iPhone 7 release date, price, pictures, specs and features - everything we know
Surprises included new AirPods – wireless earphones that let you speak to Siri
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Your support makes all the difference.Apple has opened pre-orders for its newest iPhones, the 7 and 7 Plus, which are water and dust resistant.
The new phone looks almost identical to its predecessors, except for more rounded edges and two new colours – both of which are black. But it was completely changed inside, with a new camera, faster processors – and the controversial removal of the headphone jack.
The new phones were launched alongside the second version of the Apple Watch at an event in San Francisco.
Apple's next iPhones will also come without the analog headphone jack that's been standard on iPhones and most other electronic devices for years.
To make up for that change, Apple is offering new AirPods that wirelessly connected to each other and to the phone. It will also allow people to buy different Bluetooth headphones, use earphones that connect through the Lightning port on the bottom of the phone, or use a connector that plugs into the same thing but allows headphone jacks to be attached.
Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller said ditching the 150-year-old jack comes down to "courage to move on to something new."
Schiller says removing the port frees up space in the phone for newer technologies. He also says the Lightning port was designed years ago with digital audio in mind.
Apple isn't the first to ditch the headphone jack. Motorola quietly did so a month ago with some models of the Moto Z.
As well as ditching the headphone jack, Apple also got rid of the home button that sits on the front of the phone. Instead, the phone will vibrate in a special way that makes the phone's button feel like it is being pressed, and will allow the apparent button to sense force.
The new iPhones are getting stereo speakers — one on each side of the phone — along with a display capable of reproducing a wider range of colors.
Apple says it's upgrading the camera and flash components for the new iPhone 7, and it's making an even bigger change in the iPhone 7 Plus.
The larger model will come with two digital camera lenses. One will be for regular shots and the other will have telephoto capabilities, giving you a two-fold zoom. Smartphones typically have resorted to software tricks for zooms, resulting in fuzzy images when blown up.
Both lenses will take photos at 12 megapixels.
The two lenses will also sense depth and allow users to blur backgrounds in images, mimicking an effect that typically requires changing the lens aperture in stand-alone cameras.
Other smartphone makers including LG and Motorola are also starting to offer models with dual lenses to improve picture quality. While many consumers likely feel their current phone cameras are "good enough," analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research says the extra capabilities may appeal to millions of people who like to post photos on social media, in the hope of impressing friends and earning "likes" for their posts.
Dawson says the new smartphone cameras still don't match the capabilities of SLR cameras, but they offer improvements that may appeal to the "vanity" of social media users.
Other camera improvements include a new flash with four rather than two shades of color to match ambient light. High-end photographers can get images in RAW format, which allows for more versatile editing, matching what many leading cameras now have.
Analysts say the new iPhones could help Apple recover modestly from a recent dip in sales. But with few expected dramatic changes from previous models, Apple watchers aren't expecting the kind of big spikes in consumer demand that the company saw two years ago, when it introduced larger screens.
Apple sold nearly 92 million iPhones during the first six months of this year, about 15 percent fewer than the same period last year. This year marks the first time that Apple has seen such declines. Industry analysts say it's because last fall's iPhone 6S and 6S Plus didn't contain many new features or improvements.
Investors are hoping for a bigger boost in sales next year. Wall Street analysts say reports from Apple's Asian manufacturers and suppliers indicate the company has decided to wait a year before introducing a major overhaul of the phone in 2017. That will be the iPhone's 10th anniversary.
Additional reporting by agencies
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