iPhone 7 review

Jan 9, 2018

What's the point of coming out with an iPhone 7 review one year after it came out? Used devices market. As myself, many I think have waited to be able to buy last year dream device for an inferior price, many others are thinking about it. My review is here for them. A review that may not be in time, but with an interesting advantage: I know what has come after. iPhone 7 is not the latest and greatest anymore and I'm able to make comparisons to what has come after (and after after?).

Some background

iPhone 7 came out a year ago bringing along some new cool features. Much noise was made back then for the removal of the headphone jack - a move that has been followed by others this year - but shall we be damned if we just sopped there. iPhone 7 brought superior water resistance, a better processor (A10 Fusion), better camera, stereo speakers and a new sexy finish.
When it first came out I was really tempted: the Jet Black finish looked incredible and as a material engineer (yup!) the process of achieving that finish was even more intriguing. But my iPhone 5S was kicking just fine, my wallet didn't want to be bothered and - boy - new iPhones aren't cheap. So I passed along.
Few weeks ago, a year had passed and things had changed. I bought a car to deal with my new life, a car with Apple CarPlay support the 5S sometimes had a hard time keeping up with, and a new job allowed me to save something each month. But, most of all, two things happened: WWDC and new iPhones announcement.
WWDC, the annual developers conference Apple holds in late spring, is usually a good appointment to see what Apple has been working on lately (and secretly) and have a glance at what future holds for its users. Among all the things they showed, something really caught my eye: Augmented Reality. Now, I know it wasn't anything new and something like that already existed, but seeing it work live, with all the shadows properly shed, was a whole different thing. I saw the future in that cup and lamp, just to be set back few days later when I found out my trustworthy 5S wouldn't have supported it.
New iPhones introduction was another part of the decision. While iPhone 8 was nice to see, but nothing revolutionary for my techie eyes, the technologies iPhone X brought along made me think deeply. Face ID is just magic - my hurting thumb rejoiced after seeing the presentation. I want to be able to unlock the screen just by looking at it, with notifications expanding at my glance! And since I don't have neither an evil twin nor a younger brother nor a son that looks an awkwardly lot like me, that should work perfectly.
In the end, I needed a device who would kick butts for another two to three years until FaceID becomes mainstream, a device worth spending money on, a device I could pass along to a family member or sell with value when the day will come. Long story short: I bought a used iPhone 7 through eBay at nearly half of the price it would have costed me just one year ago.
To sum up: coming from a 5S, having a 7, knowing what's next. Let's get started.

Look

My choice went for an iPhone7 Jet Black. I loved the finish when it came out and the fact that Apple used it in all its marketing materials made things even worse. Before deciding, I even drove up to the nearest electronics store to put my hands on both finishes before the 7s were replaced by the 8s and Xs. The matte black finish looked and felt admittedly great, it did remind me of the deep black aluminum the 5 had. But the Jet Black was - to my eyes - a completely different thing. So I went for that and began looking for one. When it finally came to my hands, the story was a little different though.
Having bought it secondhand, the perfect Jet Black finish was not perfect anymore. I'm not blaming the previous owner at all: this finish is really sensitive to anything. Just to give you an example: the dust that got collected between the case and the back near the camera opening was hard enough to leave markings all around it - an ellipse carved in metal after less that a week of using a case. I was going to write a big deal about it, but as day passed, I noticed I don't see those scratchings anymore and I'm left with a nice lucid iPhone. Is it perfect? Not anymore. Does it bother me? Admittedly, a little bit. Do I notice it in my everyday use? No.
Interestingly, iPhone 7 Jet Black was a premonition of this year iPhones. The 8s and the X both feature a glass back, much similar in appearance with the Jet Black, but with a big difference: hardened glass is harder that Aluminum. Color, moreover, can either be part of the glass itself or pass interrupted through it, it is not just adsorbed ink.
I mentioned about a case. I bought a SPINGEN case few days after the iPhone arrived, but wore it for just a week or so. The case is really well done and I would recommend it to anyone, the fact is that I love how iPhones feel and look - I chose a Jet Black finish also because of how it looked - and a case wouldn't justify the care put in designing these devices. Besides, the case was ruining the finish, so put it off and kept it around for hiking trips when the phone is in a higher risk situation.
Ok, enough for how it looks, I need a device that works well, not just looks good.¹

