A (Leaked) iPhone 7 Sneak Peek

The iPhone 7 is already Apple’s most controversial iPhone to date. Not just for the radical changes Apple will make, but for what will remain unchanged. And now those decisions appeared to be carved in stone… Confirming both good news and bad this week is the ever-reliable Nowhereelse.fr. The French website has famously attained designs ahead of release for the Galaxy S6, S7, Note 5, iPhone 6S and SE. And now it has pulled off this trick again with schematics and an iPhone 7 Sneak Peek. So let’s break them down:

The Bad News

What immediately stands out about the schematics (mostly likely CAD drawings) is the iPhone 7 will indeed retain a virtually identical design to both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S.

 

How identical? Right down to the last millimetre:

iPhone 7 – 67.12mm wide, 138.3mm tall
iPhone 6S – 67.1mm wide, 138.3mm tall (official Apple specs)
Furthermore, it isn’t just the dimensions. The overall look of the iPhone 6S is retained. And Nowhereelse says it also expects the iPhone 7 to be exactly 7.1mm thick. That’s the same as the iPhone 6S and 1mm thicker than the iPhone 6.

If Apple fans were expecting the traditional hardware redesign. This is associated with an iPhone ‘number change’ year. But they look set to be disappointed. This will be the third generation of iPhone to look like the iPhone 6.

The Good News

And yet, if you look more closely, there are positives to be had.

Firstly, while the schematics appear to show the iPhone 7 will indeed miss out on the dual-camera. (This is said to be launching in a new ‘iPhone 7 Pro’ model.) It will get some optical enhancement. This can be seen by the increased cut-out space for the camera module. This is noticeably larger than on the iPhone 6S.

Apple is famously reluctant to increase the megapixels of its iPhone cameras. And given rivals are also returning to 12MP, a bump here seems unlikely. Instead, the extra space would allow for a module with larger individual pixels and a faster aperture. The former would enable Apple to catch up lost ground on Samsung with better low light performance. While the latter would capture images more quickly, therefore, reducing blur.

Secondly, the schematics don’t show any antenna lines on the back of the iPhone 7. This could simply be an omission on a render primarily designed to convey dimensions. But Apple is known to be working on removing the unsightly bands and this keeps that hope alive.

The Big Question

Needless to say, the iPhone 7 will inevitably be faster than any iPhone to date. And it will feature a slightly bigger battery as well. But overall the question has to be asked… Is this really the model to reverse Apple’s first-ever year-on-year iPhone sales decline?

On the face of it, the answer looks set to be ‘No’. But there remains enough time for Apple to pull out surprises which have users once more queuing around the block.

Of course, making the iPhone 7 such an incremental upgrade may also be the reason why leaks are already appearing. These are for a far more exciting ‘all glass’ iPhone 8 in 2017. After all, this would be the 10th anniversary of the original iPhone and a fine time for Apple to wow us all over again.

But in the meantime, the iPhone 7 has it all to do…

Credit: Business Insider