It’s here! The moment every Apple lover has been waiting for. For the past 5 months or so, we’ve been consistently feeding off on whatever the rumor mill was throwing at us. Now, September 7 2016 finally has put an end to all rumors and uncertainty as Tim Cook and co. have finally revealed everything about the upcoming iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
This year was touted to be more like a stepping stone for Apple and the iPhone 7’s release was touted as boring. While we do not think it was boring, Apple certainly has amazed us much more in the last couple of years or so. That being said, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus certainly come in with some astonishing additions to their arsenal and as introduced by Phil Schiller in Apple’s official event, we’ll present you with the 10 newest features in the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
Colors, storage capacity and expected price in Pakistan
The new iPhones will come in two models: the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. Both the iPhones will thankfully see a base 32GB internal storage model while there was no mentioning of an external card slot in Apple’s event so we think it won’t be there. The 64GB model has also been shown the door and instead, the 128 and 256GB models will now take center stage. The iPhone 7 will start at $649 which equates to nearly 68,000 rupees whereas the iPhone 7 Plus will begin at $749 which amounts to 78,200 rupees. Add around Rs. 10,000 on top for each for their prices in Pakistan in a couple of months. They will come down with time to be closer to US prices and the AirPods will cost $159.
Keep on eye on PriceOye.pk for the latest prices:
- iPhone 7 price in Pakistan: launch price beyond Rs. 120,000
- iPhone 7 Plus price in Pakistan: launch price beyond 130,000
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Similar design, two new colors
As expected, Apple has finally said goodbye to the famed Space Grey color scheme. But contrary to prior belief, the Space Grey will not be making way for the previously assumed Deep Blue color but will instead be replaced by what Apple calls the Space Black and Jet Black color schemes. The Jet Black color features a beautiful glossy appearance that it is somewhat of an intermediate between a glass and metal finish. The Apple monogram on the iPhone’s back panel will now be made entirely out of a chrome-like material that will look simply stunning.
We’re not sure about its build quality materials though and we think it’ll feature an improved version of last year’s iPhone 6S’s aluminum 7000 material. The exact dimensions are still not clear as well as there was no mentioning the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus’s width. Though it’s clear they will be close to iPhone 6S and 6S Plus respectively. Also, as mentioned many times before, the antenna bands will no longer penetrate the width of the iPhone’s back panel but will now instead curve through its edges.
Force Touch Home button
As Apple executive Phil Schiller explained in the keynote event, we use the home button to do plenty of things on our iPhone. From multitasking to invoking Siri, from quick actions to accessibility, the home button’s usefulness to the iPhone’s operation is like water to fish. So, the home button will no longer be a mechanical and press-able one. It will now be replaced by a pressure sensitive capacitive sensor.
It will house the fingerprint sensor underneath and will also, like the iPhone 6S, work in close harmony with the Taptic engine to produce the 3D-Touch effect. Another feature the rumor mill got spot on!
Water and dust resistant body
This was an issue that divided many sources around the world. Many believed this wouldn’t be true but here we are; water and dust resistance has come to the Apple party. Both the iPhones feature IP67 dust and waterproofing which duly gets another monkey off the iPhones’ back.
Big leap forward for iPhone cameras
This is probably the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The cameras were the most documented rumor in recent months and now, we’ll finally get to unveil what’s really going to happen.
We’ll talk about the iPhone 7’s camera first. While with the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, it was the bigger sibling that got optical image stabilization. Not anymore! The iPhone 7 features a 12 megapixel primary camera with OIS and f/1.8 aperture sized lens that is known to take even wider pictures. It is said to be 60% faster than the iPhone 6S’s shutter and it is backed by Apple’s Quad-LED true tone flash which will now produce 50% more light in lesser time. One of the biggest additions to the iPhone’s superb camera prowess is the addition of a specially designed signal processor to its cameras.
This signal processor, like in Huawei’s P9 Plus, is one of a kind. It makes use of advanced technological specifications such as machine learning to look for objects in your photos, add color to them, polish angels, render separation of low-light and then produce a finely crafted image that is near similar to what your eyes can see. Speaking of its schematics, Apple has made use of 6-element lens technology that invites much better color matching, lighting and correctness in photos. Live Photos will remain an honorary feature of the iPhone 7’s camera.
