Apple Announces iPhone 7, 7 Plus

Apple reveals exactly what everyone was expecting in this year's September event with the latest incarnation of the iPhone-- the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, now featuring IP67-rated stainless steel construction together with a slew of internal upgrades.

iPhone 7 revealBut before we get to the new iPhone, one has to mention the opening of the event in question. In a move simultaneously unbelievable and inevitable Nintendo took the stage to announce its first iPhone game, Super Mario Run. Demonstrated by company guru Shigeru Miyamoto, the game will surely be a first of surely many Nintendo titles hitting iOS, as the ailing Japanese company looks to boost its bottom line by developing games for machines other than its own.

Anyway, back to the iPhone. Available in now traditional 7 and 7 Plus forms, the smartphones comes in a gloss jet black finish as well as the familiar silver and rose gold, and has a rebuilt Home button featuring a Taptic engine similar to that found in the touchpad found in the latest MacBooks. Powering it is new processor, the A10 Fusion, featuring a 4-core CPU and 6-core GPU for a 40% speed boost over the A9.

The A10 Fusion also allows for even longer battery life-- up to 2 more hours than the iPhone 6s, Apple claims.

Meanwhile the rear-facing camera gets optical image stabilisation, an f/1.8 aperture 6-element lens, faster 12MP sensor, quad-LED True Tone flash and an Apple-designed image signal processor promising to automatically improve photos. The FaceTime shooter also gets an improvement in the shape of a 7MP shooter.

Interestingly the iPhone 7 Plus gets 2 cameras-- one wide-angle, the other telephoto. Apple says the combination allows x2 optical zoom, summoned through a simple tap on the Photo app, as well as DSLR-style shallow depth of field in conjunction with some clever software.

On the audio side, the iPhone 7 gets stereo speakers and, as rumours long suggested, the elimination of the 3.5mm headphone jack. Described as a move of "bravery" by the company, the humble, long-lived connector makes way for a sole Lightning port, as the EarPods included with the iPhone are Lightning-enabled. Customers insisting to stick with previously owned headphones will still be able to do so, though, as the company also includes an appropriate adapter.

As for customers wanting a cable-free life Apple provides wireless EarPods dubbed "AirPods," featuring built-in microphones, touch control and up to 5 hours of use on a single charge. Setup promises to be easy, since an iCloud-enabled process covers connections across all iDevices, with no additional pairing or unpairing. A new W1 chip handles connectivity, and this will be found in at least one more Apple product, the Beats Solo 3 Wireless headphones.

The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus hit the market on 16 September with 32, 128 and 256GB of storage.

Go iPhone 7