I still can't get over the headphone jack. Apple does have a good record of abandoning technologies at the right time (floppies, CDs, Flash, etc) but the biggest difference is that those technologies were all on the downward slope of their popularity when Apple made the move and all had solid replacements available at the time. The headphone jack is just as popular today as it has ever been and it is still more convenient and dependable than wireless headphones for most people in most situations. Maybe that changes soon or maybe AirPods solve this for iOS users (they by design can't be a universal solution) but I can't help but feel that Apple is jumping the gun on dropping the jack. Although as an iPhone user, I hope I'm wrong.<p>Side note, I think it is hilarious that Apple can't get the AirPods to ship at the same time as the iPhone. Anyone who buys the new phone on release is going to be stuck with the crappy lightning headphones for at least a month and a half.
I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that cameras are nice and so are Retina displays but what we'd really like to see is a big splashy page about whatever's new with the Secure Enclave Processor in the 7.<p>Not because there's anything wrong with the 6! Ivan Krstic's talk about Apple platform security at Black Hat was probably the best talk of the whole event. Nobody is delivering seamlessly integrated chipset-up-through-application security the way Apple is. Forget about in mobile devices; I mean, in computing, period.<p>I'm excited to learn what else is coming there!
I'm not even upset about the headphone jack. Whatever. I'm really upset because you won't be able to do the following:<p>1.) Audio+GPS+Charging in non-Bluetooth Car.<p>2.) Listening to music at desk and still have enough charge for the Audio+GPS for the drive home.<p>3.) No more listening to music/audiobooks as I fall asleep because in the morning the iPhone won't be charged for my desk usage the next day unless I wake up and plug it back in during my sleep.<p>They can do whatever they want with the headphone jack, but pretending like we don't need to plug the phone in!! Thats daft.
I somehow expected a ton of conversation around the new A10 Fusion chip. After 340+ comments I couldn't find any mention of it (I just did a page search for A10, A10 Fusion). Apple were already ahead with their per-core performance but seems like they have widened the gap even further this time with their version of the big.LITTLE arrangement. Wonder how Qualcomm's next chips will be. From what I heard, 820 will be the last custom chip they will do and from now on the CPU will be just the reference ARM chips and they will focus on the GPU and better integration of radios on the chip. Someone with more knowledge (about Apple's and Qualcomm's chip) please fill in.
It's water resistant but water damage isn't covered under warranty? How can you have it both ways like that?<p>"Water resistance IP67 under IEC standard 60529. Liquid damage not covered under warranty."<p>How does one make such a big deal of it being water resistant (Product film: 1m 35s; "...to make this the first water resistant iPhone") but not cover liquid damage under warranty?
They used the word "courage" during the keynote. I would say the actual words are "lock in" and "licensing fees". I would have been ok with USB-C because at least those will be able to move between machines.<p>The adapter is useless for me since it doesn't allow power to be supplied so my long drives are now problematic. I guess I'll have to take that into account on buying the next car.
I'm disappointed by how boring the two-camera solution in the 7 Plus is. I was really hoping they were going show something interesting, like fusion of the two sensors through computational photography into one, with better low-light performance and less noise through downsampling. Or take +1 & -1 exposures simultaneously for a greater dynamic range.<p>Instead we got a button to switch from one lens to the other, for a 2x optical zoom. That's it. 99% of the time that second sensor and lens will do absolutely zilch. The computational bokeh appears to only use the 56mm lens for the actual photo, and the other lens to capture a depth map to compute the fake bokeh. This is hardly any better than the existing fake bokeh solutions shown many times before on Androids, Nokias and in iOS apps over the years that do the same, except it's a bit faster. The whole thing feels like just another checkbox feature, with very little actual value.
Well, it's official - Apple has failed again! Doomed I tell you, doomed! Forget the performance enhancements, better battery life, fantastic new cameras, etc, etc - I have to use a new earbud cable. Plus, Jony Ive is going around putting super glue in all the old iPhone audio jacks, so I can't even use my existing earbuds with my existing iPhone. Plus, Apple is charging me $0.00 for the adapter so that I can use my ratty old earbuds with my new phone. Doomed, I tell you.
