It apparently took "courage" to remove the 3.5mm audio jack from the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, according to Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller. The company's less kind critics have voiced the opinion that it has more to do with bolstering sales of the new £160 AirPods and the wireless headphones produced by Apple subsidiary Beats Electronics, but whatever side of the fence you happen to sit on, this is a decision that has dominated the headlines and has been in very real danger of completely overshadowing this year's iPhone refresh. Apple's reasoning for ditching a socket which has been commonplace on practically every smartphone for the past decade may be flimsy at best, but where the Cupertino company leads, rivals invariably follow and we could well see an industry-wide shift towards wireless audio in the next year or so.
It's almost a shame that this decision has generated such a sizeable reaction online as the products it impacts have a lot going for them. For the first time in iPhone history we finally have a device that can cope with getting wet, while the improved camera on both models and unique "taptic" home button are welcome improvements. However, Apple has chosen to cram all of these elements into a chassis which looks disarmingly similar to the design of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S - the first time in the history of the line that the same aesthetic look has been retained for a third consecutive year (the iPhone SE doesn't count as that came over a year after the iPhone 5S ceased being Apple's flagship).
Akin to 2014 and 2015, Apple has two flagship options this year. Both the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus benefit from the increased power afforded by Apple's A10 Fusion chipset, but the latter has 3GB of RAM compared to the standard model's 2GB. This year the 16GB storage option has been retired, with 32GB being the entry level point. The other big difference between the two phones is the addition of a second telephoto lens on the 7 Plus, which gives x2 optical zoom. First up, the iPhone 7 specs:
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