10 Major Features of the new Apple iPhone 7 & 7 Plus

The Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus have finally been unveiled at the recent Apple Special Event. Pre-orders have already been sold out, so if you haven't already secured yours you'll have to wait just a bit longer to do so. This would make it the perfect time to go over what we now know about the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 plus and what it has to offer you.

Apple revealed 10 new major features that will be released with the new iPhone and here's the breakdown:

1. New design, and two new colors (Jet Black, Matte Black)
2. Re-engineered home button
3. Water and dust resistant 
4. All brand new camera system
5. Improved Retina HD display
6. Dual stereo speakers
7. No more headphone jack
8. New Apple Air Pods, wireless ear buds
9. Improved Apple Pay
10. Better, faster, and more efficient CPU and GPU

New Design

The iPhone 7 comes with a slightly new design which includes the older colors gold, silver, rose gold as well as 2 brand new colors: Jet Black, and matte Black.  The screen size remains the same from the previous iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Just be forewarned that Apple claims their new Jet Black color may leave fine scratches easily due to its high gloss finish. So if you're into going case-less, you may want to pass on that color.  

Image source: Apple

Re-engineered Home Button

The old mechanical home button is now designed to be a solid state digital button that is force sensitive which uses force sensors and a taptic engine to give you the sensation of a click.  The digital button will be covered by glass and will remain at the bottom of the phone.  It'll be able to tell if you're trying to push the home button really soft or really hard, which we think will be the biggest thing the users will have to adapt to.  It's the same technology that they use in the new MacBook track pads.  Apple claims the taptic engine will give the user unique feedback when it comes to receiving messages, notifications, calls, and more. Third party applications will also be able to take advantage of this new taptic engine by creating their own unique feedback as well.  

Image source: Apple

Water and Dust Resistant

The iPhone 7 is now IP67 protected meaning it is water resistant and dust proof.  Water resistant phones are becoming an industry standard and Apple has finally hopped on the train.  The new iPhone should be able to withstand a submersion of 3.2 feet up to 30 minutes in fresh water.  

All New Camera 

This years iPhone now features a brand new camera system which is in every way better than the previous cameras.  The photos taken by the iPhone 7 should give SLR's a good run for their money.  The camera specs are:

• OIS (Optical Image Stabilization), up to 3x longer exposure
• Larger ƒ/1.8 aperture, up to 50% more light
• New 6 element lens up from 5 on the iPhone 6s.  Essentially 6 small lenses combined to create a beautiful and stunning image that is sharp from edge to edge.
• New 12 MP sensor up from the old 8 MP camera on the iPhone 6s
• Quad LED flash with flicker sensor that reads the flickering in artificial lighting and compensates for it in your photos or videos
• New Image Signal Processor (ISP) that reads the scene and learns the objects, people, bodies and automatically sets exposure, focus, white balance, noise reduction, etc. all within 25 milliseconds
• Live photo feature much like the Boomerang app
• 7 MP front facing HD camera with auto image stabilization

The iPhone 7 Plus features an even better camera system which includes a secondary camera lens.  It has all of the features of the iPhone 7 but also includes:

• 1 wide angle 28mm lens and 1 telephoto 56mm lens
• 1x zoom uses the wide angle lens, 2x zoom uses the telephoto lens up to 10x zoom using their new software zoom
• A free software update will be available later which allows users to take portrait photos with background blur (BOCA) and shallow depth of field

Retina HD Display

Their improved Retina HD display is 25% brighter with wide color gamut and color management.  This means the photos will create more realistic colors on screen.  

Screen resolutions:

• iPhone 7: 1334x750 resolution
• iPhone 7 Plus: 1920x1080 resolution

Stereo Speakers

The iPhone now features stereo speakers with one placed at the top and one placed at the bottom.  This creates a richer sound experience that is 2x louder than the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.  Watching movies on your iPhone just got a whole lot better.

No More Headphone Jack

You read that right, no more headphone jack!  Good thing or bad? We're not so sure yet but you'll have to start connecting your iPhone 7 earbuds through your lightning port instead.  So be prepared to buy some extra adapters from Apple.  

Apple Air Pods

Apples first wireless ear buds are here and they come at a price of $160.  They come with some cool features like infrared sensors in each pod that detects when they are in your ear so that they play your music when you need them too, motion accelerometer to access siri by tapping it, and noise reduction technology.  Each pod will last 5 hours on one charge and can be charged and stored away in its wireless charging case that can add up to 24 hours more of battery life.

Image source: Apple

Apple Pay

Apple pay will be launching in new countries one of which includes Japan.  Apple pay will also start using the FELICA technology that Japan uses for its wireless payment.  The improved Apple Pay will allow users to map out transit route and make payment easily with just a tap.  So unless you're from Japan and use Felica, this isn't really a big deal.

Performance 

Last but definitely not least, is the incredible performance upgrade from the previous iPhone 6s.  The iPhone 7 comes with the new quad-core A10 Fusion Chip which has:

• 2 high performance cores that are 40% faster than the old iPhone 6s
• 2 high efficiency cores that runs on 1/5 the power

Graphics performance is also improved with a GPU that is 50% faster.  These will enable the iPhone 7 to run games even better than they already do including the new Mario game that will come exclusively for Apple devices.  

Apple also claims that the iPhone 7's battery life will last 2 more hours than the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 7 Plus battery life will last 1 additional hour.  

Top that off with better and faster LTE connection up to 450 Mbps and you have all the recipes for a great gaming experience.  

Our Thoughts

Other than the mild phone redesign, no headphone jack, and Apple Air Pods, we think the iPhone 7 should be a pretty solid phone.  We're also betting the home button will get some getting used to as well.  What do you think of the new iPhone? Do you think it's worth the upgrade or will you be waiting for the next iPhone instead? (rumors suggest it should be getting a major redesign next year) or will you be getting a completely different phone?

Thanks for your support and be sure to subscribe to Anhem for more blog and product updates.