The premiere of the next mbp next year:
"And... We listened to you. We've been hearing that you are upset about not being able to use the same headphones for your computer and iphone 7. We fixed that. We've removed the 3.5mm jack from the new mbp. It's magical."
I have two thoughts on the headphone jack:<p>1. Most of the use cases being discussed here are irrelevant for the average iPhone user. Charging and listening at the same time is not a thing for most users. I know there are perfectly reasonable scenarios where it is useful, but most people don't care. Regarding battery life: personally, I use my iPhone quite a lot, often with bluetooth headphones, and I have had to charge it only once or twice during the daytime in the last two years. If you play a lot of games, or use GPS intensively for a few hours, then battery life could be an issue. For the average consumer, I don't think it will be a major concern.<p>2. OTOH, in the last few years headphones have become a very, very big market. They are a huge status symbol for teenagers and early 20-somethings. If you've saved a lot of money to afford a pair in that stage of life, the headphone jack is a big deal. It's not going to be "cool" to carry around an adapter all the time, and regardless people will hear "no headphone jack" and be annoyed. That demographic seems key to me in maintaining Apple's market lead over the long term, i.e. trend-setting young people.<p>Overall, I actually think that (2) will be a very big issue. Whilst I am of the opinion that wires are horrible in general, Apple may have misread its market here.
<p><pre><code> The high-gloss finish of the Jet Black iPhone 7 is
achieved through a precision nine-step anodization and
polishing process. Its surface is equally as hard as
other anodized Apple products; however, its high shine
may show fine micro-abrasions with use. If you are
concerned about this, we suggest you use one of the many
cases available to protect your iPhone.[1]
</code></pre>
I think I'd go for the Black one instead.<p>[1]<a href="http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-7" rel="nofollow">http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-7</a>
Can the 3.5mm to Lightning adapters be legally produced without paying royalties to Apple for using the Lightning connector?<p>On a related note: I wonder if one reason for eliminating the jack is to close that open interface which some devices like the "Square" were using. I'm not sure how much of an impact this has though; it was just a thought.
Feeling pretty disillusioned by another iPhone and
iOS update. The 3.5mm coupled with lightning instead of USB-C just look like obvious traps for lock in with no real gain (5hr of playback time?!)<p>iOS still continues its march of adding minor features that should be in regular OTA updates and packing them up with some serious marketing hype. There's barely any improvement here and most of the features are already well implemented in Android / Google Apps or Facebook Messenger.<p>Disappointing.
This is a Nice Device. You can read my other comments lamenting the headphone jack, this comment isn't about that.<p>The screen is beautiful. The two cameras are a clever trick that I hope work as well as advertised -- and their cameras have been historically very good. Splash resistance is <i>overdue</i>, but appreciated.<p>But A10 is a bit of a disappointment [1][2], only as powerful as the A9X. Do they have any new hardware encode/decode blocks at least?<p>With A9 they were having yield issues and had to different traces being manufactured by two different fabs to enhance capacity. What do we know on the chip front?<p>[1] <a href="https://www.techtastic.nl/smartphones/apple-a10-soc-van-iphone-7-net-zo-snel-als-ipad-pro/" rel="nofollow">https://www.techtastic.nl/smartphones/apple-a10-soc-van-ipho...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/iphone-7-benchmarked-here-s-how-powerful-apple-s-new-phone-might-be" rel="nofollow">http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/iphone-7-benchmarked-here...</a>
I found the WhatsApp integration the most intriguing part of the announcement. By allowing calls from WhatsApp to also be received, I am assuming they are making the native calling/iMessaging API available to any iOS application.<p>While messaging with iMessage, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, etc. can be done over WiFi only, calling is traditionally reliant on a cellular provider. The new iPhone only requires a WiFi network, and with the proliferation of WiFi and the first city-wide networks (e.g. Barcelona), it is possible that in the next decade all communication will be done over the Internet.<p>Also, during a recent trip to Japan I saw an $120 SIM card that gives unlimited Internet access for a year. This works out to $10/month, which is far less than what I pay for Verizon. So in a way this new iPhone may eventually cause cellular networks to primarily become providers of remote Internet access, as telephony shifts to the apps that the local people use to connect with each other.
