iPhone 7 release date, specs, price, and features

IPHONE 7: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

It’s official: Apple has announced the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, finally confirming months of rumours and speculation.

Today, Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. The new handsets are direct sequels to last year's iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, and feature a new A10 chip, improved cameras, and stereo speakers. Oh, and they're both water-resistant – huzzah!

Here’s a quick rundown of the iPhone 7 specs:

• 4.7-inch screen
• 1,334 x 750 pixel display (326ppi pixel density)
• Dimensions: 183.3 x 67.1 x 7.1mm
• Weight: 138g
• A10 Fusion (64-bit, quad-core CPU, six-core GPU)
• 32/128/256GB storage
• 12-megapixel main camera (OIS, f/1.8)
• 7-megapixel secondary camera
• Stereo speakers
• Fingerprint scanner
• IP67 water-resistant
• iOS 10 software
• Colours: Jet Black, Black, Silver, Gold, Rose Gold

And here are the iPhone 7 Plus specs:

• 5.5-inch screen
• 1,920 x 1,080 pixel display (401ppi pixel density)
• Dimensions: 158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3mm
• Weight: 188g
• A10 Fusion (64-bit, quad-core CPU, six-core GPU
• 32/128/256GB storage
• 12-megapixel main camera (OIS, f/1.8, dual-lens)
• 7-megapixel secondary camera
• Stereo speakers
• Fingerprint scanner
• IP67 water-resistant
• iOS 10 software
• Colours: Jet Black, Black, Silver, Gold, Rose Gold

The iPhone 7 release date is 16 September, but you can pre-order from 9 September. Prices for the iPhone 7 start at £599/$649, and the iPhone 7 Plus at £719/$769.

IPHONE 7 A10 PROCESSOR: APPLE’S MOST POWERFUL CHIP EVER

Both the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus feature Apple’s new system-on-a-chip, the A10 Fusion. It’s a 64-bit, quad-core processor that Apple promises is 40% faster than the A9, and twice as fast as the A8. Whoosh!

Two of the A10 Fusion’s cores are high performance, and will handle the most demanding tasks. There are also two high-efficiency cores that run at a fifth of the power, which are used for more menial tasks. To manage this process, Apple has designed a new performance controller that decides which cores to use when.

^{Apple's new iPhone 7 in 'Rose Gold'}

Apple also says that the graphical performance of the A10 Fusion is 50% better than that of the A9, and three times as fast as the A8. That’s thanks to a six-core GPU that uses two-thirds of the A9’s power and a half of the A8’s power. Apparently, the A10 Fusion is 240 times faster than the original iPhone processor.

It’s rumoured to have been built by Taiwan’s TSMC, although it isn't clear whether it was manufactured on a 16nm process, or a more efficient 14nm process like the Snapdragon 820 that features in the Samsung Galaxy S7.

IPHONE 7 DISPLAY: A NEW RETINA HD DISPLAY

Apple has also improved the displays on its new handsets, which feature a new Retina HD display. The display is 25% brighter than last year's model, and offers a newly wide colour gamut that achieves "cinema P3 standard colours". Apple also boasted of "end-to-end" colour management, and the return of the integrated 3D Touch layer that debuted on last year's iPhone 6S.

IPHONE 7 STORAGE: NEWER, BIGGER OPTIONS

Apple has finally ditched the 16GB base storage variant, which is sure to please media-hungry and app-hungry users. Instead, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus start at 32GB, just like the rival Galaxy S7. Apple has also added a new storage tier – 256GB. The maximum iPhone storage is now higher than some MacBook models. Hallelujah.

So to recap, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are both available in 32GB, 128GB, and 256GB.

IPHONE 7 SOFTWARE: IOS 10, FINALLY!

As expected, Apple’s new iOS 10 software will debut on the iPhone 7.

^{Apple's iOS 10 is launching on the iPhone 7}

The software is much smarter than last year’s iOS 9, and features a more powerful lockscreen with notifications and advanced widgets. The new OS will also make better use of 3D Touch, with many functions accessible without having to enter a given app. Siri will also be far more powerful thanks to the (long-awaited) addition of third-party app support, and a new Home app will provide better support for smart home technology.

