Apple just announced the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus
Apple just unveiled the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus — officially, at the September keynote address, only a few minutes after spoiling the announcement in a now-deleted tweet (oops!).
The phones will come in silver, gold and rose gold, along with new colors "jet black" and regular "black" that replace the old space gray.
The home button is gone. Instead, the iPhone 7 will have a haptic-feedback-equipped touch sensor. Thanks to the removal of the button, the phone is now water- and dust-resistant.
The camera is the biggest improvement.
It has an optical image stabilizer to steady camera shake. It'll have a better ambient-light sensor with a f/1.8 aperture for low-light shots. Apple gave photographers iPhone 7s to play with before the announcement, and the resulting shots showed off the camera's high shutter speed and low-light capabilities. It's "the best camera we've ever made on any iPhone," Phil Schiller said.
The front-facing camera on the iPhone 7 is now 7 megapixels, up from 5 — way better for selfies.
The iPhone 7 Plus' camera is even better. It has a dual 12 megapixel camera with both telephoto and wide-angle lenses. There's a new button on the iPhone 7 Plus' camera that allows for a telephoto zoom, as opposed to the "software zoom" of previous cameras.
The iPhone 7 Plus will have a shallow depth-of-field capabilities, like what's available on DSLRs. It means foreground subjects pop while the background blurs. It's done digitally: The camera creates a "depth map" of each shot with a new feature called "Portrait." You can watch the blurry background develop in real time while the image processes.
The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus will have a retina HD display. It's 25% brighter and has a "wide color gamut," announced Phil Schiller. The display's response times will be improved, according to Forbes.
The speaker is getting an upgrade: stereo speakers on the 7 and 7 Plus, one at the top and the other at the bottom. It'll be a nice effect when watching media in portrait mode.
The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus have no headphone jack — as we all expected. Instead, the phone will ship with an adapter dongle and EarBuds that plug right into the Lightning port.
Why remove the headphone jack? Phil Schiller explained the decision with one word: "courage." (Take that as you will.) Schiller talked about making room for innovative technologies inside the iPhone and Apple's vision for the future of audio, which is — wait for it — wireless.
Cue the announcement of Apple's AirPods, Apple's premium wireless headphones, which look like tiny decapitated hooves. It has infrared sensors, motion accelerometers (for Siri) and noise reduction. Apple boasts 24 hours of battery life and "incredible" sound. Have fun trying not to lose them!
Storage! This is a great upgrade. The new phones come in 32 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB — a welcome addition, given that the current low-end 16 GB is far too small for most users.
It has an upgraded A10 chipset. According to Forbes, the phone will see "CPUs hit 2.45GHz clock speeds and 20-30% performance gains."
The 7 costs the same as the 6s it replaced: It begins at $649.