Honestly if you had an iPhone 6 why would you upgrade? Better battery life is cool, and it being waterproof is novel. However, its basically the same phone for the end consumer.
Enough about the headphone jack going away - isn't anyone concerned with how big of a deal they made about Pokemon on the Apple watch?<p>Apple looked so uncool and out of it when they continued to talk about it. Half the crowd has forgotten Pokemon Go even existed by this point.
I'm seriously not comfortable with getting audio through a digital port that has an authentication chip built in. That's HDCP and DRM for music waiting to burst into life.<p>"Unauthorized playback."
What are they going to do with the 3.5mm audio jacks on Macs? So Apple removes the 3.5mm audio jack from the phone & adds a lightening port to the mac?<p>It makes me imagine how nice it would have been to ditch both the 3.5mm & lightening port & replace it with a USB-C port across product lines.<p>Obviously that would have been even more drastic in many ways, but I can't help but think that they have painted themselves into a strange corner.
Cool - more dongles, adaptors + what not to carry around and lose and then pay apple another $40 for each time. I say this writing on my Thunderbolt display that has since been rendered obsolete if I ever want a new macbook
I submitted the URL for archival as have a lot of other people done, but what I found strange is that there are archived versions of "page not found" results going all the way back to 2014.<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160907200621*/http://www.apple.com/iphone-7/" rel="nofollow">http://web.archive.org/web/20160907200621*/http://www.apple....</a><p>Meanwhile, nobody has attempted to archive links for iPhone 8.<p>I guess maybe the IA crawlers found links to the page from elsewhere. Links made either by mistake or by someone making a joke about the release of iPhone 7 back in 2014 and betting on people not actually following the link. I dunno.
I have a design issue with AirPods. When my earphones (with wire) fall off (and it happens when you're running or doing some other similar activity), I know for sure, that me or someone else accidentally won't crush them, because the wires often prevent them from falling on the floor. I don't know how the current design of AirPods would prevent that.
2.4Ghz is super congested. 802.11g is. Bluetooth is. Even your microwave is on 2.4GHz. If everybody starts to use Bluetooth headphones all the time, I fear it's gonna make it totally unusable.
so, what's the next market/eco-system?<p>mobiles are mature products and the players are strictly in cash-cow or market share mode. nothing of importance is changing.<p>I've got an iphone se and an iphone 4 and you can't tell me that's the most they can do for 6 years of product development by one of the richest companies in the world. (yes i know that it's faster with more a and more b and more c etc)<p>Apple needs to drip feed improvements over the next x years to keep sales up so we can't expect anything game changing.<p>"The Others" are trying this and that but nothing seems to be sticking, probably not able to drive consumer desire enough.<p>so if nothing is happening, what is the post-phone next-big-thing to get into?
> "Up to 5hr. of battery life on one charge"<p>How the fuck is it acceptable to completely remove the jack and replace it with this 'superior' technology?
I think Apple needs to add a few younger people to their executive team, because it seams they no longer can even pretend to be exited during the presentation.
I know this is a minority use case, but my iPhone is a great tool for testing whether audio equipment is working or not when I'm doing media system installs. Simply plug in the iPhone and play some sounds. Alas...
They just solidified the iPhone SE as the best product they offer. No way to charge the iPhone7 and use wired headphones at the same time. A camera wart so the phone isn't flat like the SE. The loss of extra battery by going with a wart over a thicker, easier to hold phone like the SE.<p>I'll be sticking with my 5S, and my wife is no longer upgrading her 4S to the 7 as we were planning.<p>We love our iPhones, but we do need to replace hers and now looking for non-Apple alternatives since while I prefer the SE over everything on the market, she thought she was going to want the 7 Plus.