Speaking of the iPhone 7 Plus’s camera, the rumor mill has struck bull’s eye! Just as predicted earlier, the iPhone 7 Plus features a dual-lens camera that rests on an elevated pill shaped platform on its back panel. That’s probably not the greatest of news as bulging cameras do get you nervy at times but speaking of the iPhone 7 Plus’s camera prowess, one can surely call it as one of the best cameras ever.
This is due to the reason that it features a dual 12 megapixel sensor. Both of these sensors make use of the aforementioned technologies used in the iPhone 7 namely 6-element lens, 60% faster snapping, more lighting and Apple’s very own image signal processor. We’ll now dissect its two sensors.
Two cameras on the iPhone 7 Plus
Phil Schiller described one of the sensors as a wide angle sensor whereas the other is called a telephoto sensor. These two work in tandem to produce DSLR quality photos and you can choose to work with the telephoto sensor alone. To work with it alone, you can access it via the portrait mode in the camera modes. This sensor’s primary work is to create the sneak peek effect; an effect Apple describes as when you take a photo, the telephoto sensor creates a depth map of that picture and places the objects you’ve focused on a separate layer kind of like Adobe Photoshop does.
Then, it applies blurring to the rest of the photo which brings you with a focused image. This seems like sugar-coated stuff as we’ve seen other cameras do that too but Apple says that the telephoto sensor brings rapid real time blurring which allows you to efficiently adjust the photos you want.
The camera app on the iPhone 7 Plus features some differences to the iPhone 7 camera app. The iPhone 7 Plus’s camera app features a 1x zoom button when you open it which you can press to zoom into the picture. It allows multilevel zooming which goes up to 10x zoom that Phil Schiller says is 4 times better than the zooming capabilities of the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus.
There goes the complete dissection of the primary cameras. There was so much to talk about there that we almost forgot to mention the selfie camera. Both the iPhones feature an improved 7 megapixel sensor with wide color capture ability as well as auto image stabilization. Definitely good news as it is again a definite increment on the iPhone 6S.
Improved Retina HD display
Apple has always claimed its Retina display to be the best in the business. While we do believe that was true when it first came about, we’ve now definitely seen that the Super AMOLEDs are performing better than the Apple’s Retina display. That however could change soon as the new iPhones feature improved displays; the iPhone 7 will feature a 4.7 inch display while the iPhone 7 Plus will feature a 5.5 inch display.
Those are the things we already know about and we were very eager to hear what amount of pixel densities will Apple be stuffing inside the iPhones this time around. Sadly, Phil Schiller didn’t mention that but what he did say was that it was 25% brighter than iPhone 6S’s display, contained cinema standard color management, the customary 3D-Touch and wide color gamut. All of these are pretty much sugar coated words and we’d advise you not to get too carried away while reading them.
Stereo speakers, finally!
Like the dust and waterproofing, dual stereo speakers was also subject to much debate and Phil Schiller has also put this debate to its end. Yes you’ll be getting dual-stereo speakers in the new iPhones. The speakers will be placed near the upper and lower edges of the iPhones which will bring twice the volume of the iPhone 6S to the plate while in anyway, not compromising on the sound quality. Great for gaming or watching videos.
Lightning EarPods; no headphone jack!
Like the dual-lens camera, this was another aspect that received immaculate coverage in the last 5 months or so. The 3.5mm jack has finally gone and you will now use the Lightning port to listen to your music via the EarPods. Phil Schiller described this move as “brave” in today’s Apple event and the reasons he gave for the jack to be ditched altogether do seem logical.
The first reason he stated was that they had always designed their Lightning port as a digital power control tool that was always fit for multitasking. His second reason was that we demand constant improvements in our smartphone’s specifications during which we seem to forget what’s its size is. So, having the jack for this sole purpose of EarPod connectivity was using unnecessary space and they’ve gotten rid of it to use that space for more enticing functionality in future iPhone releases. We certainly agree to that.
Don’t throw away your old EarPods just yet as Phil Schiller also stated that each and every iPhone box will come in with a jack to Lightning converter so that those people who’d prefer to keep on using their old EarPods or connect the iPhone with other devices with jacks can continue to do so.
However, this means no more charging and using headphones together. Also, you’ll have to carry the Lightning to 3.5 headphone jack converter all the time wherever you go which will prove to be quite annoying. Who knows what will happen if you’ll lose it?
