Apple iPhone 7 to include IPX7 water resistance, new features

A new detailed report released by well-known tipster and KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggested that the new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, slated to launch on Wednesday, will feature IPX7 water resistance along with several new upgrades.

MacRumours has reported about the detailed report released by the veteran analyst. In the report Kuo said the iPhone 7 will come along with numerous new changes, but it will be hard to spot as the overall design will be similar to Apple’s iPhone 6s.

Both the smartphones will be equipped with new 2.4-2.45 GHz A10 chips from TSMC, which might be tweaked by Apple, owing to heat and power consumption concerns in other parts of the world. Both the smartphones will come along with storage options ranging from 32GB to 256GB.

According to Kuo, the iPhone 7 will come along with 2GB RAM while the 7 Plus will include a 3GB RAM. The devices will be available in five different colour options — silver, gold, rose gold, along with a new ‘Dark Black’ colour replacing Space Gray. The analyst also said a fifth colour ‘Piano Black’ will be included, which will habe a glossy finish.

One of the highlights of the new devices is the IPX7 water resistance, which matches the one on the original Apple Watch. This will protect the new handsets against splashes, showers, and even dips in 1-meter deep waters.

As tipped earlier, the detailed report confirmed that there will be no 3.5mm headphone jack on the new devices; the new lightning earpods will replace them. The removal will allow space for an upgraded speaker and a new sensor for improved Force Touch.

He also said that the home button will also come with massive improvements, and that too, will be water resistant. The wide colour technology, adopted from the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, will also be included in the new smartphones to offe better colour quality.  

Confirming earlier reports, Kuo also said the iPhone 7 Plus will be equipped with dual-lens rear camera, increasing manufacturing costs by $40. The rear camera flash will also be updated with 4 LEDS (two cool and two warm), along with a new ambient light sensor for better image quality.

The proximity sensor might be upgraded, shifting from LED to laser for faster response and greater face-sensing capabilities, and gesture recognition.

Sharing salient shipment stats, Kuo said, the iPhone 7 shipments will be lower than that of the iPhone 6s throughout 2016; around 65 million new handsets will be delivered in comparison to 82 million iPhone 6s models that were shipped last year.