The keynote was trying to boast the gaming capabilities with a demo of… 400 monkeys.<p>Weak. Give me 400 monkeys, then 4000 monkeys, then 400 000 monkeys, and now the monkeys are forming a fractal, but the fractal is just the surface of a sphere, and zooming out there are a million spheres, and the spheres form… a monkey.<p>Now THAT's a demo.
picture two friends in a car: "oh hey this music is the jam, let me play it for you."<p>5 minutes of dicking with bluetooth pairing later: "FUCKING BLUETOOTH GODDAMN IT. welp, never mind"<p>(conversational lull follows)
From the website, big and bold: "iPhone. Now in stereo."<p>Honest question, not having owned an iPhone before - is this really the first iPhone that can produce stereo sound through the speakers? If true, that seems like a crazy thing to advertise given how standard a feature it has been in most phones for so long. On the other hand, if iPhones have had stereo output already, why shout about it now?
Weird. Nowhere is stated the amount of RAM the phone has. Not even <a href="http://www.apple.com/iphone-7/specs/" rel="nofollow">http://www.apple.com/iphone-7/specs/</a><p>Wikipedia claims 1GB (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_7" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_7</a>). Can't be right?
One thing that hasn't been mentioned is AirPods seem super useful for taking phone calls and all the other apps such as Snapchat, I would wear them off all day.<p>Airpods might become the virtual reality for your ears.
I was really curious how they'd handle wireless audio. In my experience, Bluetooth is slow to pair, connect, and glitchy in common environments. So I find it very indicative that the new Airpods do <i>not</i> mention Bluetooth, and the Beats Solo3 cryptically mentions "Connections: Bluetooth, Wireless" on its product page [1]. Sadly, I don't expect them to open their tech to 3rd parties soon :(<p>[1] <a href="http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MNEN2LL/A/beats-solo3-wireless-on-ear-headphones-gloss-black?cid=app_Beats_Solo3Wireless_PDP_US_AOS_Solo3Wireless" rel="nofollow">http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MNEN2LL/A/beats-solo3-wire...</a>
I've been trying out $49 Android phones lately after using an iPhone 6 Plus for over a year.<p>Android is getting to the point where most users will not really notice a difference between Android and IOS, even on a very inexpensive device.
I especially enjoyed the last second comment under his breath regarding the matte black iPhone 7 pricing.<p>32GB standard for all models, except the matte black, which will ONLY come in 128GB, and you'll be paying $100 more at $750.<p>Nice underhanded move by Apple to maximize profit for what will undoubtedly be the most popular color.<p>First they force everyone to buy the 32GB upgrade last year on the 6S, now you're forced to do the same to 128GB, unless you want a rose colored phone.<p>The camera upgrade looks nice, but the headphone jack is a joke. Another wire that will inevitably fall apart like the other Apple lightning connectors.<p>EDIT: Jet Black, NOT Matte Black. Still dumb.
The Airpods look like a genuine improvement. I really hate untangling my earphones every time I use them. The carrying case looks brilliant; much nicer to carry a smooth case than a mess of wires in my pocket.
Really boring and hard to justify the cash. Wish I had a 6S so I could keep it for a year or so... I have iOS 10 right now and it's quite laggy on my 6.<p>Regarding the comments about how do I charge and listen, I accidentally found this dock[0]. Not sure if it's a new product.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MNN62/iphone-lightning-dock-black?fnode=42" rel="nofollow">http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MNN62/iphone-lightning-doc...</a>
I'm curious if this spells the end for the headphone jack in the industry. Now that's gone from the iPhone, should we expect other phones to drop it? What about tablets and laptops?
Is this website a terrible viewing experience for anyone else? The videos don't work, and I can't scroll the slideshows unless I flick super fast. I'm on Chrome desktop.
Surprised to see them not move from Lighting to USB-C with this. Now we'll have a new generation of EarPods that won't fit their new generation of MacBooks. It seems disjointed for how coherent a company like Apple tends to be, now that they had the opportunity to unite their product line better with purely digital audio.<p>Was USB-C supposed to be their future or not...? It sounded like it when they introduced the MacBook. Do their teams communicate well with a lack of strife?
I think the only people that are annoyed with the camera bulge (a functional bulge if there ever was one) are people with OCD -- it "ruins" the perfectly straight edge. It's not like you'll ever feel it in your pocket or something.<p>Meanwhile, just a decade or so ago most phones had camera bulges, edge bulges, antennas that stretched out from the body, were 3-4 times the thickness, etc.
