Apple Launches the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus; Feature Water-Resistance, Lack Headphone Jack (www.bgr.in)

Apple on Wednesday unveiled its new flagship smartphones: the iPhone 7, and the iPhone 7 Plus. Both the iPhones look similar to the last year's iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, but offer a range of new features. Chief among those features are water and dust resistance, stereo speakers, improved cameras (the iPhone 7 Plus has a pair of 12MP cameras that are able to take SLR-quality images. It offers bokeh capability). And yes, the new iPhones indeed lack the headphone jack. "it's the best iPhone we have ever created," Apple CEO Tim Cook said. The home button is getting taptic feedback, similar to that of the MacBook.

So why is Apple removing the headphone jack? Apple's SVP Phil Schiller said, "courage."The company also announced AirPods wireless earphones. A pair of these will be priced at $169. The iPhones will go on sales starting September 16 in several regions including the United States In places like India, however, it will be available starting October 7.

Comments

BS on the bokeh

[Solandri]

iPhone 7 Plus has a pair of 12MP cameras that are able to take SLR-quality images. It offers bokeh capability

Bokeh is a function of the lens diameter relative to the subject distance (and distance of other objects from the focal plane). For a given scene, cannot be created any other way other than a physically bigger lens. You know the penumbra during an eclipse (the area experiencing a partial eclipse during a solar eclipse)? That corresponds to bokeh. There is nothing you can do on the ground to enlarge this area. It is purely a function of geometry. (Mathematically, it's the point distribution function of the lens.)

You can fake it in software. I've been saying for over a decade that two small lenses with some lateral separation should allow an algorithm to estimate distance and blur the parts of the picture outside the focal plane appropriately to simulate bokeh. But it's not real bokeh, it's a digital manipulation.

Re: DRM ahoy :(

[LynnwoodRooster]

That that is an absolute lie, total BS. A bulky 3.5mm jack is 0.5cc. Assuming the previous life of their 1715mA/3.7V battery was 14 hours, they are now adding another 245mA/3.7V worth of battery to it, to get those 2 additional hours. That translates to an energy density of around 6.4 MJ/L, about three times what the best LiPo batteries can give. Not a chance.

If it lasts longer, it's not from a bigger battery, it's from more efficient components elsewhere. They're feeding you a line and you're swallowing it.