According to expectations, Apple today announced its new generation of iPhones. The iPhones 7 and 7 Plus were designed with all the attributes we saw in rumors in the last few weeks and preserving the main design concepts of the previous generation, the main highlight being its new finish, called by the company Jet Black (a glossy black, like on the Mac Pro).
The new design, with antennas integrated into the device's own cabinet (eliminating part of the surface lines in the darkest colors) is only the first of the ten main new features of the new generation.
Second, the Incio button (Home Button) was redesigned, leaving aside the mechanical engineering used since 2007 to build on the Taptic Engine, which has become standard on MacBooks and Apple Watch in addition to enabling 3D Touch on iPhones 6s and 6s Plus.
The new iPhones are also resistant to water and dust. The interior of the devices is now much more protected, with an IP67 rating.
New Cameras
As for the cameras, the iPhone 7 has a new system of four LEDs (flash), based on six-element lenses and high-speed sensor, with optical stabilization on all models. It has a 50% greater aperture for light than the previous generation and a new image processor, which enables new digital functions.
The new software performs a scene reading and analyzes everything to define exposure, focus, white balance, capture a wide range of colors, tone map, noise reduction, combining multiple images, etc. In total, there are more than 100 billion operations performed when taking a photo, in a mere 25 milliseconds, not counting what the operating system then performs at the beginning of post-processing, for categorization and other tasks.
According to Apple, the benefits of the new camera system will be better realized in low-light photos. In addition, developers can explore it through their own applications.
For the iPhone 7 Plus, the camera system has two lenses: a wide angle and a telephoto lens. The idea of ​​the two lenses is to zoom in images, similar to the operation of a DSLR camera.
For the user, things work on the same camera app that we already know. But with this dual system, it is possible to enlarge the optical zoom up to 2 times without using software. It is also possible to expand to up to 10 times, combining hardware and software. Through combinations of the device's hardware and software, it is also possible to capture photos with depth effects, without loss of fidelity. For a cell phone, this has never been implemented before!
On the front, all devices have a new 7 megapixel FaceTime HD camera, with greater color capture and image stabilization.
Retina HD Display
Some improvements were made to the screen of the new devices, with a 25% increase in brightness and range of what Apple calls “cinema quality”. This can also be explored in applications, like Instagram, demonstrated on stage by its developers.
audio
At first, Apple increased the sound quality of the speakers, which now allow for stereo sound. EarPods will continue to be provided, but now, they will no longer be based on the 3.5mm jack. As mentioned in previous images, it was removed, in favor of using the Lightning connector.
There will be an adapter provided free of charge on all iPhones for users of conventional headsets (add this one to the list of changes Apple makes). Although the company defends the technical needs to enable new technologies and favor the use of wireless resources, critics disapprove of the measure, not only from the point of view of the popularity of analogue resources, but also on the use of DRM software in digital audio transmissions. .
AIRPODS
Speaking of wireless features, Apple has created a pair of wireless headsets with its own connectivity system. EarPods have not ceased to exist, but Apple sells its new AirPods.
They are headphones that do more than provide audio: they have a certain intelligence, provided by a new W1 processor, yes, there is a computer inside the headphones. They have sensors that recognize when the phone is in your ear, control Siri's activation with a built-in microphone, and use iCloud to synchronize the configuration for all your devices, including Macs and iPads. You can still use only one side, as if it were in phone mode hands-free.
AirPods have an autonomy of 5 hours and come with an inductive case suitable for recharging. In addition, Apple sells other wireless headsets, under the Beats brand, in different formats and colors.
A10 Fusion
a new processor quad-core for all iPhones 7 and 7 Plus. For the industry, implementing these chips in smartphones has been a challenge, as cell phones of this level do not reach the efficiency of current iPhones. But Apple announces that it has done this efficiently.
In addition to the four processing cores, Apple has included a performance controller that chooses which cores to use in each case. Two cores run at high performance for more demanding tasks, while two others are called "high efficiency", using 20% ​​of the energy needed for power.
In the end, the user can have greater performance and autonomy of use available, in the appropriate cases for each scenario. In addition, a 50% improvement in graphics performance was achieved, which promises to be explored later this year by games (such as O.Z. in Broken Kingdom, demonstrated live today) and applications such as Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom.
According to Apple, iPhones 7/7 Plus are able to provide up to two and one more hours of battery life respectively for common tasks, when compared to the current generation.
Price and availability
The iPhone 7 will be available for pre-order this Friday (September 9) and will be available on 9/16, starting at $ 650. The configurations start at 32GB (hallelujah!), 128GB and 256GB the latter are the only ones for color Jet Black.
We have new cases and accessories too, of courseFor current users, Apple will make iOS 10 available on September 13 (next Wednesday).