Great, now they have a phone with double camera wart and no jack.<p>Also what's up with Apple being so obsessed about pictures? I know you want to have the nude selfie in the toilet to be the best as possible, but come on!<p>And everything revolves around fitness. People wont get up from their bum, just because their watch tells them to. And the other who already do fitness don't need a watch to tell them how fit they are. They already know. Because they can feel it.<p>And I almost forgot that having now two different types of back casing is a feature apparently.<p>Last but not least, Apple is still ignoring the cries of millions of users about the battery life. That majority of the people would trade in the slim design for days worth of juice.<p>Who cares about paper thin phones when you have to put them into a case with extra battery within it to have it powered through the day?<p>Who cares about the seamless Jet Black casing when you put the phone into an ugly plastic case?<p>It looks like 'Form Over Function' again for Apple.<p>Good job apple, this is probably the most uninteresting keynote ever. Except for the people dancing in stockings at the end.
I'm having a hard time seeing the value add on the AirPods that justifies paying ~5x the cost of stock Bluetooth earphones.<p>Siri integration and easier charging is definitely really cool, but not worth paying $120 over regular Bluetooth headphones that will probably be copy cat'ing that functionality in t minus 3, 2, 1...
Absolutely amazing HN thread, 1711 comment as of now and less then 10 are on A10 SoC?<p>It is truly a astonishing, how they manage to use the same TSMC 16nm, and get 40% single core performance increase. The rumors is the same SoC core from A9 but 40% higher clock speed from 1.8Ghz to 2.6Ghz, while keeping the same thermal envelop.<p>Some people were wondering if these Smartphone CPU can easily scale up the clockspeed. Turns out it can. And the performance could now exceed the baseline performance of Macbook.<p>i.e, Apart from compatibility reason, there is no longer a case for Apple to continue and use Intel CPU. A Quad Core A10 may even outrun the current Macbook Pro given the similar TDP.
I do hope that this will push Bluetooth technology forwards - on my android devices bluetooth audio sound-quality is poor and skips when you launch resource-intensive applications. Also, the UI for syncing and selecting bluetooth devices is generally mediocre and confusing.
Question: besides a cool accessory (airpods), and a weird double camera thing, what's really pushing forward here?<p>Galaxies have been splash proof for some generations, and Bluetooth phones aren't new (only the design of this one seems to beat everything else).<p>Other than that, only traditional Moores Law advancements, like, more battery, more RAM, more processing power. None of these are enabling techs, in that they don't enable you to do anything that you can't with older devices.<p>So, I guess, update when the old one gives up the ghost?
It's hard to know without it in my hands how big of a deal the stereo camera is going to be. The fact that it wasn't designed for depth (at least publicly stated) makes it a little unnerving - for example having to compensate for two separate focal lengths to get good parallax is going to be a pain. However we built our SLAM around taking on dual cameras IF they happened to show up so we should be ok with some parameter changes on each input.<p>Anyway, AR is about to explode.
I'll give them credit for going deeper into features in he new phones. I question whether people will think to use them if they go into their phone for a specific task.
Honest question - Aren't IPhones already pretty water resistant?<p>Unless getting dunked in water, I haven't heard of anyone having any issues with water damaging their IPhone.
Yawn.<p>Here's an ad for the 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Aire. (Available "with two four-barrel carburetors!" Two-tone paint! Tailfins!) There's about as much difference between the new IPhone and the N-1 model as there was between the 1956 and 1957 Chevys.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-HelvOG5RE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-HelvOG5RE</a>
I'm most concerned about voice quality. Any indication that there are more or better quality microphones.<p>Also, I'm concerned about the LTE: on the Verizon network it sounds like they're using the same modem as the Galaxy S7.
<a href="https://www.qualcomm.com/products/snapdragon/modems/x12" rel="nofollow">https://www.qualcomm.com/products/snapdragon/modems/x12</a><p>Is that correct?
I won't be buying the new iPhone but I thinks removing the headphone jack seems like an extremely small problem.<p>The main issue seems to be that you now can't charge and listen to music at the same time. How often do you actually do that? In the past 5 years I have probably done that once.<p>For those of you who do think it is an inconvenience, I bet there will be a product on the market in 2 weeks that eliminates this problem.
