It’s the annual celebration of new iPhones and Apple announce both the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
What’s new on the Apple iPhone 7
From an Apple point of view, there has been much innovation with the world’s most popular smartphone brand.
New iPhone colours
Admittedly, we’re not starting with the strongest hand here. Rolling our the colour choices for the iPhone 7 felt a little ridiculous in truth. Accompanying last years Rose Gold, Silver and Gold is Space Grey’s replacements in Black and Jet Black. Yes, Apple have opted for two different black colours this year, which seems crazier than two golds for some reason.
Bye bye 16GB iPhones
Even the most devout of iPhone supporters have admitted in the past that the lack of physical memory can be frustrating. Apple finally listened and are making 32GB the lowest memory capacity they offer. Interestingly, they also outlined that the other iPhones in their portfolio would be upgraded too. Sorry, if you are an existing iPhone owner, that doesn’t mean you. Bigger memory will only apply when resellers in Ireland clear through the smaller memory stock.
You need to rethink how headphones work
Listening to Spotify is possible thanks to a connector from the early part of last century. Countless earphones and headphones can be found around the home, as owners are safe in the knowledge that the trusty 3.5mm connection will always have a use.
Apple has never been ones to care about things like this. The iPhone 7 will be the first major smartphone to ditch the well known 3.5mm headphone socket. In its place, Apple promoted the use of their Lightning connection as a superior option for convenience and audio quality. Apple described this move as being on driven by “courage”. Whether or not such quality will be worth the seismic change remains to be seen. In truth, moving away from the 3.5mm jack has been on the cards for a while now. We, the customers, just needed a little encouragement to make the move.
One nice inclusion from Apple is a Lightning to 3.5mm adaptor which will be included with the iPhone 7. Shoppers will also find new EarPods with a lightning connection on the end. Not included in the box are the Apple Air Pods.
Apple Air Pods
Opinion seems to be pretty straight forward on the Air Pods. Wireless earphones are a smart idea, removing the tangle of cables and adding to comfort. Apple may or may not have achieved this, but the Air Pods looks terrible and rushed. The design would suggest the brief involved a drawing of the old EarPods and some Tipp-ex to remove the cables.
Not only are the AirPods expensive, you can expect to lose them an insane amount of times and frankly look like they will fall out all the time.
…and the camera
Apple have continued to develop the sensor that power their 12MP primary camera and the 7MP Facetime camera. The picture would appear to be improved, I personally can’t imagine the images being better than the Samsung Galaxy S7, but I can wait to be corrected.
Apple dedicated a large amount of time to Bokeh, but i truth it felt a little laboured as HTC had a similar feature a few years back with the M8. Sure, Apple might do it better, but that’s not the innovation that excites about an iPhone launch.
Anything else?
A new watch known as the Apple Watch Series 2 was announced, along with a Nike+ partnership. Prior to Christmas, Super Mario will get his own iOS game, while Pokémon GO will enjoy new depths with Apple Watch. The iPhone 7 will have a bigger brother in the iPhone 7 Plus, which will boast a dual-lens camera. We could go on for as long as an Apple Keynote discussing it all but we won’t.
iPhone 7 pricing
The pricing at launch would appear to be aligned to iPhone launches from recent memory.
Plan
Vodafone €60 per month
Three €55 per month
Price
€229*
€279*
*Estimated pricing
Apple iPhone 7: The verdict
We are delighted to see Apple ring in the changes with water-resistant design and 32GB memory capacity as standard. We’re willing to let the removal of a traditional headphone socket slide as the belief in lightning is strong. AirPods are bordering on the kind idea that gets laughed at in a few years time. Apple has made significant strides in their design, but ultimately the best they can hope for is to be on par with Samsung in terms of the sheer power given to the user.
With that said, the gap between Apple and Android, for me a die-hard Android user, is closer than ever. I can only imagine that was the plan all along.
The iPhone 7 launches in Ireland on September 16th.
