An Overview of the iPhone

Well, since the official release of the iPhone on 29th June 2007, a lot of reviews came out, too many controversial things were said, and there we are - finally having our say about the handset. As wise people say, better later than never.



For the iPhone 7, Apple has taken the least controversial route possible here. While they will certainly take a huge amount of heat for removing the port at all, they have tried to compromise at least a little bit by including a Lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter in the box for all new iPhones 7. This means that any peripherals you currently use that plug in through the headphone port will still work, you just have to connect them via the adapter and through the Lightning port. The obvious downside here: you won't be able to charge your iPhone while using the port (at least not without some other kind of adapter that allows both, but Apple is not currently offering one of these).

I say sort of because the feature will be fairly limited when it is rolled out, and it is only achieved via a combination of hardware and software working together. At its introduction, this feature will only be available via a special "portrait mode" in the iOS Camera app on iPhone 7 Plus. In portrait mode, a combination of hardware and software will use facial recognition to determine a person, or people, to focus on in the foreground. It will then defocus the background based on its knowledge of the subjects of the picture. The biggest limitation here is that the feature only works on human subjects (at least based on the information we have about it from the keynote). That means you can't get the bokeh effect on subjects such as flowers or other inanimate objects, only on literal portraits you're taking of people. Furthermore, in portrait mode, Live Photos are disabled, and you can't take video using the effect.

Despite the larger screen, Apple was able to take the already slim 7.6mm iPhone 5s down to an impressive 7.1mm and 6.9mm in the iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6, respectively, and they will include ion-strengthened glass that beautifully curves around the outer edges of the device. Apple even promotes a broader angle of viewing in the all new photo-aligned IPS display which should come in handy when sharing photos and videos with those around you. This is achieved through a technology Apple refers to as dual-domain pixels which help in displaying correct pixel colors at even the widest supported view angles.

Sadly, I'll be looking forward to that for quite a bit longer than the release date of the iPhone 7. AirPods, which will be sold separately from the iPhone for $159, are not going to be released until late October of this year. That means we've got a few months to wait until we can see firsthand how well Apple's newest foray into headphones will work in our everyday lives.

The processor that powers the next generation iPhones is a desktop-class 64bit Apple A8 chip. It has a 20 nanometer structure that reaches new levels of both performance and efficiency. During the keynote, Phil Schiller boasted some interesting statistics and claimed the new chip gains 20% more CPU performance, 50% faster graphics performance, all in a package that is 13% smaller than the A7 chips found in current models.

Rumour has it the 256 GB version of the iPhone 7 will have 3D NAND. This is what is expected since that will be a thinner eight-die stack of 256-Gb dies, as opposed to a 16-die stack of 128-Gb parts. The question is, will it be Samsung, Micron/Intel, or even Toshiba? Again, all answers we will uncover once we have completed our teardowns.

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That said, the design of both phones have changed in more minor details as well. The cameras on both devices now include a slight taper leading up to the lenses, and the antennas on the devices have been redesigned so that the lines across the backs of the devices are no longer visible.

On the graphics front, the A10 Fusion chip has made significant improvements as well. It runs up to 3 times faster Graphics than the iPhone 6, and significantly faster than the iPhone 6S as well.

On the performance front, it's no surprise that the iPhone 7 makes huge leaps once again. Within it lies Apple's brand new A10 Fusion chip, which is faster and more efficient than any previous iPhone to date. The A10 Fusion chip is designed with four cores, two used for high performance and two used for high efficiency. This allows the chip to dynamically change between high performance when it's needed, and energy efficiency when it's not. That in turn contributes to the extra hours of battery life on the iPhone 7, but does lead me to wonder whether those battery life claims hold up under heavy usage, or if keeping the high performance cores running more than "average" will negate any supposed gains. Once again we'll need to wait for some reviewers to get their hands on the devices to know this for sure. Regardless, under standard everyday use, it sounds like the new A10 Fusion's intelligence could be a big boon for battery.

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