Apple Loop: Magical iPhone 7 Plus, Predictable iPhone 7 Disappoints, Apple's Arrogant Decision
4:32:00 PM
Taking a look back at an important week for Apple when Tim Cook and his team launched a raft of new products, including the iPhone 7, the iPhone 7 Plus, the Apple Watch Series One and Two, and updates to the iPad range. Apple Loop also includes thoughts on the dual-lens camera, the removal of the headphone jack, updates to the older iPhone models, and a lesson in how not to use Twitter.
Apple Loop is here to remind you of a few of the very many discussions that have happened around Apple over the last seven days (and you can read the weekly digest of Android news here on Forbes).
No Surprises With The Predictable iPhone 7
The big news has to be the release of the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus. All of the leaks and rumors that came to prominence in August were true – the form factor is that of the iPhone 6 and 6S families, there is a new home key, the headphone jack is no more, and the 16GB internal storage option has been euthanized (32GB, 128GB, and 256GB are your options).
Forbes’ Aaron Tilley has taken a look at the smaller 4.7 inch model and the bump in specifications:
The iPhone 7 houses Apple’s new processor chip, the A10 Fusion. It has four computing cores — two high performance processors and two high efficiency cores. Apple said the new chip is 40 percent faster than the last-gen A9 chip. Apple also has a new six-core graphics processing unit in the phone, which is 50 percent faster than the GPU in the A9 chip.The design of the phone looks roughly similar to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s. Apple has typically updated the design every two years, but is foregoing that redesign this update cycle. Most noticeably, the iPhone 7 has concealed the antenna bands on the back. The iPhone 7 now comes in a glossy jet black finish, along with a softer black, gold, silver and rose gold.
If you’re looking for something a little bit different, my review of the event is a slice of ‘interactive fiction’ where you are the writer and can ‘Choose Your Own iPhone 7 Review.’ All in all, it’s a rather boring update.
Apple’s iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus (image: Apple PR)
RIP Headphone Jack
But the biggest change in both handsets – and one that the general public almost all have an opinion on – is the removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack. Although Apple will be including a lightning to 3.5mm headphone adaptor in the retail packaging, the future of personal audio in the iPhone is going to be through the lightning connector or over bluetooth. John Paczkowski for BuzzFeed breaks down the reasoning on a decision that Phil Schiller described as “courageous”.
The 3.5-millimeter audio jack, however, is neither inadequate nor in obvious need of replacement. Sure, it is certainly dusty. But it is widely used and unencumbered by patents. You don’t have to pay anyone to use it. The signal it transmits doesn’t need to be decoded. And because it is an analog and not a digital standard, it cannot be locked down with digital rights management (DRM). Like the AC power socket adorning the walls of our homes, the headphone jack is a dumb interface. In Apple parlance, “it just works.” Buy a pair of headphones — from an audiophile store or an airport vending machine — and plug them into a headphone jack and you’ll likely hear whatever it is you were planning on listening to. So why send it off for a dirt nap?…“It was holding us back from a number of things we wanted to put into the iPhone,” Riccio says. “It was fighting for space with camera technologies and processors and battery life. And frankly, when there’s a better, modern solution available, it’s crazy to keep it around.”
Apple’s sensible answer is a pair of lightning connector headphones in the box (along with the $10 dongle), but the futuristic ‘it just works’ answer is the AirPods – the classic Apple earbud design with no wires, that connect seamlessly over bluetooth, and are charged up when they are in their travel case. Macworld’s Susie Ochs bounced around the demo room with a pair:
Not only did I dance, I headbanged. I shook my head side to side, I tossed my hair, I jogged in place, and I looked silly doing all of it. The AirPods stayed put, and they stayed loud. The music (more Sia, naturally) sounded full and lush and I couldn’t hear a single word anyone around me was saying, as if I was completely sealed off in a bubble of rock and roll. Pretty impressive.
The problem about labelling this as a courageous decision is a simple one to understand… at least in British popular culture.
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