While the overall design of the handset doesn’t differ largely from the iPhone 6/6s, the camera has been upgraded and there’s a new home button.
The space grey colour scheme has been replaced by matte black and glossy black options joining the silver, gold and rose gold.
Perhaps the most significant and controversial change is the departure of the headphone jack – the explanation for this is that there is more room for a bigger battery however the reality is that the bigger battery will only provide you with 1 or 2 extra hours of power per day. But how will we listen to music I hear you ask?
Cue wireless headphones! Whilst they offer fantastic sound quality and enhanced user experience, the downside is there’s a high chance you’ll lose them! And at an expected retail price of £159, it’s not a chance I’d like to take. For now, the new iPhones will come with headphones which can be plugged into the charging port. Annoyingly this means you can’t charge your phone and listen to music at the same time. However, similar to when the lightening connector was first introduced, Apple will supply an adaptor which enables traditional headphones to be plugged into the iPhone so perhaps they can also come up with something which allows headphone use and charging to occur simultaneously. Alternatively, new speakers at the top and bottom of the iPhone provide stereo sound if you want to abandon headphones all together.
Somewhat over shadowed by the outrage of the removal of the headphone jack is my favourite feature of any new iPhone release to date – it’s water resistant! And that’s not just splash proof, it can be immersed in up to 1 metre of water for up to 30 minutes. so, you no longer need to put your iPhone in rice when you drop it in the washing up bowl!
All in all, there are some exciting improvements and accompanied by a few that will take us a little longer to get used to.