Today, Apple finally showed off its next generation smartphone, and here it is:
Mike Wehner
This is the iPhone 7, and if you’re thinking that it looks kinda familiar you’d be right. The phone, along with its slightly larger iPhone 7 Plus brother, are practically mirror images of their predecessors, at least as far as overall design goes.
The phones, which were revealed today at Apple’s annual iPhone event in San Francisco, come in at the same 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch display sizes that we’ve had since the iPhone 6 era two years ago. Both displays share the same Retina screen resolution as their older siblings as well.
Mike Wehner
In terms of aesthetics, the body shape and curves remain the same, but this time around the rubberized antenna lines that graced the back of the 6 and 6s generations has been deleted. It’s a more uniform look overall, though it doesn’t affect the utility of the device in any meaningful way.
Aly Keves
The home button has been altered as well. Instead of a clickable button, it’s a touch-sensitive surface that provides haptic feedback when touched. The home button can now be used with various apps to customize the experience. This helps the phone reach its water and dust resistant ratings that it now boasts.
On the camera front, both the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus now sport optical image stabilization, which was previously only available in the larger Plus models. The iPhone 7 camera has also been bumped up to an impressive 12MP resolution. The front-facing camera has been upgraded to 7MP from 5MP, for sharper selfies.
Mike Wehner
On the iPhone 7 Plus, a new dual-lens camera houses a pair of 12MP lenses which creates a high-powered zoom feature to control the focus of your photos in much greater detail, with 2X optical zoom and up to 10X software zoom.
Unfortunately, as had been long feared, the rumor that Apple was planning to also remove the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 has come to fruition. The long standard port has been axed in favor of letting the Lightning connector pull double duty as both the charging port and primary audio port. Every iPhone 7 will come with an adapter as well as a pair of Lightning EarPods. However, the phone does now feature stereo speakers.
Aly Keves
Those who love to customize their devices will be happy to learn that new colors options are also coming, with a new Jet Black shade that is much darker than the somewhat disappointing “Space Gray” option which stands somewhere silver and a true black.
The iPhone 7 will launch on Sept. 16 with preorders starting Sept. 9 and will carry the same price structure as the previous generation, with the base model of the iPhone 7 (32GB) starting at $649 and the iPhone 7 Plus (32GB) priced from $769. However, the Jet Black color scheme carries a minimum storage capacity of 128GB, effectively adding a $100 premium for that color alone.