At an event here in San Francisco, Apple today announced the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus with improvements in the design, camera and performance front. For starters, the new iPhones are IP67 water and dust resistant like few phones from Samsung and Sony.
The phones might look familiar from the front with a 4.7” display or 5.5” display but once your flip It over, you get to see the upgrades in the camera with a dual 12 Megapixel camera arrangement on the 7 Plus which delivers 2X optical and 10X digital zoom. The 7 packs a single 12MP rear camera. The front facing camera has been upgraded to 7 Megapixels.
In terms of the colours, apart from the usual rose gold, gold, silver users now get a new black and jet black option.
The home button has been upgraded to a force touch based system which you might seen on Macbooks.The iPhone 7 no longer has a headphone jack and it will ship with a pair of lightning EarPods and a lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack converter to make the transition less painful.
Apple is doing away with the 16GB and 64GB storage options of the iPhone and the base model now starts at 32GB and goes all the way up to 128GB and 256GB.
Apple is also reigniting the wireless headphones space with the introduction of the AirPods or in more simple terms in-ear bluetooth headphones and enable a wireless audio experience on the iPhone, iPad, Mac and even Apple Watch. At the heart the AirPods is the new Apple W1 chip which the company claims can deliver high-quality audio at low power. The AirPods can offer 5 hours of run time on a single charge and it ships with a charging case and promises 24 hours of battery life.
The company also revealed the upgraded Apple Watch – the Watch Series 2 now with built-in GPS and water resistance up to 50 meters. It also features a brighter display for better outdoor visibility and is powered by a dual-core processor and runs on the latest watch OS 3 and will be available in India starting at Rs.32900. Apple also announced a partnership with Nike for the Apple Watch Nike+ with a Nike Sport band aimed at runners.
The iPhone 7 pricing starts at Rs.60000 and is hitting Indian shores on October 7thalong with the new Apple Watches.The iOS 10 update for iOS devices and watchOS 3 starts rolling out on September 14. The wireless AirPods will be available in late October for Rs.15,400.