Taptic engine and 3D Touch

iPhone 7 is the second iPhone to ditch the rotary vibrating engine for a Taptic engine and isn't the last. Similar to what's found in the watch since it's beginning, the Taptic engine is an actuator that moves for few fractions of a second to give you a feedback similar to a tap. Here Sir. Jony Ive explains it well. I begin to love how the Taptic engine works with respect to the old vibrating system. I work in a small office with colleagues, my phone sitting on the desk. With the 5S I used to keep it silenced the whole day, either with sound and vibration off or with "Do not disturb" mode on, because the vibration itself was noisy and didn't want to disturb others. This setting had one major drawback: once I put it in my pocket to go eating or around the institute, I would not get noticed of incoming messages or phone calls. With the new 7, I keep it in vibration the whole day. The feeling is smother and it doesn't make sound of its own. Once seated on a notebook or some paper folders then, it is discrete enough not to bother others.
The Taptic engine works throughout the system too underlining some toggles and scrollings in a nice way. But, most of all, it gives you feedbacks for 3D Touch gestures. 3D Touch adds a dimension to multi-touch gestures enabling the device to measure the pressure you use to push on the screen. Software wise, this has been linked with the ability to invoke some commands that previously weren't there. Coming from the 5S, I had big expectations on what 3D Touch would have enabled me to do. I do use it daily to do things like app switching and surely some more gestures are still unknown to me, but I still can't see it as a real game changer. Maybe because of compatibility with older devices (and iPads) it hasn't been given full power to access a wider spectra of prompts. I'm looking forward to see its power unleashed: so far "peek" and "pop" aren't game changers to me. ²

Screen, camera and connectivity

The screen is admittedly a very good screen. Back when it came out, it was widely acclaimed as one of the - if not the - best display out there with wider ??color blacks?? I'm not a color expert or anything, let's just say my eyes hurt much less when reading, and typing is also a little more comfortable because of size. Because of size it is also nicer to look at videos or film, or just pictures. Here: camera improvements coupled with screen improvements are really spectacular. Pictures look crispier and better in many areas and the camera has really become for me my official camera, with no regrets for other higher end ones. The only aspect I'm missing is - of course - optics. I know I could buy a 7 Plus and get a telephoto lens with all those other nice tricks, but the Plus is too Plus in size for me. Regarding size, there's one more aspect I noticed right away: improved cellular connectivity. With the iPhone 5S I had, sometimes connection just wasn't so great even in highly urbanized areas whereas with the 7 I have better connectivity even while riding the train or even when hiking. As an example we went hiking the other day and where my iPhone 7 had full LTE signal, my girlfriend's iPhone 5S had weak 3G.³

As for what new iPhones are concerned, screen technology does get better with every release of the iPhone: the 8s have an improved LCD and the X even has OLED with all those nice advantages in terms of color accuracy and black deepness. For what I'm concerned, screen improvements are nice - and I kind of expect them with every revision - but aren't a game changer to me. Some have pointed out TrueTone is a big step in screen evolution, as big as Retina screen introduction was, but not having ever owned a device capable of TrueTone, I don't miss it. [TrueTone matches the white point of the screen with white point of the ambient so that colors onscreen don't seem to come out of a bluish universe, but match colors you would expect from the light source that lights your ambient. It's one perfect example of what Apple does best, combining software with hardware. There is a perfect working alliance here among increased processing power, ambient light sensor, screen technology and software to drive them all.] Camera too gets better and better every sigle year, confirming once again the importance iPhone camera have for Apple. I'm not an expert, but there is one thing we can all agree on: nice pictures are beautiful to look at and putting the possibility of making good pictures in the hand of millions is a great philosophical move.

Performance, Siri and battery life

Coming from a 5S you can imagine the jump. The system feels more responsive and delays I was once used to, now pop to my eyes out of surprise. What I am more interested in, though, is what this new power has allowed this iPhone to do. I mentioned AR earlier on, but it is admittedly in its infancy: I'm glad to have a phone that's future proof, but that's it for now. I've played with some apps that reveal this powerful technology, but that's all I have to say on this point. Where I see tremendous advancements, thanks to increased processing power, is Siri.
I had used Siri very few times. It was fun to ask her questions and fun to hear "I don't understand what you are saying". Fun, like when it came out. Six years later, it began to sound like a joke. With iPhone 7 and iOS 11 I feel Siri has improved. Craig Federighi has confirmed it too, with improvements ranging from what voice sounds like to what it does. To me, the single place where this makes a whole difference is the car. With the faster CarPlay performance the 7 allows and the superior quality Siri has, getting directions, sending messages, starting phone calls o playing some music has become a nearly seamless experience. I'd love to say safer, but I can't. Those few times things fail, they force me to get my eyes off the road, especially if directions are taking me the wrong way or I'm trying to place an important phone call. I'd also love to have the "Hey Siri" functionality work every time, but so far I need to considerably raise my voice to be heard - and this makes the whole point of natural interactions disappear.
For what I'm concerned, battery life is great. I charge it overnight and make it through the day with no effort, in the weekends, when I use the phone less often, I can even make it through 2 consecutive days without charging.

Final Words

More than a month into using my "new" iPhone 7 Jet Black I can definitely say it was worth the upgrade. I don't regret having waited this long: the 5S was serving me perfectly fine and the longer you wait the more advanced new phone you get. But I was at the inflection point at which having waited a bit longer would have made my previous phone lose value decidedly and it would have begun bothering me considerably because of what it couldn't do. I must be clear here: your mileage may vary, but I believe to be in a pretty common spot. The spot where technology matters as much as it gets invisible because it just works, the spot where money needs to go somewhere else first - but some little satisfactions can be taken after some savings, the spot where having a new phone isn't because of what it looks but rather of what it does. iPhone XIII is there waiting for me in some parallel phone universe waiting to intersect with ours, in the meantime the 7 is already here for the technologies to come.

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