Entertainment
iPhone 7 A silhouette into a faux future
Why investing on an iPhone 7, especially at this point in time, might not be a very good ideaPrajesh SJB Rana
The release of Apple’s latest iteration in the iPhone line has been all the hype these last few weeks. There have been contrasting reviews online: some like the faster processor while others hate the removal of the headphone jack. Some even complain
that Apple is playing catch-up with Android with features like water-resistance and processor performance, but I think comparing iPhone to Android phones is like comparing apples to oranges. Primarily
because, while both of them are smartphones, they fill totally different spectrums of the smartphone industry. Android is more open to different kinds of hardware, third-party apps and user tweaks while iPhones are limited to specific hardware and the Apple eco-system. So, in my review today, we look at the iPhone 7, unadulterated.
With the iPhone 7, there are a lot of new features that Apple brings to their line of flagship phones but there are a lot of compromises as well. The main question here would be whether the compromises are worth the new features implemented by Apple: currently the answer is no. The iPhone 7 still feels like a prototype since a lot of its new features aren’t really fleshed out and, for it to actually find a ground, Apple needs to loosen up the noose a little bit. But iPhones have always been trendsetters in the smartphone industry and it’s likely that most of the iPhone 7’s features will bleed into other devices as well (if Apple doesn’t threaten to sue on patient claims).
At first blush, the iPhone 7 and the 7 Plus look exactly like the older iPhone 6 and 6s. The only distinguishing aesthetical change here would be the slightly invisible antenna lines. On the older iPhones, the antenna lines were stark and obvious; for the latest offering, Apple has tried to hide them by them bleeding them into the edges of the phone. This makes for a more seamless design by Apple but if you snap on a cover on top of the iPhone 7, it’ll hardly be distinguishable from the older iPhone 6. And much like the popularisation of the rose gold colour by Apple on its iPhone 6 line, Apple has introduced the new jet black colour for their iPhone 7 line as well. Although the jet black colour looks polished and refined, it’s a fingerprint magnet and is highly receptive to scratches and dents which make the use of cover essential. The home button is also not a physical button anymore and the elongated button reacts like a sensor and works with the Taptic Engine to simulate a vibration jolt every time the
button is pressed. This feels like an unnecessary change since the tactile physical button response of the older iPhone felt a lot better. Apple claims to have made this decision to make the home button more customisable but since the engine has not yet been adopted by most third-party app developers, it seems redundant for now and even the Taptic response of the engine makes it feel like the whole lower bottom of the iPhone 7 is a sending out a click response rather than the button.
Performance wise, Apple new A10 Fusion processor works great. It outperforms both the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and the One Plus 3. It follows the same architecture that Qualcomm has implemented on most of their recent processors, the BIG.LITTLE technology that works for low performing cores for everyday activities and high powered core for more CPU intensive tasks. The A10 Fusion chip is a quad-core processor and utilised two high-powered cores and two low-powered cores. This would mean that the iPhone 7 would perform faster than the iPhone 6 line and achieves better performance at a lower power consumption. But again, the performance does not increase by leaps and rather the performance increment can be taken as a small step forward in comparison to the iPhone 6. The higher powered cores don’t kick in until the apps demand which would mean that fluidity of the iPhone 7 would seem on par to that of the iPhone 6 during daily use.
Apart from the performance increment, the iPhone 7 has a better camera and the iPhone 7 Plus features a dual camera set-up. iPhone have always set the standard in mobile photography and although other companies have been pushing for higher megapixel sensors, none of them have been able to match the quality of photos taken by an iPhone. Recently, though, Samsung S7 line has been able to produce excellent quality photos and could take on the iPhone 6 in terms of picture quality but matching Apple’s image quality took Samsung years. With the iPhone 7, Apple has managed to improve image quality by implementing a faster f/1.8 lens but here too, the quality increment is nominal when compared to the older iPhone 6. The iPhone 7 Plus does increase image quality drastically because of the dual lens setup but Apple has disappointed me here too. While the pictures the iPhone 7 takes are phenomenal, having access to two lenses would mean a host of features but with the iPhone 7 Plus, it only amounts to a better zoom. Optical zoom is good and all but looking at what other companies like Huawei have managed to do with dual
lenses, the iPhone 7 Plus’ zoom ability is just sad. Huawei’s Honor 8 lets you play with all kinds of optical effects like depth of field and focus adjustments. Some companies with dual lens cameras even let you focus after the shot has been taken. To me, the full capabilities of the dual lenses have not been adopted by Apple and puts the dual lens setup of the iPhone 7 Plus to shame.
Apart from the faster processor and the dual lens camera, the feature (or rather the lack of) that has been turning heads is the removal of the 3.5mm analogue headphone jack. Apple’s always been confident about setting trends but the removal of the headphone jack might not be a good thing. This severely limits the number of ports on a portable device and having to use the lightning-to-3.5mm converter is a hassle. They’re small and you can lose they easily. Apple seems to be hinting at a completely wireless ecosystem but that too is not properly fleshed out on the iPhone 7 because it does not feature wireless charging. Even the enhanced Bluetooth support of the iPhone 7 is locked into Apple’s ecosystem. The company’s new flashy pairing support is only limited to their W1 compatible audio products which means that every other audio system will have to suffer through the same snags that Bluetooth pairing entails. This is very disappointing because Apple is taking away an industry standard port claiming to pave the way for newer technologies but locking this new technology only to the Apple ecosystem and not across the whole board just beats the whole purpose. I would have defended Apple in this regard claiming that since everything is going digital, getting rid of the analogue 3.5mm jack is zeitgeist but seeing as how Apple has made a conscious decision to lock their new technology to the Apple ecosystem just seems underhanded and wrong.
So, considering all of these claims, investing on an iPhone 7, especially at this point in time, is not a very good idea. The phone looks like the iPhone 6 with additional cables and converters plugged into it and it does not bring drastic performance increments to actually make the jump from an iPhone 6 to the 7. The loss of the headphone jack is also a big problem at this point of time and would only mean that you’d have to keep track on one more (Bluetooth headsets) device to charge up. Also using Bluetooth instead to cabled headphones would mean quicker battery drain. The shortcoming of the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus are just too stark for me to recommend it right not. The retina display of the iPhone also seems pointless today since almost all flagships by other manufactures come with 2k or 4k display resolutions at a higher pixel per inch ratio. Currently, the iPhone 7 doesn’t bring much to the table and even the new feature that they have introduced feel rudimentary and impish at this stage. Maybe waiting for the next iteration in the iPhone line would be a better call.
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