I buy a new iPhone every year. I think phone utilization is so high that around $1 a day is nothing for it.<p>Compare it with cars clothes and other things
I want a combination wallet+airpod dock+phone battery case. Wallet, airpod dock, retractable lightning connector (to charge iPhone), retractable usb cable (to charge battery). Battery doesn't need to be huge, just enough to get you another 20% or so phone charge -- and I imagine that would be enough battery for a whole lot of airpod recharges.
I wish people would care for the environment more and keep their phones and devices for longer.<p>Even the packaging mostly ends up in landfill. There is something unhealthy about "shiny new toys" released every year that we must have according to the media's frenzy of Apple advertising.
I can't believe that even the newest Beats 3 Solo Wireless have Micro-USB charging. Talk about Apple not knowing what their product charging/connection strategy is! (Lightning for AirPods, but Micro-USB for Beats, Lightning for everything else, from Apple Pencil charging to Apple Mouse)
One major thing I haven't seen anyone mention about replacing wired headphones with wireless is that as far as I know, you're not supposed to use wireless headphones on a plane. I don't think you'd actually get hassled by a flight attendant but who knows.
Wouldn't the AirPods will be very easy to lose? What if they drop-off while snoozing. I mean with wired headphones, even if they come out of the ear (say while sleeping on a long travel) they are still attached to the phone and hence cannot lose them.
The TMobile/Google G1 I had used to have no headphone jack and relied on an adapter. It was really annoying.<p>One point about the stereo speakers is that you'd need to put your face/nose right next to the phone to appreciate the stereo, surely?
This comment will probably drown in the deluge, but it'll be interested to see if there market for higher quality Bluetooth DACs just got cracked open a bit. I use a Soundblaster E5 myself; this thing is great.
Confused about what earphones come with the iPhone 7. The standard analog ones (since an adapter is included)? Feels very backwards... unless I'm missing something...<p>Also, no new MBP is very disappointing.
I feel like I can't buy this unless Apple pays its EU-enforced Irish tax bill. We give them money but the vast majority of it never goes back into the economy.<p>[Edited for technical correctness]
The lack of the headphone doesn't bother me. I am excited to see what the future holds for digital audio out. I don't care for the airpods though.
what would be interesting for the iphone 7 plus would be to use the telephoto camera for a picture, and use the information from the wide-angle camera to improve the noise reduction in low light, I wonder if Apple is going to also do this (besides using it for bokeh)
They claim the plus as "optical zoom" and talk about a 2x factor. Do they mean it can switch between a wide and tele focal length? That isn't "zoom" (at least not in the normal sense) - it's just two focal lengths with a switch. Did I understand the feature correctly?
You know I was annoyed the audio port being missing but after seeing the new airpods, I'm sold. They look amazing, and will be fantastic to use in the gym. I'm sold. Take my money!
the price for heaven's sake... it's me or every year the new model gets almost 100 bucks more expensive the the previous one. We can expect a base price of 1000€ in 5 or 6 years.
So it's water resistant but not water proof... It has 2 cameras like other Android phones had years ago. Basically same everything but with a Mario app and no headphone jack? Do you think Steve Jobs would have approved of this to hit retail?
It's official, Apple is basically resorting to nickle and diming their customers, except instead of nickles and dimes, it's $160 to achieve very basic functionality in order to achieve something that virtually nobody really honestly cares about. All that's been achieved is that Apple has now created/affirmed a new non-optional secondary market that they're now positioned to best sell into (Beats). There's not even the decency to see if people care about a thinner phone by offering both a thin model without a jack and a thicker phone with one (for some strategically important price differential).<p>But honestly, complaints and analysis don't matter, people will line up to buy this garbage and to make it worse it'll become a stupid trend that will bleed over into Android-land and now instead of the perfectly fine $10 headphones I picked up at Big Lots, I'll have to shell out 10x that so I can listen to a podcast on my way to work.<p><i>edit</i> and they don't even have the respect for their customers to ship their stupid buds on time with the product that requires them...so that their customers can look like bluetooth douchebags from both sides.