The iPhone 7: what’s to like and what’s a “yikes”

Kate Gaynor, Staff Writer

Apple has once again (unsurprisingly) revealed just how on top of things they are when it comes to cellular technology. Following their trend of annual September releases, Apple officially made the iPhone 7 available for purchase on September 7th, 2016.

Throughout the summer, the public speculated on what new, exciting changes would come along with the release of this new Apple product. Now that the phone is out, people finally can access the answers to their questions. And while the phone may not be able to contact the dead or predict the future, it does have some pretty inspiring new features.

  • New Colors

After many years of continuously creating iPhones in this color, Apple decided to abandon Space Gray in the making of the iPhone 7. Even though Space Gray is a true classic that will be missed, along with its termination came two new colors. These colors are both shades of black: one is Jet Black and another is Black with a matte finish. The new phone is also sold in gold, rose gold, and silver.

  • Water Resistant

Keeping up with competitor Samsung, Apple has structured the iPhone 7 to make it dust and water resistant. Does this mean that every person with the iPhone 7 should use it when scuba diving? No, because the key word here is resistant, not proof. However, unlike the previous phones, this one might have a chance at recovery if it is, I don’t know, accidentally dropped in the toilet.

  • Speedy Processing

I’m not going to pretend to understand all of the fancy technology here, but apparently this new phone contains a chip that allows it to process things twice as fast as the iPhone 6. This feature will allow people to do important things on their phones more quickly, like making memes out of the presidential election or something.

  • Battery Life

Perhaps the most significant improvement of them all: the battery life supposedly lasts two hours longer than the iPhone 6. Apple has answered our prayers!

  • Camera/Photos

Not only are the cameras on this new iPhone way more high quality, but now there’s two of them! One of the cameras on the back side of the phone is a telephoto lens, which signifies that zoomed in pictures will be much clearer.

 

So I’ve told you about most of the characteristics of the iPhone 7 that people are excited to see. Here’s some features that may make people say “no thanks, I’ll keep my 6.”

  • Headphone jack no longer exists: 

    A water-resistant iPhone can seriously save you from rain and other liquids
    A water-resistant iPhone can seriously save you from rain and other liquids

What does this mean?? Unfortunately, Apple has proclaimed that the inclusion of a headphone jack is unnecessary and outdated. To listen to music on this new phone, a person must use Bluetooth headsets, Lightning-based headphones or use a Lightning to audio adaptor. This change is definitely among the most drastic for iPhone users.

  • There is no 16GB Model:

The iPhone 7 is only available in 32GB, 128GB, and 256GB. This is really only bad news in terms of the price, considering less gigabytes=less expensive.

  • The exterior design isn’t much different:

Despite the notion that each generation iPhone gets thinner and thinner, the iPhone 7 is the same thickness as the iPhone 6. Hopefully, these new phones are also not as flexible as their predecessors.