iPhone 7 – here is what you really need to know

Last night (EAT), Apple made an announcement that took the world by a storm – at least part of the world. Release of the iPhone 7. The world has been waiting for this event that was beamed live from Sanfrancisco since March when the first leaked images of the new iPhone appeared online.

Two other devices – the iPhone 7 plus (a high end version of the iPhone 7) and the Apple Watch 2 were also unveiled at the event.

A lot of the talk at the event was gibberish to the average phone user but here are a few things you should be interested in about the iPhone 7 (I will not waste your time with telling you about the watch).

1. Camera – The iPhone 7 comes with 12 MP back camera and 7 MP HD front camera for your selfies. The back camera has Optical Image Stabilization meaning that you can have fairly steady shots for your photographs and videos. It also comes with a high speed sensor giving you the ability to capture better images of fast moving subjects. The iPhone 7 plus will however have two 12 MP cameras at the back. One of the cameras is wide angle while the other allows you to zoom into further distanced subjects. The beauty of this is that you can take a photo of a subject and change the focus while editing the image if you don’t like the initial items on focus. It also allows you to blur backgrounds and adjust the focus of your subject. The camera also has a brighter flash which uses less energy. It is however worth noting that the new iPhone is not the only phone with this feature. Some android phones already had this feature long before tonight’s launch.

2. Water resistant – If your iPhone fell into a swimming pool, you will be able to jump in, retrieve it and use it like it never fell in the first place. Apple were able to achieve this partly by doing away with the traditional 35mm headphone jack and replacing it with the lightning port which will connect to the Airpod (new earphones) sold separately. If you use the traditional headphones though, the new phone will come with a lightning port adaptor.

The iPhone 7 will be 120 x faster than the original iPhone with a new Quad Core Chip pic.twitter.com/6atEb1YciV

— All iPhone (@iPhoneTeam) September 7, 2016

3. Faster –The iPhone 7 comes with a new Quad Core chip that will enable it to give you faster performance while interacting with apps or gaming. The new iPhone is 120 times faster than the original iPhone.
4. Longer lasting battery – The new iPhone gives you more time when browsing on 3G, using WiFi or watching wireless videos. Apple says the battery life will be the best ever promising about 2 hours more battery life over the iPhone 6s.
5. Storage – Apple have done away with the 16GB storage capacity iPhone which if you asked me made no sense at all. After factoring in the space occupied by the operating system it hardly left you enough space for five more apps. The new phone will start at the more functional 32 GB with other editions offering 128 GB and 256 GB storage space.
6. Price – The iPhone 7 will retails at $649 (Ksh. 64,900) while iPhone 7 Plus will retail at $769 (Ksh. 76,900). In the US the new iPhone will be up for sale from Friday, 9^th September on pre-orders only. Kenyan retailers have however shown no indication of stocking the device any time soon.

Apple hopes that the release of this new version of the iPhone will boost its sales following a significant drop in demand for iPhones even as demand for rival Samsung’s mobile devices rises. Since the first iPhone was released almost 10 years ago, the company has sold about 1,000,000,000 devices.