New wireless capabilities with AirPods
We genuinely believe that Apple has revolutionized the world of technology in a way no-one has done so far. Their latest addition to the hall of revolutionary technology now features Apple’s brand new AirPods. The AirPods are designed very similarly to the EarPods except that they do not feature any wires. They’ll automatically get connected to your iPhone or any other Apple device.
With regards to what’s inside the AirPods, its a completely different story altogether. The AirPods feature one of a kind technology. Its working is controlled by what Apple calls a W1 chip. It allows you to access Siri through it by double tapping on either of the AirPods. Both the AirPods feature dual-accelerometers, inbuilt battery which allows 5 hours worth of use with one full charge, microphones to communicate with Siri and it can also be used with Apple Watch as well.
We’re not 100% sure as to how we’re supposed to connect it with the iPhone but we believe you have to simply bring the AirPods close to the iPhone or any other Apple device. It’ll prompt the device to recognize it and the device will ask you if you’d like to connect. Voila! No pairing and no scanning required. When bringing an end to AirPods, Phil Schiller also stated that Beats and other companies are making use of Apple’s W1 chip to come up with products of their own which will be released shortly (products include Beats Solo3, powerbeats3 and beatsX).
Apple Pay will see further in-depth integration in the new iPhones and for Japanese fans, it will come in with Felica NFC technology.
Performance, software and battery life
As Phil Schiller stated that this clearly could’ve been mentioned much much earlier, we do feel the same way. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus feature Quad-Core processors that contain 3.3 billion transistors inside them which is said to be 40% faster than the iPhone 6S. Their clock speed and RAM are still a mystery which is disappointing news. However, we do know how the Quad-Core processor will work. Two of its cores are called “high performance cores” which are used for intensive purposes like camera usage etc. while its other two are called “high efficiency cores” that are used for less intensive purposes like sending an email etc. These two working in tandem are known to consume lesser battery life while providing much more power than ever before.
The two high efficiency cores work at 1/5 of the power of high performance cores and the new 6 core GPU allows 50% faster graphical processing than the iPhone 6S. These new schematics have allowed the new iPhones to support console-level gaming which include other blistering in-game experiences such as haptic feedback, higher flawless graphical rendering and feeling impact from hits during games. That is absolutely stunning!
The new iPhones will provide an average of 2 hours more battery life than the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus which has been made duly possible because of the supreme optimizations of the iOS 10 as well as the coordinated efforts of new Quad-Core processor.
Should Pakistanis upgrade to the iPhone 7?
In our opinion, the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus bring some extraordinary specifications to the table. More powerful cameras, better battery life, faster performance and dust plus waterproofing are some excellent features to behold. It also comes in a new color but relatively old design with the antenna bands now simply curving towards the iPhone’s edges rather than going through its width.
We here at PriceOye suggest that if you’ve got some money to spare (which is always the case with iPhones) and you own an iPhone 6 or an older model, the iPhone 7 is a worthy upgrade.
When it comes to the iPhone 7 Plus, its an upgrade that does not depend on any other factors apart from money. If you have the necessary resources, we’d recommend closing your eyes and going for it as it is poised to become 2016’s best smartphone. Stunning cameras, beautiful jet black finish, superb battery life, bigger display and what not? The iPhone 7 Plus merits an upgrade.
However, we’d again like to point out that the headphone jack is now gone. That means, no more charging and using headphones together. Also, you’ll have to carry the lightening to jack converter all the time so if you’ll lose it, you’ll turn into a load of trouble (though the iPhones will come in with updated EarPods).
As is always the case with iPhone models, expect them to begin in an excess of 1 lac rupees for the iPhone 7 and 1 lac fifteen thousand for the iPhone 7 Plus as Apple doesn’t officially markets iPhones in Pakistan just yet. However, we expect them to stagnate between 75,000 to 90,000 rupees for both the iPhones after a 5-6 months which is the right time to go hunting for it. Apple will officially begin shipment on September 16th which means Pakistan could have to wait until end October to see an iPhone 7 in its territory.
That ends our official preview of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. Did it fulfill your expectations or was it another year of haplessness? Do let us know what you feel about Apple’s latest release.
Images courtesy The Verge.
