Encased in this recognisable form, are glimpses of the future. The classic Home button is no longer a physical button, with pressure sensors paired with haptic feedback to simulate the feel of a button press. The call speaker now doubles as a regular speaker too, giving stereo speakers for the first time on an iPhone. The phone can now survive a brief trip into the pool and live to tell the tale unscathed. Oh, and the 3.5mm audio jack has been removed to make room for other components too.
After using the iPhone 7 for over a week, it is apparent that Apple has a picture in mind of how a smartphone should be in the future. A future that has no place for an old analogue connector. The removal of the audio jack would probably be a pain point for some, but as with the floppy disks, optical drives, Apple’s own 30-pin iPod connector, and even USB Type A, Apple has always been aggressive at killing off standards that they think will not be relevant in the future.
Only time will tell whether they are right or not, but knowing Apple they probably are. The main question for would-be buyers is whether the iPhone 7 is actually worth upgrading to. It might not be the future just yet, but how does it stack up in the present?
Design
No matter how Apple calls this an all new iPhone, the inescapable truth is that this is a design nigh identical to its predecessor. Its physical dimensions are exactly the same except for that 4 to 5-grammes weight reduction. The resemblances are only skin deep though. The iPhone 7 is now water and dust resistant too (IP67), which means that it ought to be able to survive the occasional “uh oh” moments by the poolside.
No thanks to its homogenous look, the only easy way to tell if you have a new iPhone would be its colour. Namely, the Smudgy Scratchy (Jet) Black, and the Silky Stealthy Black. Pretty obvious which I prefer. Apple also took an eraser, and wiped out part of the antenna lines on the back of the phone. The Jet Black and Black has their antenna lines coloured to blend into the phone as much as possible.
The camera bump is one of those physical limitations of trying to fit as good a camera as possible, into a body that is as thin as possible. Unfortunate, but unavoidable. With the iPhone 7, the camera bump gracefully slopes into the body giving it a cleaner look. Sadly, I can’t say the same for the iPhone 7 Plus’ humongous hump, but hey, form follows function right?
Our brains love symmetrical things. We just do. So if Apple could make the design of the iPhone a bit more symmetrical, I am all for it. Even if it means the removal of the headphone jack. However, I am sure Apple did this for other reasons, and the symmetry that comes with it is probably just a happy concession. Apple have always had great attention to detail, and it really shows on the iPhone 7.
In my S7 Edge review, I called it “one of the prettiest phone in the market right now”. That hasn’t really changed with the iPhone 7 (even with the Jet Black colour). The iPhone 7's utilitarian design can only be described as pleasing.
Taptic Home button
Mechanical parts will always have wear and tear, and the Home button is perhaps the most used button on an iPhone. If you have been an iPhone user long enough, you probably heard complaints about failing Home buttons in the past. Which is why I am glad that Apple finally went with a non physical Home button, because that is one less thing to worry about breaking on the phone.
Pressure sensors on the Home button and the improved Taptic engine works in tandem to mimic the feeling of the button clicking. It doesn’t feel a hundred percent like a button click, but it’s close enough. On a large surface area like the Trackpad of a MacBook, this haptic feedback feels life-like enough to fool most people. On a tiny Home button though, it feels more like I am clicking the entire bottom area of the phone. In the battle between the feel of the button versus reliability, I pick the latter.
The new Taptic engine also enables some additional feedback throughout iOS 10. Like when the notification center hits the bottom, it produces a gentle thump. I wish I could say features like this delighted me, or say that I hope third party developers would make use of the Taptic engine to delight users with this new user experience. The fact is I find it kind of pointless, and turned it off as soon as I realised I could do so.
Display
It would be easy to write off the iPhone 7 for not having a QHD or UHD OLED display, and sticking with the same resolution as its antecedent. However, its modest setup actually boasts some impressive viewing experience. The display is bright, sharp, and the colours looked stunning. This could be the best LCD panel I have seen on a phone, and that is despite not having the most pixel packed screen. It has a new display that uses the DCI-P3 standard which enables the viewing of a wider colour gamut.
3D Touch is still present, and still just as forgettable as before. While strides have been made, and 3D Touch now does more throughout iOS 10, the functionalities it enables aren't entirely useful most of the time.
The potential for 3D Touch is definitely there, and Apple’s default keyboard is testament to that. It was a feature that made editing text a whole lot easier on the phone. It is a great example of 3D Touch done right, and if there were more such examples, it could be a game changer. Hopefully, Apple is waiting for a bigger change in UI design to fully utilise the power of 3D Touch.
(3D Touch enhancements in iOS 10. Left: 3D Touch for more options, Right: Apps now shows widgets too.)