You can read more about iOS 10 here.

IPHONE 7 DESIGN: IT'S BASICALLY THE SAME

The iPhone 7 has changed very little compared to the iPhone 6S. For a quick rundown, here's what Jony Ive, chief design officer at Apple, had to say:

"An aluminium body and form sheet of glass describe a singular shape, one made with very few, very precisely engineered parts. Our obsession remains to continuously simplify and improve. From sculpting the camera housing directly out of the aluminium body to embedding the antenna within the enclosure, essentially making it disappear, each refinement serves to bring absolute unity and efficiency to the design."

There is one other design change, mind...

IPHONE 7 WATER-RESISTANCE: SPLASH AWAY, FRIENDS

The new iPhone 7 is water- and dust-resistant. Specifically, it's IP67-certified, which is better than any previous iPhone... ever.

That basically means that dunking your phone in the bath is still stupid, but using it in the rain shouldn’t fry the hardware. Still, as is always the case with water-resistance, we recommend thinking of it as a last-resort feature and not something you should try to push to its limits.

IPHONE 7 CAMERA: DUAL-LENS IS A REALITY

The iPhone 7 has been upgraded, finally getting optical image stabilisation. There's also a wider f/1.8 aperture that takes in 50% more light. That's not to mention a new Apple-designed ISP, a six-element lens, True Tone flash (again), and a 12-megapixel image sensor.

“Customers are going to love taking pictures with iPhone 7,” said Phil Schiller, SVP of Worldwide Marketing. “This is the best camera we’ve ever made on any iPhone. It’s also the best camera we’ve had on the front side. There’s a new 7-megapixel FaceTime HD camera. This is up from 5 megapixels."

However, there's no dual-lens system on the standard iPhone 7 – sorry, small-handed folk.

But there is a dual-lens camera on the iPhone 7 Plus; one lens is wide-angle, while the other is telephoto. This allowed Apple to add a new zoom feature, which Schiller described as "remarkable". Check it out:

Schiller also talked about one extra new iPhone 7 Plus camera feature: shallow depth of field. The new camera ISP scans the scene and uses machine learning to create a depth map of an image. This allows the camera to keep the foreground in focus, and applies a blur to the background. To achieve this, you just select the "Portrait" setting, which launches the telephoto lens. You should automatically see the depth effect generated in real-time as you look at your screen.

"It's something that is illustrative of a great camera," explained Schiller. "The quality of that background blur is called bokeh, and the quality of that is something found in great camera systems."

IPHONE 7 SPEAKERS: NOW IN STEREO

Apple has finally moved to a stereo speaker system, putting speakers at the top and bottom of the phone. This should result in better audio in landscape mode, and you'll also get double the loudness of the iPhone 6S. Speaking at the announcement, Schiller added: "They [also] sound better because they have an increased dynamic range."

NO HEADPHONE JACK ON IPHONE 7?!

Yes, it actually happened.

A new feature of the iPhone 7 is that it doesn’t have a headphone jack. The 3.5mm port is gone, which means your bog-standard pair of headphones won’t plug into the device anymore. Explaining the decision, Schiller said:

"The reason to move on, it really comes down to one word: courage. The courage to move on, to do something new, that betters all of us."

Fortunately, there are a bunch of alternatives to the clumsy old headphone jack. For a start, Apple is shipping the new iPhones with Lightning-connector earbuds, plus an adapter to convert old headphones too. What’s more, you can already buy Lightning-friendly headphones from third parties, so all is not lost just yet.

The second alternative is Bluetooth. There are plenty of Bluetooth headphones in the wild, many of which offer seriously impressive audio performance. Apple announced its own wireless Apple AirPods during the keynote, which feature a new W1 chip. So those will work fine too. Plus, there are new wireless Beats that run on that same W1 chip. Cheers, Dre.

The new AirPods will also be coming in "late October" for £159/$159.

