The iPhone 7 is here!

By Kyler Telge, Staff Writer

The iPhone 7 was announced last Wednesday, the 7th of September, with a couple of surprises.

Apple’s entry level model starts at 32 Gigabytes, an improvement over previous years where 16 Gigabytes was the cheapest available version of the phone.

With the iPhone 7 also comes a new color: Jet Black. Apple seems to have done away with Space Gray in exchange for this new color, but the old colors are still available as follows: Rose Gold, Gold, Silver, and Black.

Apple was adamant about their courage in innovation and simplistic elegance this year as they showcased their new chip, the A10 Fusion chip. Containing 6 GPU cores and 4 CPU cores it efficiently beats the last generations by a landslide, according to Apple. It isn’t yet known if the A10 chip is manufactured in a similar manner that the Snapdragon 820 is in the popular Samsung Galaxy S7.

IOS 10 is also being released with the iPhone 7 with some major improvements to lock screens, 3D touch. Siri will be an even stronger tool in everyday use as it has been allowed the support of third-party apps.

With Apple’s past and known history of innovation, they make some ground breaking decisions, yet this one seems quite outrageous; no headphone jack. There is no 3.5mm jack that has been standard for the past decade and a half in mobile phones. Apple has made movements towards their new AirPod earbuds that are completely wireless but sell for $159 USD. The response the consumer market has given may lead to an adapter for the 3.5mm jack included in the box the day it hits stores.

The release date is today, Friday September 16, 2016. With its IP67 rating for splash, water, and dust along with the improved battery it is a definite improvement over last generations iPhones.