Apple iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus Launched

Apple has unveiled the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus at a special event in San Francisco. If you missed this event, you can still see the updates from event on our new live blog. The latest iPhone models comes with a new design, doing away with the antenna lines, and they will be available in two new colours: (matte) black, jet (glossy) black, in addition to gold, silver, and rose gold, seen earlier. Apple’s India website says the new iPhone models will launch in India on October 7, but there’s no word on the price.

In the US, the iPhone 7 starts at $649 (approximately Rs. 43,000) for the new 32GB entry-level variant, doing away with the 16GB model, while the iPhone 7 Plus start at $769 (approximately Rs. 51,000) 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.

(Also Read: Apple Event 2016 Highlights)

The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus also feature a redesigned home button, and pack in dust and water resistance, a first for the iPhone series.

There are camera improvements, with the iPhone 7 also getting optical image stabilisation (OIS). There’s a new 6-element f/1.8 aperture lens with 12-megapixel sensor and quad-LED with True Tone Flash. A new 7-megapixel front camera is included as well. The newest iPhone models come with a new image processing engine, which, Apple claims, delivers better, faster pictures.

(Also Read: Apple Watch Series 2 Launched)

The iPhone 7 Plus packs in the widely rumoured dual rear camera setup – one 56mm telephoto lens and the other wide-angle lens. The bigger iPhone is also capable of 2X optical zoom, with total zoom up to 10x.

The new iPhone models comes with a 25 percent brighter display with a wider colour gamut and improved colour management. The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are powered by a new A10 Fusion 64-bit quad core chip, which is 40 percent faster than the A9, and more power efficient, which means the new models have the “best battery life ever” on an iPhone.

The speakers in iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are stereo – one at the bottom, and one at the top, and twice as loud as their predecessors.

As expected, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus also ditch the headphone jack, which means your existing earphones will not work with the new iPhone models. Apple will use the Lightning port for audio. Each new iPhone model will come with bundled Lightning EarPods, and a Lightning-to-3.5mm audio adapter.

Apple also introduced new AirPods for wireless audio experience, which will not be bundled with the iPhone models. They pair easily with your Apple devices, thanks to the W1 chip inside Apple devices. They are rated to delivery 5 hours of battery life, up to 24 hours with the included charging case that is also used for carrying them around.