In a weekend update to investors, KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the iPhone 7 will feature much faster processor speeds, waterproofing and new glossy “piano black” and “dark black” colors, among other upgrades. The two new black color options are said to be replacing space gray alongside Apple’s existing gold, rose gold and silver iPhone colors. Previous SIM tray leaks seemed to show a glossy black color and alleged product tags posted on Twitter support the claim that both black options will be offered.
Kuo said the new A10 system on a chip powering the iPhone 7 is a big leap over the A9 chip in the iPhone 6s, clocking in at 2.4GHz—well over the A9’s 1.85 GHz top speed.
The dual-camera setup in the new iPhone 7 Plus—consisting of a wide-angle camera and a telephoto camera—will provide optical zoom and “light field camera applications, with the larger camera featuring image stabilization and a 6P lens. A new flash component will also help the cameras perform better in low-light situations, boosting the number of LEDs from two to four to create a more robust True Tone flash. The screens on both phones, while staying the same size, will be gaining the ability to render wide-color imagery like the 9.7” iPad Pro.
The note also appears to confirm previous rumors that Apple is ditching the 16GB and 64GB storage tiers in favor of 32GB, 128GB and 256GB models of both phones, with the iPhone 7 sporting 2GB of RAM and the iPhone 7 Plus getting a 3GB upgrade to handle all the extra photo processing. Kuo expects the new phones to include both Lightning EarPods and a Lightning-to-headphone-jack adapter, in line with previous rumors. The speaker grill going in where the headphone jack once was is said to house a new sensor to improve Force Touch in some way.
