Nine years ago, Steve Jobs showed the world how mobile devices of the future should look like, and the rest is history. The very first iPhone seems ridiculous by present day standards, but back in its day, it was an incredible feat of design and technology against the largely chunky, plastic-bodied devices that most of us were used to. We have come a long way since then, and the iPhone itself has evolved with time, but the industry of mobile devices now is completely different from what it was, back then.
Today, most of us are used to completing lightweight to moderate tasks, and even take on some heavy workload, on our smartphones. There are some smartphones that shoot incredible photographs, and still more functionality and features are being added to next generation, apparently future-proof devices. Some, among them, involve lossless audio, intelligent voice assistants, multi-layered touch sensitivity, flawless designing and resistance to water and dust, all of these leading to smartphones evolving into a lifestyle product than just a tool for communication.
That, exactly, is what the iPhone 7 is seemingly all about. On the face of it, the changes and upgrades that Apple is expected to present to it are incremental and usual for a next generation device. The iPhone 7 is not expected to bring something radical to the table. Instead, what it is expected to do is refine its present generation flagship, the iPhone 6s. These refinements include presenting more functionality to the iPhone’s 3D Touch options, remove the 3.5mm TRS jack and drive audio through the single Lightning port, renew the design and upgrade its camera. These are also what numerous rumours, and Apple’s own presentation at WWDC 2016, have spoken about.
This brings us to an important question – would you buy an iPhone 7? The question would hold largely varying answers for the wide population of smartphone buyers. Sure, the iPhone 7 will be more powerful and hold newer features, but there is possibly nothing radically new and innovative that you would expect from it. To put things into perspective, you will have very few reasons to upgrade to the iPhone 7 if you own an iPhone 6s. The iPhone 7 has been touted to house an incredible camera, but questions of exactly how good it will be remains till we actually see the device. If you happen to own an iPhone 6, you (or, for that matter, anyone) should ideally hold on to your money and wait for Apple to go all out with the iPhone’s 10th anniversary edition next year. Users of iPhone 5s or older devices are nearly obsolete, and should upgrade anyway.
But there is one aspect that Apple has always capitalised on – presenting its flag-bearing product as not just a smartphone, but a complete lifestyle unit. Smooth, flowing designs and bringing minor innovations into a part of our living habits is what Apple has specialised at for long, and this year’s iPhone is not expected to be any different. These renders, created by Martin Hajek, are not official, but seem close to what the device may eventually look like. There is a neat rhythm to its design, with the antenna bands fused into the curve on the device’s rim rather than streaking across the back. Another notable point is the 3D Touch-powered Home button area embedded underneath the Sapphire glass, rather than being a physical button. Sonavation had earlier exhibited technology that integrates fingerprint scanning underneath a Corning Gorilla Glass panel, and maybe Apple has managed to work around this technology on this device.
Just to be clear, the iPhone 7 does not look radically different, it just looks very well-refined and smooth. Is it worth buying? If I were to go by the looks, yes! I have stuck on to an iPhone 5s for nearly three years now, and the design has been one of the key reasons for not upgrading to the latest iPhones.
The iPhone 7 may just have solved that.