IPHONE 7 BATTERY LIFE: LONGEST BATTERY LIFE EVER, APPARENTLY

Apple reckons the iPhone 7 can manage 40 hours of Wi-Fi browsing, and 60 hours for the iPhone 7 Plus. Watching video wirelessly will kill your iPhone 7 after 13 hours; after 14 hours for the iPhone 7 Plus.

We don't yet have the exact battery capacity, however. We'll also have to wait for a review model before we can say anything about battery life for sure. Here are Apple's figures:

NEW IPHONE 7 COLOURS REVEALED

Apple has introduced new colour options with the iPhone 7. There’s the usual Gold, Silver, and Rose Gold, for a start. And now there’s also Black and Jet Black. What happened to Space Grey? No idea, but it’s definitely dead.

Oh, and don't forget that Jet Black is only available on 128GB and 256GB models. It's also the only glossy colour option – the rest are matte.

IPHONE 7 RELEASE DATE AND PRICE

Both new phones will be coming to the UK. The iPhone 7 pre-order date is 9 September, while the iPhone 7 release date is 16 September. The phones will ship in 28 countries at launch, with a further 30 countries getting the handsets a week later.

EE, Three, and Vodafone have all confirmed to TrustedReviews that they will be ranging both new phones. Pricing is as follows:

• iPhone 7 | 32GB | £599 / $649
• iPhone 7 | 128GB | £699 / $749
• iPhone 7 | 256GB | £799 / $849
• iPhone 7 Plus | 32GB | £719 / $769
• iPhone 7 Plus | 128GB | £819 / $869
• iPhone 7 Plus | 256GB | £919 / $969

The iPhone 7 launches around one year after the iPhone 6S, which was Apple’s best-selling phone to date, setting a new first-weekend sales record of 13 million models – that was up from 10 million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus units sold in 2014. However, many analysts and bookmakers are expecting the iPhone 7 to under-perform on the shop-floor compared to its predecessor.

iPhone 5S review

PROS

• Touch ID works perfectly
• Excellent performance
• Great all-round camera
• Very light and comfortable in one hand

CONS

• Battery life could be better
• 4-inch screen too small for some
• Extra storage cost

KEY FEATURES

• 4-inch Retina display; Fingerprint unlocking; 8MP Camera; True-Tone LED flash; A7 Dual-core processor; Aluminium body
• Manufacturer: Apple
• Review Price: £549.00

If you're looking for a new 4-inch iPhone, the iPhone 5S is no longer the best model you can buy. On March 21 Apple revealed the iPhone SE, a response to the people who still want a smaller iPhone. It's a seriously good piece of kit and if you have the money to shell out on a relatively pricey contract, it could be the perfect upgrade.

There are improvements across the board. While the form factor has remained mostly the same (say for a couple of tweaks to the corners and chamfered edges), everything else is bang up to date with the latest iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus.

First, there's the latest Apple A9 processor that you'll find in both the flagship devices, which should improve performance significantly. There's faster 4G and better 802.11ac Wi-Fi, too. The camera has had a huge upgrade, bringing it in line with the latest devices. This is huge news for anyone remotely interested in taking photos on their iPhone and is probably the most attractive thing about the iPhone SE.

You'll also get Apple Pay, 4K video recording, better slow-motion and Live Photos thrown in. Prices start from £359 upfront, and we'll update our other iPhone SE coverage when networks give us contract pricing.

If you're in the market for a new phone, the iPhone SE should be on your shortlist, especially if you need something a little smaller than the gigantic iPhone 6S and 6S Plus.

LIVING WITH THE IPHONE 5S

By smartphone standards the iPhone 5S is outright ancient. First released in 2013, with the rumoured approach of Apple’s fabled iPhone 6S on the horizon, the iPhone 5S is close to becoming two phone generations old.

This means compared to more modern handsets the iPhone 5S is no longer a powerhouse handset. Making up for this, the upfront cost of the iPhone 5S has plummeted.

Now many carriers, including Vodafone UK, are offering the iPhone 5S with no upfront cost on a variety of affordable contracts.

