By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Technology Writer
TIBURON, Calif. (AP) — Apple’s new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are clearly improvements on their predecessors — even if the biggest change is actually an omission (of the traditional headphone jack). But are they improved enough to justify an upgrade?
If you’re an iPhone user, it may depend on how long you’ve held onto your current iPhone. If you’re a proud owner of the iPhone 6S or its plus-sized cousin, you probably don’t need to rush out for the 7. But the 7 includes enough cumulative iPhone improvements from the past two years to tempt anyone still clinging to an older model.
For instance, the iPhone 7 is seriously water resistant; putting it under a faucet for a few minutes merely muffled the speakers and made the touch screen stop working until I dried it off. It’s got louder speakers, a brighter screen and, in the larger 7 Plus, a second camera lens — a low-powered but useful zoom. Add to that a sharper 12 megapixel camera introduced with the 6S.
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All iPhone 7 models come with twice the storage as the comparable 6S, at mostly the same price. That’s “mostly” because the $769 starting price for the larger iPhone 7 Plus is $20 more than comparable past models. The regular iPhone 7 stays at $649. Both entry-level phones now have 32 gigabytes rather than 16.
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LISTENING WIRED ...
Without the traditional headphone jack, wired headphones plug into the Lightning port normally used for charging. But the jack’s disappearance doesn’t present the problem you might expect, given that iPhone 7 comes with a 3-inch-long adapter for your old headphones. A replacement costs $9 if you lose it (I’ve misplaced one already in less than a week).
To charge your phone while listening, you need a $99 battery case or a third-party adapter. Neither is included. Also, your iPhone 7 headphones won’t work with any other device that uses the old-fashioned jack.
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... AND UNWIRED
Of course, you can just go wireless, as Apple would love you to do. Its upcoming $159 AirPods are two tiny inch-and-a-half Bluetooth earpieces designed to integrate with Apple’s software. Setting them up involves little more than opening the case near your phone and tapping “Connect.”
Audio plays automatically when you’re wearing them, and pauses when you pop one out to talk to someone. Double tapping on an earpiece let me ask the Siri voice assistant to change the volume, rewind or check the weather. (They do look a little like dangling earrings when you have them in.)
The AirPods picked up my voice pretty well, even when I spoke softly, and calls sounded fine in controlled environments. Siri had some trouble when Shakira blared in the background, but that’s no different from using the phone in a loud bar. The AirPods did stay in my ears through one bike ride and eight runs, though one dropped out as I changed my shirt.