Audio
When the original iPhone was announced, Steve Jobs called it three things. A widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough Internet communications device. The iPod was a monumental product for Apple, and along with iTunes, cemented the company’s standing in the era of digital music. The acquisition of Beats, and Apple Music, shows how committed they are to the music industry.
Which means that whatever changes they make to the iPhone 7, it is going to be an important play.
Yes, I am finally going to address the big one.
The iPhone 7 doesn’t have a headphone jack.
Apple says that this is so that they can make space for better cameras, a better Taptic Engine, and bigger batteries. I think there were more factors at play though. All of the aforementioned features probably could have been achieved with a slightly thicker phone. I think that Apple genuinely believes that wireless is the way forward (I do so too), and there was no point in delaying the inevitable. Instead, by embracing it, it could give the industry the nudge they have always needed.
Now that there is no more crutch to lean on, accessories makers have to step up their game and make better wireless products. Apple themselves are leading the charge by creating their own custom wireless chip the W1 that allows for a quick and painless connection between two devices. The first of those products would be Apple’s own AirPods, and the demos online looks promising.
This is also a huge double-edged sword. In an attempt to create a better user experience, Apple has simply added another locked gate in their walled-garden. If you have a pair of traditional bluetooth earbuds like the Jaybird X2 that I have, it still connects using the old clunky method as before. You need earbuds with a W1 chip to reap the benefits, and those can only be found in the earphones that Apple makes.
If Apple could improve the wireless experience for all, rather than just for their own peripherals, I am sure a lot more people will be convinced by their crusade against wires. Personally, I have been using wireless earbuds for a while now, and love not having to deal with wires.
For those not on-board the wireless train just yet, Apple included a pair of Lightning connected EarPods, as well as a Lightning to headphone jack adapter in the box so you can still use existing earphones. When you lose the adapter (and you are most likely going to), you can get it from Apple at S$14 a pop. You can definitely count on accessories manufacturers jumping on board to widen the variety soon as well.
In a less controversial way to improve the audio experience on the iPhone 7, it now has stereo speakers. Which should make for a more enjoyable experience watching a quick video on YouTube or what not. The speakers actually sound pretty good considering the phone has to be water resistant too. In case you're looking for where the speakers are, one is the call speaker, the other is at the bottom of the phone.
Performance
Apple gets a lot of flak for their somewhat “conservative” specifications all the time. While Android devices have moved on to Octa-core, or even Deca-core CPU, Apple finally made the switch to a Quad-core CPU with the A10 Fusion. Even the A9 chip was just Dual-core. In fact, iPhones only got 2GB of RAM for the first time last year, and this year we are already seeing Android phones with 6GB of RAM.
None of those numbers actually reflect their real life performance of course. Year after year, despite what the numbers say, Android devices has been outgunned by their iOS counterparts. Games runs smoother, apps launches quicker, and day to day operations is generally faster. If benchmark applications can be taken as gospel, the iPhone 7 is the most powerful phone in the market right now. So yeah, I wouldn't worry too much about the performance of the iPhone 7.
Before I talk about battery life, it is probably important to discuss the specificities of the A10 Fusion chipset. While it is a Quad-core CPU, it actually uses a combination of two high performance cores, and two low power cores. So while doing less intensive tasks, the phone can sip power by using the low power cores instead. It also uses a new GPU that delivers 50% better graphics performance according to Apple.
So far I have yet to run the iPhone 7 dry in a single day or normal use, which is more than enough for my needs. Apple says that you can get around 2 more hours of use out of the iPhone 7 compared to the 6S, and so far that seems about right.
iOS 10
In its 10th iteration, iOS is now one of the oldest mobile operating system around. Despite a fresh coat of paint, it looks largely the same since its inception. With iOS 10, Apple is changing one of its staple feature, “Slide to Unlock”.
Instead of sliding to unlock like every other iOS before this, you now press the home button to unlock. Which makes sense since you are most likely using Touch ID already, so this results in less finger movement. This feature was clearly designed to work in tandem with the “Raise to wake” feature which relies of the motion co-processor on the phone to wake the phone when you pick it up. If you really hate pressing the button, you can even go into Settings, General, Accessibilities and turn on “Rest Finger to Open”.
Now you can unlock your phone just by raising it while holding your thumb on the Home button. No button press needed at all. Oh, and the Touch ID on the iPhone 7 is still just as quick.
Photos got a huge upgrade too with the ability to automatically sort your photos for you with what Apple calls “advanced computer vision”. Search for “cats”, and Photos app shows you photos with cats in it. If you have tons of unorganised photos over the years, this would be a huge feature on its own. Photos can also create mini-movies from photos and videos that you took. I have been using Google Photos for a while now which does almost the same things, and it’s nice to finally have this natively on iOS.