Apple has also dropped the iPhone 5S’ sim-free price on the Apple Store and is selling the 16GB model for £459 - making it £80 cheaper than the £540, 16GB iPhone 6.

The price, combined with its smaller 4.7in screen and form factor mean the iPhone 5S remains, on paper, a fairly compelling choice for Apple fans on a budget and has stood the test of time surprisingly well.

What has surprised me most about the iPhone 5S is that I have not missed 5-inch phones as much as I thought I would. I sometimes struggle juggling bigger phones while on a train or bus so it's been a bit of a relief stepping down in screen size. That changed since I lived with the 5.5-inch LG G3. That phone looks like a tablet compared to the iPhone 5S but manages to remain easy to use because of clever ergonomic design. Other competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8 aren't quite as slick to use.

There’s is not much to say about the iPhone 5S’s performance here other than that it’s blisteringly fast and very reliable. I’ve not experienced any issues with apps misbehaving other than the Google Maps hanging occasionally. It's annoying but may be as much down to the app as to the phone.

Apple’s iOS has its limitations, you can't customise to anywhere near the levels of an Android phone, but the fact that it just keeps working well is a godsend to those too busy to learn every little foible of their phone. I’ve not experienced the slow-down effects that tend to occur on Androids after lots of apps and updates have been installed - the iPhone 5S is rock solid.

iOS 7 is a wonderfully simple operating system and while some don't like the new design, I've been delighted by it. The ‘Today’ notification isn’t something I’ve taken to much, but the multitasking menu and the Control Centre are great. In fact the lack of these features is one of the reasons I picked Android over iOS in the past. The Control Centre is still missing a quick access button to the full settings menu, which is particularly annoying when wanting to switch or connect to Wi-Fi networks. The newer iOS 8 is even better and the iPhone 5S runs perfectly with it on too.

It’s the Apple app store that makes iOS a great platform. As a mobile gamer the depth and breadth of titles is fantastic – Limbo, for example is a great little game that you can’t get anywhere else. Generally the apps are still of higher quality and depth than you can get anywhere else.

Cameras have become so important on mobiles that there are now some, like the Nokia Lumia 1020 and Samsung Galaxy Zoom, which are more camera than phone. I’ve found that the iPhone 5S’s camera to be solid, but not as exceptional as some others. It is perfectly suited for snapping and reacts quickly, which is what I want from a phone camera, but there’s not as much detail as you can get from the Galaxy S5 or LG G3.

On the flip side the 5S’s camera works well in lower-lit conditions. The multi-tonal flash provides some far softer and more realistically lit shots in pubs and restaurants when compared to the harsh white light of most LED or Xenon flashes. The 120fps slow motion video is also great. I wasn't that fussed when I first used it but it quickly makes videos looks more polished and special. Fantastic slow shots of my nephews and nieces jumping on a trampoline made me view it in a new light. The front camera also works well for video-chat as long as there's decent ambient light.

The iPhone 5S lacks a microSD card slot for memory expansion, but you can still get it in 16/32GB versions, Apple has discontinued the 64GB one. The catch is the extra storage is pricey – too pricey – each increment costs an extra £40 on top of the £459 base price. It all depends on your storage needs, but if you don’t carry a load of movies or music with you 16GB (of which 13.6GB is usable) should be adequate, but for many the 32GB model will be optimal and I haven’t managed to fill 32GB yet. At this price, though, the iPhone 5S is for big Apple fans only. The iPhone 6 is much better and you can now get much higher spec phones, like the Galaxy Note 4, for the same price.

One of the most talked about features of the iPhone 5S, and my personal favourite, is Touch ID. This is a fingerprint scanner located in the home button of the phone that lets you unlock it without requiring a PIN or password. It works brilliantly and I already find it irritating to use any phone with a PIN or gesture lock now. It may be a luxury, but I’m in no doubt that this feature, or one very like it, will be in every phone will have in a few years. It just makes using your phone on the move so much easier.

