Apple has officially unveiled the iPhone 7 at a special event in San Francisco.
The iPhone 7 features a new design, doing away with the antenna lines and it will be available in two new colours: matte black, jet (glossy) black, in addition to gold, silver, and rose gold. It also comes in with a very slick redesigned home button. The will also be the first iPhone that will be water and dust resistant.
The iPhone 7 will start at $649 (approximately R 10 000) for the new 32GB entry-level variant, doing away with the 16GB model, while the iPhone 7 Plus start at $769 (approximately R11 500) for same 32GB storage. Apple has also doubled the storage variant on other models, with 128GB and 256GB models now rounding up the lineup. Pre-orders open this Friday and the new iPhone models will ship on September 13 in select countries. No word yet on South African launch price and date.
A few notable camera improvements, with the iPhone 7 also getting OIS. A new 6-element f/1.8 aperture lens with 12-megapixel sensor and quad-LED with True Tone Flash with a new 7-megapixel front camera is included as well.
With regards to the iPhone 7 Plus, the widely rumoured dual rear camera setup – one 56mm telephoto lens and the other wide-angle lens is indeed included. The bigger brother of the new iPhone range is also capable of 2X optical zoom, with total zoom up to 10x.
These new iPhone models will also come with a 25 percent brighter display compared to its predecessors with a wider colour gambit and improved colour management.
In terms of sound quality, The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are stereo – one at the bottom, and one at the top, and will be twice as loud as the older previous iPhone models.
The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus has also ditched the headphone jack, which means your existing earphones will not work with the new iPhone models. Apple will now use the Lightning port for audio. Each new iPhone model will come with bundled Lightning EarPods, and a Lightning-to-3.5mm audio adapter.
The all new AirPods have also been introduced by Apple for wireless audio experience, however, this will not be included with the new iPhone models. They will give you around 5 hours of battery life and up to 24 hours with the included charging case that is also used for carrying them around.
*This is a developing story and will be updated with more info shortly*
