasn’t changed a whole lot, Apple has done quite a bit of work internally to make the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus stand out significantly from its predecessors.

Camera

Starting with the camera, the iPhone 7 now includes a 12 MP sensor, a f/1.8 lens, and optical image stabilization to improve low light photography. The iPhone 7 Plus on the other hand will get two 12 MP rear cameras, one with a 56mm f/2.8 telephoto lens and the other with a f/1.8 wide angle lens. This will allow the iPhone 7 Plus to offer a 2x optical zoom along with some interesting effects such as the Depth Effect which adds bokeh to images. Both new phones also include a 7 MP f/2.2 front facing camera.

Display

The display on the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus has been upgraded as well although not in size or resolution. The iPhone 7 will still get a 4.7″ 1334×750 326ppi display while the iPhone 7 Plus will still get a 5.5″ 1920×1080 526ppi display. This is the same as the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus; however, the new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus displays are advertised to offer a wider color gamut and is up to 25% brighter than its predecessor.

Processor

The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus will feature Apple’s new quad-core Apple A10 Fusion SoC with embedded M10 motion coprocessor. The new SoC uses uses two high performance and two lower performance, but more efficient cores. This will allow the system to decide which cores to utilize to promote the best battery efficiency. Graphics is also significantly improved as well.

Storage

The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus now start at 32GB of storage and scale up to 256GB. As usual of the iPhone, no additional expansion options are available.

Battery Life

Thanks to the new processor, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus will get better battery life as well. Battery life on the iPhone 7 is expected to be ~2 hours better than its predecessor and the iPhone 7 Plus will get ~1 hour better battery life than its predecessor.

Networking

Depending on the specific SKU and the carrier, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus support all the major networks out there. New for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus is support for LTE-A which will offer speeds up to 450Mbps. Additional connectivity options include 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi‑Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, and NFC. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus will continue to utilize the Nano-SIM.

Sound

The biggest change to the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus that everyone’s talking about is the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack which has been rumored for quite some time. Apple will still support wired headphones however, will do so only through the lighting port. Apple’s new EarPods will natively support their lightning port and Apple will also include a 3.5mm to lightning adapter for those who want to use their own headphones.

Apple is also placing speakers at the top and bottom of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus for a more stereo speaker listening experience.

Additional Features

For the first time, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus is now officially IP67 dust, water, and splash resistant. While Apple has made improvements to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus to make it more resistant to these things, this is the first time Apple has gotten their device certified.

Together with the launch of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, Apple is also launching iOS 10 which will include a host of new improvements as well as several new features. More info on iOS 10 can be found at Apple’s site here.

Price, Availability

The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus will be available for pre-order starting 12:01AM PDT on September 9 and will begin shipping September 16. The iPhone 7 will start at $649 while the iPhone 7 Plus will start at $769. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus will be available in five color options – silver, gold, rose gold, jet black, and matte black.

More information on the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus can be found at Apple’s website here.