After a few weeks of use I had a bit of an issue with call quality – essentially my voice appeared distant to the person on the other end. The issue resolved itself after a short while but it was irritating while it lasted. It was not isolated either, a quick hunt on the internet showed a few users had the same problem. This is no longer a problem but we do sometimes find that call quality on the iPhone 5S is poor in low reception areas.

In terms of stamina the iPhone 5S is good but not outstanding. If used sparingly you will get two full days of use without a charge, but play games or use intensive apps for a few hours and you will need to recharge it overnight. The good thing about the battery is that it charges very quickly and is predictable – the 5S never suddenly drops a load of charge while it’s been sitting in my pocket.

On a day to day basis the iPhone 5S does everything I want it to do, and does the things I do most, better than any other phone I’ve used. It’s not gimmicky and other than the lack of widgets and customisations there’s not much I miss from using bigger Android phones. Apple has increased the screen size with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus and thanks to a slick design it doesn't make a big difference to the ergonomics. If you can afford it we'd opt for one of the newer versions but if you like your phones petite then the iPhone 5S is the best you can get.

iOS 9 review

Today's iPhone and iPad update brings small, worthwhile changes

OUR VERDICT

iOS 9 is much better than its predecessor, with fewer bugs now than last year's iOS 8 launch. It's smarter and leaner, except for Apple Maps, which keeps it from being the perfect update.

FOR

• iPad multitasking
• Small download size
• Siri is more helpful
• Improved keyboard

AGAINST

• Split View limited to iPad Air 2
• Apple Maps is still flawed
• Siri only opens default apps
• Can't delete certain apps

SIRI, DESIGN AND APPLE MAPS

iOS 9 launched this week and it's already a lot better than iOS 8, thanks to new features that make the iPhone and iPad software easier to use

Siri is smarter, Apple Maps has been improved and the notifications drop-down menu is now sorted logically. Best of all, every device that works with iOS 8 works with iOS 9

iPads get benefit big from this year's operating system update. New iPad multitasking functionality, especially for the iPad Air 2, finally fulfills the tablet's promise of productivity on the go

While iOS 9 lacks some key Android features, there's a lot to like about iOS 9 ahead of the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus launch next week, and iPad Prorelease date in November

iOS 9 compatibility and download size

iOS 9 isn't about a fresh coat of paint like iOS 7 was, it's about rust-proofing glitchy software that launched alongside iOS 8 last year. Everything is designed to run smoother, and it does

iOS 9 works with everything you see here... and iPhone 6S and 6S Plus

There are fewer app crashes and hard restarts required compared to when iOS 8 first came out. I've experienced no white screen of death problems so far, just occasional design flaws

Even better, iOS 9 works with devices as old as iPhone 4S and iPad 2. Apple didn't axe any old phones or tablets from its compatibility list in the transition to the new operating system

It was also a relief to see that this free update is a 1.4GB file and doesn't require the 4.7GB free of space to install on your tiny, 16GB devices

Siri and search

The most obvious iOS 9 change involves Siri and spotlight search. Sliding to the left-most menu reveals a robust list of "Siri Suggestions," filled with your most recent contacts and apps

It provides quick access to your four most recent contacts and four most recent apps. There's a "show more" and "show less" toggle to increase that to the eight most recent. Sadly, you can't unpin and disallow certain apps from showing up before your parents see you're on Tinder

Apple Maps gets some attention here, too. "Nearby" shortcuts are a fast way of finding Parking, Restaurants, Gas Stations and even Desserts, which all link to a Yelp review-filled Maps menu. In true Apple fashion, there's no customization or option to re-sort which shortcuts come first

iOS 9 concludes this Siri-run search menu with news snippets from sources like the New York Times and CNN. Strangely, there are four headlines, but if you hit the rather stingy "Show More" text, it reveals a total of five. A glitch to be solved in the future, perhaps?

The news presentation here isn't as flashy as Samsung's Flipboard-based menu, which is also the leftmost Android menu on the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. Apple saves the magazine-style stories for its new iOS 9 News app