(Widgets now lives on the left side of the home screen, and Control Center got a nice visual overhaul.)
Overall, iOS 10 is a solid upgrade to what was already a matured operating system from Apple. It comes with improvements all round the OS, and it’s hard to fault that. I did noticed very minor dropped frames from time to time, and once the Home button and power button even stopped responding until I restarted the phone. I have not encountered the same issue since, but thought it is worth mentioning. This is a highly advanced operating system with tons of new features, and teething issues are always bound to be present. Knowing Apple, these will be fixed eventually.
If you want to learn about more new features about iOS 10, TechRadar has a nice compilation over here.
Camera
Apple has always been damn proud of their cameras. Just look at their Shot on iPhone advertising campaign. They probably have the right to be. Part of the explosion in mobile photography is probably due in part to how good the cameras were on early iPhones. That in turn brought fierce competition in this space, driving innovations.
Apple hasn’t really been at the top of their game recently, with its Android competitors (in particularly Samsung) making great strides in the camera department. This year I think we have a solid upgrade. The resolution remained the same at 12MP, but there is a new f/1.8 lens. Optical image stabilisation has found its way to the smaller device as well, and not just limited to its bigger brother. This should translate into better low light performance, improving over what was the iPhone 6S’s weakest area. No fancy dual camera setup here on the smaller iPhone 7. There is a new custom image signal processor too which should mean better and faster image processing that produces nicer looking images.
If you are upgrading from an iPhone 6S, the daylight photos will probably be pretty similar. The wider aperture produces a slightly shallower depth of field, and the colours are more vibrant. This is especially so when viewing the photos on the screen of the iPhone 7 itself.
The iPhone 7 uses a wider gamut colour space, which allows it to store and display more colour info in its JPEG photos. The catch is that you would have to view it on a compatible display too to reap the rewards. It uses the DCI-P3 colour gamut instead of the typical sRGB.
It comes as no surprise that when there is ample light, the camera takes some great looking photos. Good dynamic range, nice details, and excellent colours. The iPhone camera leans towards a more natural looking image with truer to life white balance and colours.
When the light goes down, the f/1.8 lens performs admirably, with good details, accurate colours, and decent brightness. I would say it is within stone’s throw of the Galaxy S7. The brightness in photos are comparable, and often the image processing looks cleaner than the Galaxy S7. The Galaxy S7 has its trump card though which is its Dual Pixel sensor which allows for fast autofocus. At times, the iPhone 7 would struggle to focus on a subject that the Galaxy S7 found almost immediately.
You know it’s a good camera when you just feel like taking a snap of everything you see around you. The iPhone 7 is one of those phones.
Full resolution images can be found here.
On a side note, the front iSight camera has been increased to 7MP. It is not as wide-angled as Samsung’s offering, and the f/2.2 lens isn’t quite as bright too. But I still tend to prefer the front camera on the iPhone 7 for taking more natural looking images.
If you prefer a more detailed analysis for the camera, DxOmark just published their camera review for the iPhone 7.
------
For a “number change” model, perhaps the iPhone 7 might seem a bit uninspiring to most. The changes to its design are minimal, and the additional features are more like fine-tunings rather than ground-breaking. It’s all perspective though. For those expecting a major design refresh this year, these minor changes to the iPhone 7 would probably disappoint you. For me though, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
The iPhone 7 is a terrific phone, and a marvellous piece of technology. It is the most refined, and most well-rounded iPhone that Apple has ever shipped. The processor is a beast, the screen is excellent, the cameras are superb, the phones are now more durable, the battery lasts longer, and there are now stereo speakers. iOS is still a joy to use with its smooth operation, and fast performance.
Or if you prefer a bigger device, there is the iPhone 7 Plus with better battery life, and “telephoto” lens. While all the telephoto lens offer is two times "zoom" for now, Apple will be introducing an additional “Portrait” mode for nicer looking “bokeh” effects in future updates.
If you need a new phone now, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are pretty much the best iPhones you can buy. It starts from a less claustrophobic 32GB, and proceeds on to 128GB and 256GB.
Some may consider the iPhone 7 series to be an iPhone 6SE, just to tide Apple until the much rumoured 10th anniversary iPhone. There is no doubt that the next iPhone will be better than the current one. That is just how things are supposed to be. But I live in the present, and at this point in time the iPhone 7 is a damn good phone.
As the iPhone marches into its 10th anniversary next year, it is hard not to look back in wonderment at how it has changed the way we live, work, play, and communicate. Even if you have not used an iPhone before, its influence could be felt in basically every modern smartphone in the industry. You have got to give credit to Apple for that.
