In an event in San Francisco, Apple has announced the flagship iPhone – Apple iPhone 7 at a starting price tag of US $649. It comes in Piano Black, Black, Gold, Rose Gold & Silver colours and it will go on sale starting from Friday, September 16, 2016. Starting from coming Friday to September 9, the iPhone 7 is available for pre-order in more than 25 countries. The iPhone 7 with 32GB variant costs US $649, 128GB variant costs US $749 and the 256GB variant costs US $849. A free Personal Setup service is also offered when anyone buys iPhone 7. The main highlight of this year iPhone launch, is that the iPhone 7 is water and dust resistance (IP67) without the need for any additional accessories.
Commenting on the announcement, Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, said:
“iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus dramatically improve every aspect of the iPhone experience, reaching a new level of innovation and precision to make this the best iPhone we have ever made. The completely redesigned cameras shoot incredible photos and videos day or night, the A10 Fusion chip is the most powerful chip on any smartphone while delivering the best battery life ever in an iPhone, and an entirely new stereo speaker system provides twice the sound, all within the first water and dust resistant iPhone.”
On the specifications front, Apple iPhone 7 comes with 4.7-inch Retina HD display which is 25% increase in brightness, wide color gamut, colour management and 3D Touch. It is powered by new quad-core Apple A10 Fusion processor with 3.3 billion transistors which makes it 40% faster than Apple A9 in the 6S along with hexa-core GPU and comes with two high-performance cores. On the graphics front, iPhone 7 comes with a new GPU that ensures 50 percent faster performance when compared with A9. Apple iPhone 7 runs on iOS 10 operating system and supports sRAW & wide-colour in the apps. The iPhone 7 supports up to 25 LTE bands worldwide.
On the photography front, the iPhone 7 features 12-megapixel iSight camera with 6-element lens, f/1.8 aperture, Optical Image Stabilisation, High-speed Sensor (60% faster, 30% efficient), support for 4K video recording and quad LED two-tone flash. Apple has added a TrueTone flash laced with four LEDs and a flicker sensor which makes captured photos looks better in artificial light. Also, Apple is touting that the new image processor will use the “machine learning” to deduce the screen conditions and it automatically set the focus exposure & colour. In addition to this, iPhone 7 comes with few improvements on Live Photos, users will be able to edit live photos and comes with options like crop & filter. It also comes with 7-Megapixel FaceTime camera with auto-image stabilisation. The optical zoom feature works from 1X-5X after which it is a software zoom. Also, the dual cameras create a depth map to explicitly detect the subjects of a photo and blur the background.
With iPhone 7, Apple has ditched the 3.5mm audio jack for the lighting connector and it comes with an adapter dongle which in turn accommodates the 3.5mm jack. Apart from this, Apple has taken care of audio and this is the first time that iPhone 7 comes with stereo speakers placed at each vertical end of the phone. The new Apple W1 chip is dedicated for handing audio & wireless connection and the infrared sensors will detect when they are in your ear. Apple also launched the AirPods, wireless EarPods which comes in a case and lasts for 5 hours on a single charge. The battery and the charger are built inside the case and it will automatically paired once removed from the case.
With iPhone 7, the home button is no more mechanical key. The non-mechanical key has been reengineered to become a force sensitive solid state input alongside the taptic engine, just like the trackpad on the latest MacBook and MacBook Pro models. The home screen button can now be used for quick actions and can also open up to new features with the Taptic Engine API.
The iPhone 7 has made up of aluminium body and there is a layer of glass. The Apple iPhone 7 is a minor upgrade from the usual iPhone design when compared to the iPhone 6 & the iPhone 6S. The Apple iPhone 7 comes with a finished optical glossy black finish.
According to Apple, the iPhone 7 comes with the longest battery life ever in an iPhone and it will last up to two-hours when compared to the Apple iPhone 6S.